Officer Mittens stole the show yesterday at his first FaceTime therapy visit with our elders friends! This is him napping after the hour or more visit.
He really put on a show ...zipping and zooming all over the house. Omar and Oscar and Bear (who was a pup when they last saw him) were also hits. We also visited the front barn. Brought such a break from reality for them. They’ve had their first vaccinations though! One of the residents loved walking around the house with me, and at one point when she saw the cats and blankets all over -she said it was just like her old house was. A bittersweet comment. I wondered if the visit would linger with her as a nice memory or make her more sad about missing an old life of independence?
Next Friday we will Facetime again, starting in the house. I hope to bring Harry in on this one. And, I thought it would be fun to introduce them to my puppets! I've been wanting to let my puppets get involved with our elder visits. My activity director at the facility is game for anything so it is a lot of fun working with her. We really had fun.
Even though the animals are a hit with them, I know too just sitting and letting them see something, anything, from the outside world is good for them. We looked at photos on my wall and paintings. We laughed at a dried up cat barf on the wood floor. They noticed the open wine bottle in the kitchen from last night and we laughed.
We have to just keep showing up. We enjoy them, I hope they know that, I hope they feel that. And Bear made me proud. He was so calm, just like in the days of his first visits back in January. We talked about that, how long ago it seems, how little Opie and his Opie Love Mobile would come and we remembered some of the elders that loved Bear but have passed this year.
We talked about how cats sometimes wonder off to die. We all commented that might be nice if we could do that.
