i took in a stray kitten but now i need advice

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strawbearymacarons
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i took in a stray kitten but now i need advice

Post by strawbearymacarons »

so basically she was found at 7 weeks old all by herself in a busy bar parking lot on a very hot day. she was terrified when we brought her home but on the second day we gave her a bath and she warmed up to us after that. she had no fleas but ear mites and worms which we got treated and her first vaccine. we intended to keep her though ive never had a cat before. (i currently have two dogs, a rabbit, and a ferret who was also found in a bar parking lot oddly enough) but the internet basically has me terrified that keeping her is a bad idea. i keep seeing stuff about single kitten syndrome but we definitely can't have a second kitten. i wanted to keep her because i thought i was helping her and she really seemed to like me especially but now im concerned that keeping her would do her more harm than good. when i told the vet i wanted to keep her they didnt mention anything about this but its literally all over the internet. so i guess im just wondering if its better for her to go to a rescue instead? and also if it is ok to keep her what are some things i can do to make sure she grows up well?
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Re: i took in a stray kitten but now i need advice

Post by alanc »

In similar circumstances I took in my first cat Sally when she was only 8 weeks old (she may have been younger). She was found dumped by a roadside. She was an only cat all her life and never had any problems with single kitten syndrome. Indeed, I have never heard of it until now! So I would say keep her - you will get plenty of good advice from the members on here should you need it.
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Mollycat
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Re: i took in a stray kitten but now i need advice

Post by Mollycat »

Absolute nonesense, utter tosh and piffle. With your other pets this kitten has playmates and will be absolutely fine. Millions, possibly billions of cats around the world through the ages have been and are only cats in a household and were only kittens, and are absolutely fine and happy. Kittens rarely get bored and destructive the way puppies do, and cats sleep a lot more than dogs so there is less time for mischief, but as long as the other animals are ok with the kitten the kitten isn't going to care what species her new friends are. No as long as you're happy to have her there is no good to come out of going from a home into a cage to wait possibly months and years for a home and not be properly socialised.

Welcome to being owned by a cat, though. They are very different to dogs so do stick around, you might have more questions!
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Re: i took in a stray kitten but now i need advice

Post by fjm »

I have had single kittens, two kittens, one kitten and a dog, and they have all grown up happy and healthy - I have never heard of single kitten syndrome. If you were planning on leaving a kitten all alone in a small flat all day every day then perhaps it would be different, but you are not - this little one will grow up in a melee of other animals and with a human who cares. She is very lucky and will be absolutely fine.
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Re: i took in a stray kitten but now i need advice

Post by booktigger »

I've fostered hundreds of cats, and never heard of single kitten syndrome - there have been instances where I have refused to home a single kitten, but I would have no problem homing a single kitten in your circumstances.
strawbearymacarons
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Re: i took in a stray kitten but now i need advice

Post by strawbearymacarons »

thank you so much 🥺 i was just trying to look up how to properly take care of a kitten since this is my first one and that was all that was popping up and it made me feel like i was being selfish for wanting her to stay with me.
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Re: i took in a stray kitten but now i need advice

Post by Ruth B »

I have heard of single kitten syndrome, but i'm not sure just how much actual research has gone into it. As has been said, a kitten left alone all day while you are at work with nothing to entertain it might have problems, particularly if taken away from its family too young, but in your circumstance, i doubt you will have a problem just take a bit of time to introduce it to the rest of its animal family and I'm sure they will all get on well.

I do wonder how much Single Kitten Syndrome has been invented by unscrupulous rescues as a way of homing more kittens, particularly the difficult to home black or tuxedo kittens, 'oh you can't just take one it will suffer Single Kitten Syndrome why don't you take his/her friend as well this cute little black kitten, they have grown really attached to each other'.
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Re: i took in a stray kitten but now i need advice

Post by Mollycat »

As much as your suggestion horrifies me Ruth a search brought up this article essentially saying exactly that
https://meowcatrescue.org/resources/ado ... -syndrome/
"MEOW has adopted a policy of not placing any single kitten under the age of six months into a home without another kitten or young cat"

I'm speechless.
If it was a real thing I'm sure breeders would be cashing in by now.

