Introducing Lovey

You may remember my feelings about cats known as "torties".  Honestly they scare me.  I've fostered several torties and they can be sweet, wonderful companions, but make them angry, and Watch Out!  Since fostering often requires making cats angry (taking them to adoption events, making them live in the same house with dogs, keeping their nails trimmed, sometimes giving them medicine, and never giving them as much attention as they'd like), I spend a lot of time being afraid of tortoiseshell cats. And now I've got a new tortoiseshell foster cat. 

Her last foster mom - or maybe the shelter where she was before that - named her Lovey.  I wonder if the person who named her was trying to negate her reputation as a cat with attitude.  Or maybe they have a sarcastic streak.  I'm sure that she wasn't named Lovey just because she's loveable.  That goes against everything I know and believe about torties.  Just look in her eyes.  Doesn't she look like she's thinking about five hundred different ways to harm me?

 

Sure, she pretends to be all sweet and loveable.  She purrs when I pet her, and she has yet to hiss or scratch or do anything even slightly scary.  But that just makes me more nervous, because I know it must be an act.  She's trying to lull me into a sense of complacency, but I'm too smart to fall for that.  

Lovey is FIV positive, just like Belle.  That's why I brought her home, so they could become friends.  But now I realize what a mistake that was.

Oh they've become friends all right.  In no time at all, they were sharing a cat tower.  When I entered the room to take this photo, it appeared that Belle was sleeping and Lovey was relaxing on the tower.  But I have my suspicions.  See the way the carpet is bunched up under Belle's head?  And how Lovey is lying on the edge of the platform instead of the middle of it?  These are clues, you know.  Clues that suggest perhaps the two cats had just rushed into their spots when they heard me coming down the hall.  And perhaps prior to that, they were huddled together, planning something.  They think they've gotten away with it, but I'm not fooled.  I'm going to be keeping a very close eye on these two.