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Have you tried using a laser pointer to play with her? I'm currently trying to convince a very skittish cat to love me and she's too scared to play with anything that's an actual real thing that I'm dangling at her but she loves playing laser pointer. It's the least threatening toy possible. Mind you it's been a month or two of that and I still can't touch her really but baby steps are still happening.
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Apr 5, 2016 17:02
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Chili posted:Best thing I've found when socializing a very skittish cat is just being in their space, while doing your own thing. When I've got new fosters I typically like to go in their room with a book and just lei down and read. Their curiosity typically gets the best of them after a few sessions of this. Once they start to take a more active interest, I'll keep one hand on the book and place the other towards them, but leave it passively on the floor, still letting them decide when it's time to check things out further. I'm curious about this. I'm not fostering a cat but trying to convince one I've already adopted that I'm not so scary, but similar things apply. I've had her for about four months now and we're at a point where she's confident being out in the open around me and she won't skitter away into hiding if I stand up or move around as long as she doesn't think I'm actively approaching her. Her food bowl is right next to my foot when I'm sitting at my desk and she'll happily eat an inch or two away from it, but if I reach my hand towards her she skitters out the way. She'll come over and sniff me sometimes or investigate what I'm doing but again I can't show any interest beyond looking at her or talking to her (although that's a massive improvement in itself) or she's gone. Every bit of advice I've seen advocates not trying to grab her or hold her and just letting her slowly come to me at her own pace, but I have to say it is a really tempting thought that all she needs is for me to actually pick her up and show her that all I want to do is pet her. I should note that when I first met her she was in a room that she wasn't comfortable in and was hissing at everyone including her foster lady, but when her foster lady picked her up she calmed right down and tried to burrow into her lap, which is part of why I brought her home in the first place, since I could see that even though she was scared she was taking comfort from her person and I was prepared to put in the effort to make her comfortable in a new place.
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Apr 6, 2016 16:53
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The thing I'm worried about is that she spent over a month hiding and only coming out to dash to the litter box and this morning when I came into the room she was sitting on the floor and hardly budged, and yesterday she hopped up onto my computer desk to investigate what I was doing and walk around and sniff everything casually, so I'm really pleased about how much she trusts me right now and I'm concerned that if I try to pick her up or hold her in place it's going to set me back again by months or something. I do have treats on hand and I often put them down next to me and make her come close to my hand to get them. She'll eat treats from right underneath my hand pretty much as long as I don't move the hand at all. She's two and a half years old and came from a "foster home" that's really more of a small cat haven, basically someone who's heavily involved in a cat rescue and evidently they have more cats than they have available foster homes so she takes them in. They did look like they were being kept in decent conditions but I don't think she's had as much human contact as she could have, even though she's been there since she was a kitten (apparently came in with a litter and all her siblings got adopted as kittens but she didn't). She was described to me as very good with other cats, which is what I was looking for since I want her to get along with my established cat (and now that she's more comfortable she's been making an exceptional effort lately to convince my established cat that she's a nice friend who wants to play) but they also did describe her as affectionate with humans and potentially a lap cat. Anyway, I don't trust them a whole lot since they also thought she was three instead of two but mostly what I mean is that she hasn't ever had to live on the streets and she hasn't been abused, just I don't think she's been handled as much as she could have been either. ETA: I should mention I don't actually expect her to become a lap cat and I won't mind if she doesn't. My other cat is pretty picky about physical contact and only wants to be petted on her terms when she wants a couple of times a day and not at any other time and I'm fine with that, she's still very companionable. But at least she's not scared of me picking her up or handling her, she's just not necessarily happy about it. Organza Quiz fucked around with this message at 03:02 on Apr 7, 2016 |
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Apr 7, 2016 02:51
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I wouldn't try reintroducing old friends unless it was going to be a permanent thing, just because I don't think they'd still like each other at first. Remember that sometimes multi cat households have issues when one has been at the vet for a day or two just because they don't smell right anymore. I can only imagine the effect would be stronger for cats who have been separated for ages in different houses.
