Mojo had been at the clinic as long as I’ve been there. He’s a lovely cat, doesn’t take any nonsense from dogs, and knows just when someone needs a purry cuddle. But he’s not a young cat any more, and with that came some changes.

The weekends confined to a kennel with little activity were harder on his body as he aged, and about eighteen months ago, we started looking for a retirement home for him. But he had some health problems, and our amazing team wants to keep in close touch with him and his new people. He’s on a special diet and regular medications to help with vomiting and stool issues.

He spent his long weekends at the home of a staff member, and those special folks have always taken good care of him. But life changes, people move on, and there didn’t seem to be a great home available among our current staff.

However, one weak moment several months ago led to Mojo coming home with me. For just a few days. He did fine, he loved being around us, and he was able to fend off the dog with little problem.

However, Ruby was NOT impressed.

Whenever Mojo entered the same space as Ruby, she would growl, hiss and spit. She took runs at him and generally acted as loud, distressed and inconvenienced as possible. For his part, he would just sit and stare at her, ignoring the dramatics and holding his ground. If anything, this would make her even more frantic.

This repeated itself for another few times over the months, so I was reluctant to bring Mojo home, because it’s been her home first, and I didn’t think it was fair to Ruby.

However, over the holidays last year, things changed. Our home was considered the best place for him because he was having constipation problems and we wanted to make sure he would be closely watched, and over a week or so, Ruby decided that the world would not end if Mojo was inside our home.

Ruby still doesn’t like him, but she’s content to pretend he doesn’t exist. Mojo seems to have found a happy place:

So, we are back to three cats in the household. Right now, Mojo is on the arm of the couch in a sunbeam with Ziggy sprawled on the floor nearby; Ruby is curled up on the warmest tile on the heated floor and all seems well with the world.

The photo at the top is from this week. It took a year, but I think Ruby has finally adjusted to Mojo’s presence, especially in front of the fireplace.