06/24/2025
We want to take a moment and wish Ivar a Happy Adoption Day. Ivar was left in a box at our front doors a year ago. His back legs were paralyzed. Knowing that we already had a client that had a paralyzed cat, we immediately reached out to her. She fell in love and decided that he had to be hers. A year later, he is thriving and here is what mom has to say.....
When we first got over a year ago, he weighed just over 1 pound. He was still recovering from digestive issues. He and I slept in the living room together for the first couple weeks because you never knew when he might “explode.” it was just like having a new baby at home, one who could p**p anytime of day or night.
right from the start, the cats seemed OK with him. Heather has a little bit, but mostly she sniffed him. She especially liked to sniff him when she could sneak out from behind.
Ivar began playing with Jack and Pepper at a pretty young age. When feeding time comes around, all the cats get restless, and start to congregate in the kitchen. That’s when you can find Ivar and Jack, especially likely to wrestle. They can really go at it, but not in a way that seems scary or mean. It’s a little rough, but mostly playful.
every once in a while, he likes to sneak up on either pepper or Lily or Willow… It’s kinda like he’s trying to make a move on them. He kinda wants to play with them. And maybe some small part of him knows that their girls and he’s a boy, although nobody has their parts left. And Pepper will wrestle with him. Lily will meow at him and sort of swat him. And Willow will just complain and run away.
Heather and ivar spend a lot of time together. There’s a few places in the house we have padding or rug on the floor so that the cats have a soft surface that is also warm compared to tile. We often find Heather and Ivar together in those areas. They both love to look out the window also.
Unlike Heather, Ivar can climb ramps. He can also climb CAT trees. I frequently walk into the sunroom to find that he’s sitting on the end table beside the couch. There’s a ramp that leads up to the table and gives him a perfect view out the window. He spends a lot of time looking out the window at birds.
At night, we put him in a little cat bed/nest. And he sleeps in the bed beside us. After a while, he gets a little restless. So he goes over to his bassinet, which is adjacent to the bed. It’s also the same level as the Bed. So he can crawl back-and-forth between the bassinet and the bed without any help at all.
Sometime in the early morning hours, he makes a little meow sound. And he starts to walk toward me from the bassinet. I reach over and pull him close and wrap him in a blanket. And then he usually will sleep with me for another few hours after that. He cuddles right up against me. His extremely cuddly.
Occasionally, he doesn’t wanna cuddle. And so then he kind of pushes himself up and pushes himself away. And then he’ll climb down the ramp, which is by the bed, yes, we have a second ramp… And he’ll climb down the ramp and maybe look out the window, which is a sliding door in the bedroom.
One of his favorite activities is to play with a candy toy. Until a couple weeks ago, his favorite toy was a peppermint. That is it looked like a peppermint, but it was a small catnip toy the size of a peppermint candy. When I was in Iowa, I found some more cat toys very similar but a little bit bigger. We opened up the three pack and offered him the yellow one. We called that the lemon drop. And he does the same thing with the lemon drop that he did with the mint. If you toss it toward him, he’ll go chase it. First, he tries to catch it, but he will chase it if he misses. And then he brings it back. Basically, he plays the game that dogs usually play, the game called fetch. He plays this game with great enthusiasm. And sometimes he’ll just run around and play with his toy by himself. He’ll drop it in the water bowl and get it wet. And then he carries around some more.
He’s as fast as you can imagine. He does fishtails when he goes around the corners. He travels using his front limbs. And his legs drag behind. He seems happy enough. And he’s very intense. He’s got big round eyes. And we love him.
