Why did I decide to adopt two more cats? Not even cute little kittens, oh, no; these are pudgy adults, 10 and 13 years old, in fact; surrendered to the local shelter when their elderly owner had to go to a nursing home, and needing to go together to whoever would be willing to adopt them. When I first met them on a visit to the shelter, they'd arrived just a couple of days before and were hunkered down, quietly terrified. On a subsequent visit, a couple of weeks later, they were amiable but not effusively friendly. All in all, despite their having lovely spotted shiny coats, they weren't going to be easy to place.
So after several nights of lying awake thinking about what a wrenching upheaval to their happy life they've been through, and how uncertain their future was, I decided to take them. Hey, I've only got seven now; two more would still keep me in single digits! Double digits is my tripwire, my STOP sign at the tipping point into crazy cat hoarder territory. What, you laugh? Hey, it works for me!
I don't like trying to integrate an adult cat into a household of adult cats; kittens are much easier. With adults there's a lot more strum und drang, I've found. And yet....