Adopted Cat, lots of hiding,
Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2017 7:35 pm
Hi there,
After the loss my beloved 11 year old cat a few weeks ago, I decided that the best way to honor her was to adopt another cat. I miss her dearly, and I miss the company of a cat, and I know there are lots of cats without homes, so I went to the shelter and brought home a cat that I named Thea.
Thea was the result of a hoarding situation; at least that's what we were told. She had recently had kittens, and honestly, though she was primarily an indoor cat, it doesn't seem like she's had a lot of positive interactions with people. She was brought to the shelter with a few siblings, and the shelter staff told us that she was sweet, but, "didn't show well." When we met with Thea, it was clear that she didn't like being out and about, but she tolerated touch, and didn't run from us, so we assumed that while it would take a while for her to want to interact with us, she wasn't completely terrified.
We set her up in a room in our house - honoring the idea of establishing a base camp. As soon as she realized that she could hide, she did. She has explored, and she has used the litter box, but if we come in her room to provide food/water, it takes her about 24 hours to come out. I know about how long it take her to move around because I have two small cameras in the room; if we enter the room, not only is she terrified, but I tell by her movements when she finally does come out, that she is terrified that we are present in the room. She stays low to the ground, and basically, her movements are that of a soldier in battle... she seems terribly frightened.
To try and get her acclimated a bit, my partner and I slept in the room. Apparently this was a bad idea. After we slept in the room for a night, she didn't move for about 48 hours. The last time I even attempted to touch her, and that's only happened once - up until then, I've followed the rules of trying to ignore her - she hissed at me, and she's definitely been coming out from under the furniture less frequently.
Tonight and tomorrow, I am going to try to block off all of the spaces where she hides. Though, her favorite hiding spot is under the bed, and I don't know if I can block off that space. I don't even know if it's a great idea... but, I don't want her to be a cat doesn't ever get to interact with us because she's scared. And I don't want to pull her out from her hiding spaces. Essentially, I am looking for advice about what I should do, long term, to help her gain confidence. I am fine with waiting quite a long time for her to find or gain her confidence, but in the meantime, I want to make sure that I am not doing the wrong thing, re: I don't want her to have so little contact with people that she only finds solace in isolation.
Any suggestions will be much appreciated.
Thanks for reading this long post.
-M
After the loss my beloved 11 year old cat a few weeks ago, I decided that the best way to honor her was to adopt another cat. I miss her dearly, and I miss the company of a cat, and I know there are lots of cats without homes, so I went to the shelter and brought home a cat that I named Thea.
Thea was the result of a hoarding situation; at least that's what we were told. She had recently had kittens, and honestly, though she was primarily an indoor cat, it doesn't seem like she's had a lot of positive interactions with people. She was brought to the shelter with a few siblings, and the shelter staff told us that she was sweet, but, "didn't show well." When we met with Thea, it was clear that she didn't like being out and about, but she tolerated touch, and didn't run from us, so we assumed that while it would take a while for her to want to interact with us, she wasn't completely terrified.
We set her up in a room in our house - honoring the idea of establishing a base camp. As soon as she realized that she could hide, she did. She has explored, and she has used the litter box, but if we come in her room to provide food/water, it takes her about 24 hours to come out. I know about how long it take her to move around because I have two small cameras in the room; if we enter the room, not only is she terrified, but I tell by her movements when she finally does come out, that she is terrified that we are present in the room. She stays low to the ground, and basically, her movements are that of a soldier in battle... she seems terribly frightened.
To try and get her acclimated a bit, my partner and I slept in the room. Apparently this was a bad idea. After we slept in the room for a night, she didn't move for about 48 hours. The last time I even attempted to touch her, and that's only happened once - up until then, I've followed the rules of trying to ignore her - she hissed at me, and she's definitely been coming out from under the furniture less frequently.
Tonight and tomorrow, I am going to try to block off all of the spaces where she hides. Though, her favorite hiding spot is under the bed, and I don't know if I can block off that space. I don't even know if it's a great idea... but, I don't want her to be a cat doesn't ever get to interact with us because she's scared. And I don't want to pull her out from her hiding spaces. Essentially, I am looking for advice about what I should do, long term, to help her gain confidence. I am fine with waiting quite a long time for her to find or gain her confidence, but in the meantime, I want to make sure that I am not doing the wrong thing, re: I don't want her to have so little contact with people that she only finds solace in isolation.
Any suggestions will be much appreciated.
Thanks for reading this long post.
-M