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Another year with Linwood! Hard to believe it's been two years. We are thankful for his silly, purry presence every day. He sleeps tightly curled up under the covers with us and cannot be dislodged for anything, so we gave up trying. He's happy and flea-free, so I just sling an arm over his 8 pound frame and go to sleep. He's very sly as well, knows full well we don't want him up on the counters in the kitchen, and yet every morning it seems there is something knocked out of place. He cleans up Ingrid's bowl after she's done with her own dinner. In fact, he'll eat anything. I kid you not, anything. He's a huge fan of tomatoes and carrots, but really he's not terribly picky. His health has been really solid too. He has some epic sneezes, and the occasional reverse sneeze attack, and he still gets lysene daily, but he's doing great. He's a truly wonderful cat, and after two solid years of steady lovin', I'd say he's settled right in.

All is well here--the animals are hoping it's dinner time all the time (every time I walk into the kitchen suddenly there are two animals swarming me, tripping me up). Linwood has made himself at home to the extreme degree. He's discovered he can climb up on our five feet tall built-ins and fireplace. It might be time for a cat tower . . . He's knocked down pretty much everything not nailed down, and is in a constant state of curious exploration. He also has a bit of a devil in him, battling it out with Ingrid on a regular basis (when not head butting and rubbing on her legs). She takes it very well (until there are claws involved! But even then she remains calm. Good girl!). His go-to move is this jump front leg hug he does around her neck. Hilarious. Hopefully I can catch it on camera some day.

We love Linwood! All is going very well--Ingrid has continued to be amazingly gentle with him after our rocky start, and he is thriving on his Lysine powder and the raw diet I have switched him to. Ingrid's been raw for a year now and has flourished on it. Linwood has adjusted to the fixed feeding, and is loving the goopy goodness that is his food (you'll laugh when I tell you that I'm vegan...). And his drippy eye seems to have cleared up completely! He sleeps curled up either next to one of us, or the dog, every night--four creatures in one queen sized bed. Our next big purchase may be a bigger bed!

I wanted to let you know that in just a few short days Ingrid has made incredible progress, and has advanced to calmly sniffing and nuzzling Linwood while we hold him. I thoroughly read the articles you sent and we went from crating Linwood in Ingrid's presence, to holding him, and ostracizing Ingrid for intense behavior. She has responded very well to that form of discipline (something we used to do when she was younger and being actively trained) and she is once again responding solidly to voice & hand-gesture commands while the cat is present. She still gets amped up around the cat but is doing well with short visits, and she has become more interested in the treats and her work for them than the cat. We're taking it slow of course, but I'm really excited and feeling very positive about the progress we're seeing! We're solidly committed to this cat and plan on keeping him regardless of how much time or effort it takes to train our dog into being cat-friendly. It may take months, or years, but Linwood has a home here forever.

I am writing with a bit of an update, and request for some advice. We LOVE Timothy, who we have renamed Linwood. He's incredibly sweet and a little purr-machine. He settled right in, loves our attention (and we his!), and when he's not chasing a ball across the floor, he's snuggled into a lap. He's very gentle and calm - more calm in fact than I have known a cat to be. I can really see how well he'd do in any kind of household- he'd be a great cat for kids. He's so calm in fact that he seems unwilling to protect himself from our over-eager and very spazzed out dog.

Unfortunately Ingrid, the dog, is displaying behavior that at first bordered on aggressive. We've been following all the 'by the book' suggestions (sniffing between doors, switching rooms & scents, and short on-leash meet & greets). The first time we had a face to face meet & greet, with Ingrid on leash, Linwood went right up to Ingrid and touched noses. Ingrid was at first very still, and was shaking out of nervousness (she tremors in situations she finds wildly scary - fireworks and the vet, for instance. Other than a few encounters with a next door neighbor cat as a pup, cats are new creatures), but she wasn't holding her body in the way that dogs do before they attack (all tight and on point, tail high, etc). She then 'calmed down' enough to lunge forward on her leash toward Linwood. We corrected her obviously, but she was snapping her jaws and managed to get a bit of Linwood's back fur in her mouth. This was the second day of Linwood's arrival, and their first meet and greet, so I wasn't ready to fully give up, but I'm sure you understand how overwhelmed and scared I felt over that. It's been a week now and we've continued to switch the animals from room to room, leaving one locked up while the other one roams free, and than having sporadic and short meet and greets. It breaks my heart to leave either animal locked up alone for any amount of time, but I know it's for Linwood's safety. I can't trust the dog with the cat. We just today tried an off leash meet and greet where I controlled the dog via voice and Paul held the cat, but Ingrid was barely listening to commands (typically she is a very responsive dog- knows tons of tricks and commands and has pretty solid recall. I've even called her off horses & deer that startled us on hikes without incident. Ingrid and I have done a lot work together, so the fact that she is barely registering my presence when the cat is in the room is surprising). We went with the off leash method to see if it changed her behavior. I know the leash changes dog's behavior, and Ingrid- who loves other dogs, has lived with foster dogs & has been going to daycare since she was 4 months old- can be snarly with other dogs while on leashed walks. Off leash, even if I just drop the leash, she becomes the friendly dog I know and love once again.

(NOTE: Forget Me Not has seen challenges like this before; we offered lots of training techniques and suggestions to help integrate Ingrid and Linwood, and as of 12/27 - see update above - things are beginning to improve!)