Update on Cruiser

Readers will recall that our new orange tomcat, Cruiser, showed some improvement in terms of his acceptance of human contact during our cruise to Rhode Island this past summer. He did not like to be petted and with ILENE thankfully devoid of mice, he was a rather useless addition to our crew. After all, what are cats useful for.
But the cause of Cruiser's anti-social activity was discovered during his visit to our veterinarian after the cruise. For one thing the expert said he is most likely 8-9 years old rather than the 5-6 we were told by the adoption agency. But there were two significant reasons why he did not favor humans rubbing their hands over the sides and top of his head and under his neck -- the erogenous zones of feline-human interactions.
He was suffering from ear mites and tooth decay; he had constant earache and toothache pain. I would not want anyone rubbing their hands on my head in these conditions either. These problems were fixed with feline dentistry and medicines. With the pain gone Cruiser is a much more social animal.

Of course he remains somewhat leery of humans due to abuse by them that he must have suffered in the streets, but he has become a much better cat and we look forward to sailing with him and his sister, Alfie, to Newfoundland in 2020.