Sere would not adhere to the litter box standard. Rather than turn her into a gear shift cover, or snake food, we attempted to train her to use the litter box. Since I posted last Saturday, she's basically been confined to the garage with a litter box on one side of the room, and her food on the other.

We left her in there, and would only bring her in when we could keep a constant eye on her. It made no difference. The minute someone's back would turn, she'd use the closest piece of furniture as a toilet.

So we called the adoption center, and explained the situation. They told us that this was a behavioral issue, and possibly territorial. They said that since we're a two cat family, it sounded as if Sere would do better in a single kitty atmosphere. And they told us to bring her back.

The whole family loaded up in the car, and we all sadly trekked back to the adoption center. Ashton had a really hard time with this decision, but I must say she was a big girl about it. The minute we brought Sere in and put her back in the adoption arena, families that were checking out available pets were swarming over her cage and commenting on her. Ashton was crying and one of the pet consultants handed her a kitten to try to distract her.

yeah. The kitten has come home with us. Our thinking is that maybe the baby kitten won't have the territorial issues since he's so young. The adoption center knows that if he refuses the litter box, then we'll have to bring him back as well, and everybody is good with the outcome of the decision. They didn't try to make us feel bad about returning Sere or anything. They completely understood and told us that they would rather adoptive families return the cat to them rather than turn the kitty out.

So now we have Olivia AND an 8 week old kitten. We're having to reacclimate Olivia to the new kitty. Right now she's regarding him as a tasty snack. And I'm sorry to say that the new kitten seems to be a little on the insane side.

His name is "George" and he really helped the kids accept the sadness of returning Sere.

The best part of the whole situation is that as we were filling out the paperwork on George, Sere got adopted by a family that has no other kitties.

HAPPY ENDINGS ARE GREAT!

**thanks to everyone who had advice on ways to help us keep Sere. It didn't work out, but I do appreciate your help!

Pictures of George coming soon. He's got a loopy look on his face most times. I sure hope the camera picks up his expression....