We took in a stray orange kitten on Saturday afternoon, or rather, he showed up at our doorstep and subdued us with his cuteness and displays of unbridled affection. We filled out an in-take form on the Goathouse Cat Refuge Web site for him, but have not heard back yet. In the mean time, the newest member of our household now has a name: Wickham, as in the devious heartthrob from Pride & Prejudice. This comes on the heels of our adopting Bingley last summer,  giving us two cats named after Jane Austen characters.

After being quarantined in a separate room over the weekend and Monday night, Wickham took a trip to the vet Tuesday, where he got a clean bill of health and received flea and tick treatment. The vet also placed him between eight months and a year old and was surprised at how incredibly friendly he was despite likely having been a stray his whole life. After being declared healthy, Wickham was released into the general cat population in our house. The three resident cats were not too pleased with the addition, even if it is only temporary. They spent much of Tuesday night hiding under the bed even though Wickham has been acting like a perfect gentleman. We are hoping they will warm up to him soon.

Meanwhile, Wickham has certainly been warm and fuzzy toward us, rubbing his head against our legs every chance he gets and jumping into our laps when we sit down at the computer. He’s basically doing everything he can to make us adopt him, but we’ve admitted to ourselves that three cats is the limit for our current house, so it’s either find a new home for us or find a new home for him, and alas, this is a horrible time to be trying to sell our house. Courtney is taking Wickham in for neutering and vaccination today. Once that’s done, we can get him into the adoption process at the Independent Animal Rescue. We’ll be his foster family until someone claims him. I think if someone sees him in person, he would get adopted in no time. He’s just that sweet. Heck, as I write this, my parents just called (they were there when Wickham first came to the house) and said we should just keep him because he’s so adorable. Yeah, Wickham is a pretty apt name for him.

So … any takers?