Recently in Annie the cat Category

Here's the update on Annie the Cat vs. The Collar (See my post from a couple days ago for the backstory).

The good news is I managed to collar her Thursday morning (here she is watching for birds last night in the living room window, her favorite perch).

When she bounced up onto my bed this morning to wake me up, however, her collar was gone. I found it unhooked and lying on her blanket on the bed in the spare room where she mostly sleeps. (She really should have thought to hide it from me in the closet.)

So I put it back on this morning -- I'm persistent -- but if she continues to get it off I'll let the issue drop. I don't want to make her miserable if she really does hate it. After all, one blog reader on the earlier post already has called me "mean."

Given time, this could develop into an epic standoff -- getting a collar and ID tag (seen on the right end of the table) onto Annie Oakley, the new cat (seen on the left end of the table).

So far, cat = 3, human = 0. 

"Cats don't like collars," one friend explained to me. "You might as well try putting a bra on her," he said.

A colleague at the Breeze, however, tells me it's all quite do-able -- and necessary, she says (and I agree), for cats who will be venturing outdoors (which Annie will do once she figures out the doggie door the dogs are using all the time). 

My colleague's strategy for collaring the cat: "You just have to pin her down."

Easier said than done, I suspect.

I've failed at my first three attempts to put it on her so far. So the collar (a special and safe break- away cat collar) sits, ready and waiting, for the next go-around.

Until then, AnnieO remains (temporarily) victorious -- and smugly collarless.

Read more about Annie the Cat 

So I'm finally allowing some brief periods where the border collies and the new cat are "free" in the house together at the same time. 

But when everyone disappeared from view this morning, I began to search -- and found them all crowded in Annie Oakley's "room" (the spare bedroom):

• Cowboy was taste-testing the cat litter.
• Tess was playing with Annie's toys.
• Annie was crouched on top of the table, looking down on it all,  clearly annoyed by the invading canine marauders.

"Dogs, OUT" I called as Cowboy and Tess scrambled from the room and Annie jumped down to reclaim her rightful territory. (Later, I retrieved Annie's catnip mouse from the backyard. It was drenched with dog slobber, but still usable.)

Read more on Annie the (new) cat

So far, this has been way easier than I thought it would be. (Famous last words??)

Things are going remarkably well with Annie Oakley, the new 2-year-old Carson shelter cat I brought home on Oct. 10.

While she remains mostly confined to the spare bedroom so she can begin to establish her territory and get used to her new home, I have been letting her out a couple times a day to walk down the hallway to the baby gate.

This has more than fascinated my two border collies Cowboy and Tess, of course, to the point where it's all resembling one of those old-time burlesque shows:

"Aaaand, it's SHOWTIME (bedroom door swings open, dogs come running, nails clattering across the wood floor). Step right up. Careful, careful, now, not too close you dogs, step back, step back. Today we present to you the mysterious, the beautiful, the alluring Miss Annie Oakley!" 

Her eager doggie audience freezes in place, staring intently from the other side of the baby gate as Annie sashays her cute self up and down the hallway for their ogling and panting pleasure (I half expect to hear them whistle or toss dog cookies at her). She coyly meows and purrs. They are entranced. Just wait until they see her unique style working out on that scratching post. The dogs can't get enough.

Or maybe they can.

When I let Annie out for a "cat" walk this morning, the dogs were inside the house but failed to show up at the baby gate for the daily viewing. She may be losing her mystique. But that's a good thing. My goal is to desensitize them all to one another over the course of the next couple weeks.

Annie definitely is yearning to break free of her bedroom/hallway confines right about now.

She peers this way and that through the barrier. And she seemed to miss seeing her usual adoring fans this morning in the hallway.

I invited Tess into the spare room with me for about 10 minutes Sunday night, she and Annie sniffed nose to nose. It all went really quite smoothly. Everyone's being so well-behaved.

Below is AnnieO with her new catnip mouse. Most of my beginning cat supplies (I needed most everything) I've picked up at the Global Pet Outlet on Normandie just north of Torrance Boulevard. But this one I found at Target and so far it's her favorite toy. 

Read our earlier entries on Annie (Oakley) the new cat.

Annie Oakley is still confined to the spare bedroom in my house, but she is becoming increasingly curious about what's beyond that door.

So starting last night and this morning, I've allowed her to venture out a bit, with a baby gate positioned half-way down the hallway so she can't get into the rest of the house and into open-range dog space just yet.

The dogs have been respectful but they are quite mesmerized by the sights and sounds of a cat in the house. Annie the cat shows little or no fear, although she is still cautious -- she steps toward them to look, then she calmy returns to her room. No hissing, no barking, no raised hair. I talk to the dogs during the protected encounters, telling them she's a "baby" and lives here with us now, so they need to be very gentle and easy with her.

Slowly, we are making good progress, I think.

Here she is venturing forth into the hall ...  

And here she is in a (semi- and protected) close encounter with Cowboy, the baby gate between them.