Okay… so let me start from the beginning…

We got 40 days old Max home on 10th April 2019 and everything was going great until, after exactly 13 days, Vishal rescued Whisky, a 10-15 day old kitten that V found outside a bakery on the side of the road while getting some pastries. Because Whisky was suffering from severe malnutrition, Vishal and I dedicated most of our time to taking care of Whisky which somehow, unbeknownst to us, led Max to feel neglected.

He started to get needy and when, after a month, Katie – another rescued kitten whom I got home for fostering, arrived at our home (a day after Whisky was adopted) the same thing happened all over again, only more because Katie’s voicebox was ruptured having spent a rough couple of days on the road fighting with bigger cats (as per rescuer’s information.) Katie’s delicate age – 1 month, and her broken voice instantly led me to fall in love with her like a crazy protective cat-mom and I spent even more time with her trying to establish trust and a bond with her to bring her out of her shell (Katie was a tiny little thing who jumped and hid even at the sound of someone laughing.) That led to a disaster and Max, who adored Eva and even Katie started to get very needy and started barking at both the girls a lot. He also developed some anxious ticks such as barking obsessively to gain our (and whoever’s happened to ring doorbells in our neighbourhood) attention, obsessive chewing of rugs and furniture and overall he got overwhelmed because of being tied most of the day (that was because of Eva who was not yet comfortable with Max invading her space.)

On top of all this, the trainer who was training Max turned out to be a bad match for him as he was not able to train Max properly and it backfired very badly. So, overwhelmed, frustrated and helpless, Vishal asked his friend to keep him for a few days so that we all could get some time to recuperate and regroup. Vishal loved Max a lot and he hated to be parted from him, and so did I, but by then we had decided to adopt Katie as I had a feeling that only we could have taken care of such a young kitten with broken voicebox (I still feel that no one else can love Katie more than me and no one could have cared for her better.) So anyway, Vishal left Max with his friend, who also had a German Shepherd named Kaiden, for 15 days.

While at Vishal’s friend’s place, Max got along with Kaiden so well that we all thought that it was best if he was given more time with him. The best part was that V’s friend was a breeder a couple of years ago and knew how to handle and train dogs. He did a lot of work on Max and with Kaiden to teach him good things and ways to behave properly, Max got to learn a lot with them both. And now finally, we’re bringing him back home. This time we’re making sure not to foster any kittens and to give Max our 200% love and attention. We’re also planning to hire another trainer (someone who’ll be the right fit for Max’s crazy amount of energy) and to get him analysed by a pet behaviourist. We both are so happy that finally, we can do for him what we had wanted to do for these couple of months. I guess, sometimes doing the right thing for one being can harm someone else. So we’ll just pause the fostering for now and concentrate on Max for the next couple of months at least.

I’m just happy that Max is coming back and that Vishal and I are getting back our fur-son and Eva and Katie are getting back their sibling 🙂

Will keep you guys posted on our progress.

Ciao ❤