Introducing Friday Precerpts: From Raising Happy Cat Familes - Gaining a Cat's Confidence, part 1 (Norwood)

 

Question: What is a precerpt?

Answer: A precerpt is a brief excerpt or preview of a book (or other text), used to give readers a taste of the content before they read the full piece. It's like a sneak peek that hooks the reader's interest (or at least, we hope it will hook yours). 

Beginning today, we will offer Friday precerpts from our forthcoming books. Some are closer to being released than others, but you can anticipate that once a month another precerpt from the same book will be presented so that you can get a pretty good taste for the flavor of the book buy the time it is released.

At the moment, the four forthcoming books from which we will share precerpts are:

• Grandma's Ninja Training Diary (Renz and Leaver) on the first Friday of the month
• Charming Cats, a series of books, the first of which is Raising Happy Cat Families (Norwood) 
• The Curse of the Maestro (Walker) on the third Friday of the month
• Nothing So Broken (Richards) on the fourth Friday of the month
• My 20th Language (Leaver) on the fifth Friday of the month

So, without further ado, here is this Friday's precerpt -- from Raising Happy Cat Families by Luna Norwood -- 

GAINING A CAT'S CONFIDENCE

Bobolink, a black domestic long-hair, held a special place in my heart. He came to us from the street, rescued by a local woman who worked with TNR efforts, as well as worked to find homes for street cats after TNR had done its job.

Bobolink was originally named Boulder because he would not move from one place. He was very shy, very frightened. No one wanted to adopt him. (I have taken in many cats considered unadoptable.) After living with him for a short period of time, it seemed likely that he had been hurt by people when he was living on the street and, therefore, wanted nothing to do with them.

For months, literally, he rarely left one of the cubbies on the cat tree that he claimed as his own. I would take him out of the cubby, place him on the couch beside me, and as soon as I looked the other way, a black streak of lightning shot off the couch, across the living room, down the hallway, into the cat room, up the cat tree, and into the cubby, where he would stand his ground, hissing.

With time, Boulder joined the rest of the cat family, sought out my company, and played with cat toys and other cats. He became more like a bobolink, hopping around, happily embracing life, than a boulder—and so his name was changed. He would race down the hallway and jump on top of our beta cat, Happy Cat, and play-wrestle with him or bring him a toy to share. He would jump up on the kitchen counter, spread his feather-duster tail, and find himself some food—or some petting if someone was in the kitchen. 

Bobolink was good friends with all the other cats in our cat family. Like the other male cats in our cat family, as noticed by visitors who have commented that the family bond is amazing, he was gentle, kind, and supportive of the other cats. He was special friends with Happy Cat and would romp all over the house with him until he became too sick to run and retreated to my lap for hours at a time.

He was also quite attached to me, frequently jumping into my lap and kissing me, following me around the house, and wanting to share my supper whenever I had tuna fish. The sound of the can opener would bring him running into the kitchen and leaping onto the counter for “his” supper, too. At night, he loved to sleep on a bench beside my bed, where I could reach him for some pets and where, when he wanted, he could snuggle against my arm.

So, how did Boulder became Bobolink? How did I gain the confidence of this scared baby? In the following ways that can be generalized to a number of scaredy cats:

TUNE IN NOVEMBER 8 FOR THE ANSWER
AND SOME GUIDANCE FOR USE WITH OTHER CATS!

For book excerpts (from already released books), click HERE.

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