Reflections on Pet Dynamics

observing the pet dynamics in my home

__Luna & Rubio__

*Very* soon after arriving, Luna decided that Rubio was her new best friend forever.  

Rubio is easily her favorite person. She wants cuddles. She wants to play. She wants to hang out. If Luna is cuddling in bed with me and Rubio walks by, bam, she’s gone. 

Literally the only thing that makes her forget about Rubio is when I’m giving them churu treats, in which case all her attention is on the treato.

Rubio, meanwhile, is autistic af about this xD He’s never been hostile or aggressive to Luna, nor has he demonstrated fear towards her after like, the first day. But he is *not* there for all this cuddling. 

He’s fine with her hanging out near him, but the minute she starts rubbing up on him, his ears will tilt back and he’ll go somewhere else. He *does* really enjoy playing, wrestling, mutual zoomies. Plenty of times Luna has tried to initiate cuddles and Rubio turns it into play wrestling, which again, because Rubio is Luna’s Favorite Person Forever, she is always more than down to play.

When Luna was still a street cat, I noticed a lot of the older cats outside would swat at her or hiss 🙁 That’s not the Rubio Way™  though. He’ll only ever swat at her in the restrained manner of play time, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard him hiss at her. The closest thing to a hiss was once when Luna started playing with his tail, at which point Rubio whirled around and went, “RAH.” More of an agitated meow than a hiss.

The worst interaction they ever had was a weird one. For some reason, one day when Luna was in the kitchen and Rubio approached from the living room, both of them went still as hell. Rubio’s tail puffed out so much, I had never seen it do that before. Similarly, Luna’s tail puffed out. And they just stared each other down for a good few minutes, a good distance away from each other. I was worried enough that I tried to interrupt the eye contact, but when I touched Rubio, he hissed really angrily at me, so I backed off. After a bit, both of them went back to normal and that has never repeated since. I have no clue what happened.

I think this is a part of why she loves him so much. Both with cats and people, Luna seemed to desperately want companionship outside. It’s why she would approach people, then circle away in fear, then circle back around to approach again. So even if Rubio isn’t the most affectionate, the fact that he tolerates her and occasionally indulges some openly friendly interaction seems to mean a lot to her. She’s basically taken general kitty politeness as agreement that they are Best Friends Forever.

And because Luna is super dedicated to them being Best Friends Forever, Rubio has slowly started to let her closer. I’ve seen her hugging him while they’re sleeping in bed. She’ll start to groom him sometimes, which he’ll tolerate for a bit, until either leaving or turning it into play time.

__Lila and Iris__

So this little friendship has definitely been the more tumultous one. I kind of expected that, given that female parakeets tend to be more territorial and that Lila has been showing signs of hosility when Condorito was visibly ill before he passed away. If anything, I’ve been grateful that she’s kept things restrained. In the beginning, she would peck at Iris and bully her from time to time, but at least it was a more an occasional, spur of the moment thing than a constant, persistent tension.

As time has passed, Lila has chilled out. A big part of that is Iris growing a bit, getting more confident and comfortable. Iris will now peck back at Lila until Lila backs off. I don’t *think* I’ve observed Iris instigate yet.

There’s also been another fun development between the two. The major dynamic between Lila and her former cagemate Condorito was Condorito, when he was healthy, flirting non-stop. Lil boi wanted the sexy times so bad, and Lila was just Not Interested whatsoever. She cared a lot more about food and foraging toys than Condorito’s former cagemate and mate Maruja.

Iris is very similar to Lila in that regard. As she’s gotten more used to her new home, she’s started investigating all the toys. (This is as opposed to Lila, who was comfortable much sooner and claimed all the toys right away.) So nowadays when I look at the cage, it’s very common to see them having parallel play time, with one playing with the top part of a dangly toy and other playing with the bottom part of the same toy. They’re not super enthused about playing *with* each other, but they seem to enjoy to playing independently in the vicinity of the other, which has been really cute and autistic to observe.