Ah, yes. Love is definitely in the air at Tabby’s Place, even for the Max-man. In fact, it has been a banner month for Max. He has made 2 major milestones this month! I’m getting ahead of myself, though.
I love to travel. One of the items on my “bucket list” is to visit each of the 50 United States. In late January, I visited California — my thirty-seventh state. Although I was gone for 10 rainy days, I was away from Max for over two weeks. When I returned to Tabby’s Place, I was left with two burning questions: “who are you, and what have you done with Max?” Normally, these questions indicate something negative, but, in this case, they reflect the tremendous progress that Max has made in a short amount of time.
First major milestone: Max spends the night in Adoption Room 2!
Angela sent me an e-mail while I was away to let me know that Max was no longer spending any time in the apartment. This, of course, is a major change. Since I started visiting Max, he would spend most of his days in Adoption Room 2 but spent every night in the apartment. Now, however, his apartment-dwelling days are over! The staff keeps Max in a cage overnight in the Adoption Room, but this is to ensure Max’s safety and that of the other cats in the room. The cage also affords Max the sense of security he craves. The staff is confident that Max will be able to leave the security of his cage behind in the near future. Nevertheless, this is a major accomplishment for Max, and I, for one, am very excited about it.
Second major milestone: Max’s aggression against himself and other cats is substantially diminished!You may remember in last month’s update that Max got insanely jealous if I even looked at one of his roommates. After all, I was his human, and if Angelo, Trey, or Cypress wanted human love, they would have to find their own person and leave me alone! Obviously, if Max only had eyes for me, I could only have eyes for Max. After my vacation, however, Max seemed willing to share me.
On my first visit back after my trip, I walked into the room and sat on the cube-table. Max came over and began telling me about his 2 weeks while giving me love. Once he had his fill, he hopped down and began grooming himself by the door. Angelo, Trey, and Cypress watched Max intently, indicating that Max was the alpha male in the room. Tentatively, I went over to Trey to give him some lovin’, fully anticipating Max would get angry. Much to my surprise, he went on grooming, and, after he finished, he jumped onto the settee and curled up next to Angelo. I was shocked.
Determined to see whether the new Max was a fluke, I returned a few days later. Max was lying alone on the settee. I sat down on the opposite end, and Max came over. As he crawled into my lap, Trey hopped up and curled where Max had been. Max loved and purred on my lap for about 15 minutes. When he had enough, he went next to Trey to groom. The only time that he got even a little bit upset was when, as he groomed himself, Trey tried to help and licked him. Max fired a warning meow, and Trey bowed his head in apology. That was it. There were no woeful meows, no angry growls at his tail — just a simple warning meow and an apology by the offending party.
I cannot even begin to tell you how happy I am to see Max make this kind of progress. Max has been able to make this progress in no small part thanks to your wonderful generosity. As Max’s correspondent, please accept my heartfelt thank you for all that you have done in support of the Max-man. Because of your generosity, Max is one step closer to achieving his — and my — dream for him — his “forever home”. I wish you a wonderful month, and I look forward to sharing more of Max’s progress with you next month.