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Aug 31, 2016 01:50
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luloo123 posted:This is absolutely progress. Try doing it a few times per day, skittering away less or putting it farther away from her incrementally. You're essentially training her to trust you. And keep in mind that she's eating while you're there (even if you're asleep), which is a hell of a lot better than when you got her. You're doing great. One of my cats took months to come out of hiding and half a year before she'd let me pet her. Dangly cat toys scared her for a long time but I had a lot of early success with a laser pointer. It's the least threatening toy possible and you can easily cast it across the room so the cat can run around and play without having to get closer to you than they're comfortable with. This is just about all I saw of her for the first couple of months:  And this is her hanging out with my other cat a few months later: 
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Mar 15, 2017 03:37
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Honestly the only answer is to be very patient and mostly leave her alone to sort things out herself. It's very hard to do it because your instinct is to try and help and YOU know you aren't a scary monster and if you could only communicate that to her! But really the best thing to do is to leave her be as much as possible beyond setting up a routine and associating yourself with regular nice things like food and treats. It's also hard knowing that vet care is difficult/impossible. I can't clip Peridot's claws although I'm working on training her to be more comfortable with me handling them very very slowly, but she won't let a vet near her. When I got her back after she ran away a month ago I had to trick her into a carrier and then the vet had to sedate her to be able to examine her at all because she just didn't want to know. I definitely have a higher threshhold of thinking there's something wrong with her before I take her to the vet compared to Pepper, who will let anyone do anything to her and isn't bothered much at all. It's not a great feeling but that's life and you just have to balance as best you can.
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Mar 29, 2017 09:49
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You might be able to coax him out to play with string on a stick, or a laser pointer if that's too threatening. But some cats are just scared and want to hide for a while and you just gotta let them.
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Feb 20, 2019 10:39
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It certainly is with my super skittish cat. Whenever she comes out of hiding she feels the need to yell a lot, I guess to let the world know she's scary and not to mess with her?
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Feb 20, 2019 16:20
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tarbrush posted:Having a new cat escape into some unexpected nook or cranny of a house is just a part of cat butlering. The day I brought Peridot home I left her alone for a few hours and came back to discover her trying to escape up the chimney. Thankfully she ran back into her carrier to hide and i moved her to the bathroom while i spent the next few days making sure the chimney was securely barricaded closed (if you know steven universe yes she got her name because of being locked in the bathroom by her Enemies who were actually trying to make friends with her). I was more worried about her hurting herself than actually escaping so I guess good to hear other cats have done the same thing and not hurt themselves in the attempt.
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Jun 3, 2020 01:20
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Sounds like awesome progress! And a much more appropriate hiding place involving less property damage, good job cat.
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Jun 4, 2020 16:01
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I don't know why vets tell kitten owners they need to make sure their kitten rests, kittens are not capable of resting and I think it just makes people anxious that they can't make their kitten not jump around and climb poo poo. I guess it's just a case of not encouraging a lot of acrobatic play, kittens are gonna kitten whether they just had surgery or not.
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Jul 9, 2020 14:46
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drrockso20 posted:Well at least she jumped in before you did your business, if it had been after that would have been the most awkward thing in the universe No, that would be during.
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Aug 4, 2020 09:35
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NerdyMcNerdNerd posted:What are some behaviors and other things I should be getting the cats used to while they're young and somewhat pliant? Are there things that aren't immediately apparent to a relative cat novice that one ought do with kittens? I'm getting some cat tooth paste to get them started on that. Paws paws paws paws paws. Play with them constantly all the time, get them used to humans touching their toes and clipping their claws.
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Aug 17, 2020 16:20
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Blackhawk posted:Cat behaviour question, the only other cat we've adopted in the past had already been through a foster home and she was super easy compared to our current boy so I feel a little out of my depth here. TimTam is still getting over his flu but he's been eating ok for a few days now and actually ate a little dry food overnight which is promising (he hasn't eaten anything without us directly feeding it to him for about a week now). He's not scared of you, he's scared of being in a new place that's big and full of potential lurking scary things. Just let him take things at his own pace and explore as he feels comfortable.
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Aug 18, 2020 10:04
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Tie a couple of knots in a drinking straw or 20, never found a better/cheaper toy than that.
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Aug 25, 2020 15:57
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| # ¿ Apr 20, 2024 03:09 |
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Get a laser pointer. Least threatening cat toy possible, you can be across the room and don't have to move at all. Worked wonders with Peridot when she was in the stage of hanging out in the open near me but not letting me anywhere close to her.
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Aug 30, 2020 02:35
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