They are a different species but if you can raise happy healthy well balanced dogs, ferrets and rabbits, you can raise one kitten with them.
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Re: i took in a stray kitten but now i need advice

Post by Joe_Danger »

I think it's too early for me to speak on this whole Single Kitten Syndrome thing, but where I live people usually adopt kittens out at a month and a half, which IMO is exceptionally early. When I was giving mine away I was pressured to give them away at that age by my vet and people wanting to adopt but I managed to hold out until 2 months 2.5 months IIRC.
All my kittens turned out fine in terms of behavior, more than fine even.

Your kitten is roughly 7 weeks old right? That's almost two months, she should have some experience on how rough she can play, mostly. I think you will be fine.

However with my recent experience and my mom's friend recent experience I believe there is some merit in Single Kitten Syndrome.

Enter Spaska, we all know who Spaska is by now. :)
We found her at 3 weeks old, maybe less and while she quickly learned not to play with her claws out, she has had major major problems learning not to bite! No amount of training seems to work, she has gotten slightly better now, but she is going to be 3 months old on the 1st and her biting is not ok, the other cats are very agitated, today Casper hissed at her for the first time and he is her main chewtoy. :)
Her bit is very strong, very painful, something she should have learned to regulate with her littermates or kittens her age, but she never did. Not even my adult cats seem to be able to teach her when enough is enough because even if they meow in pain she doesn't let go or lets go and instantly bites again.
I can tell that she needed littermates/kittens her age to train with her on how far she can go with biting.

Spaska isn't the only kitten I know who has been separated from her family and mom too young who has had this problem. One of my mom's best friends bought a British Shorthair, amazing kitten...except the breeder had to give the kittens away at only a month old, because Macedonia.
My mom's friend has experience with cats, not as much as we do but she did her reading, she's had cats and everything and I she has never seen a kitten bite so much before. It's a real problem for them even tho they don't have other pets.

It seems both kittens learned not to use their claws when playing but they seem to have a very hard time learning to regulate their bite or not bite at all.
In my case the biting extends to the other cats too much is a problem, if it was just us people we'd handle it better.

So I think there definitely is something to this whole Single Kitten Syndrome thing, but at the same time I believe you'll be just fine because pretty much everyone in my country gives kittens away or adopts them at a month and a half, so 7 weeks is fine. I don't agree that kittens should be separated from their moms so early, not by a long shot, but since it seems to work for so many here I'm sure it'll work out for you just fine.

Sorry for the long post, I wanted to give you better insight on what happens, in my experience, when a kitten is separated from its cat family too soon, at least from my experience.
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Re: i took in a stray kitten but now i need advice

Post by Mollycat »

Joe I don't think we're suggesting kittens don't have to learn to control their teeth and claws, but from that to a syndrome and behavioural issues seems a stretch. But our new member has dogs and a ferret so I should imagine is familiar with young animals and their needle-sharp teeth and playfulness?
strawbearymacarons
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Re: i took in a stray kitten but now i need advice

Post by strawbearymacarons »

yes! i definitely have experience with sharp little teeth! i could be wrong bc ive never had a cat but in the past ive always had success with teaching them that toys are for playing and hands are for getting pet. so unless thats the wrong way to teach a kitten im not too concerned about it. i was mostly concerned when they say that theyll grow up to have a bunch of behavioral problems. the way its phrased online it really sounds like having a single kitten is a guaranteed way to get a poorly adjusted cat. and if that was truly the case then trying to raise her without another kitten just sounded cruel ya know?

also she was 7 weeks when i found her but ive had her for 11 days now and i honestly think she's made tremendous progress. she's a little skittish when it comes to other people but she seems quite comfortable with me. she is a little scared of me when i go from a seated position to a standing position but we're at a point now where even though she runs when i stand up she'll come back and let me pet her. its just that transition from seated to standing that scares her which im sure she'll figure out is really not a scary thing at all.
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Mollycat
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Re: i took in a stray kitten but now i need advice

Post by Mollycat »

There you go, so you don't need anyone to tell you you're doing great. No she won't grow up with a whole bunch of behavioural problems just from being the only feline in the house, you'll have to find other ways to mess her up (kidding of course)

Ok so cats do have a slightly different psychology to dogs and every other domesticated animal simply because they are by nature a solitary animal. Everything else we have domesticated we have altered through selective breeding, but the cat remains pretty much as it was 9000 years ago and domesticated itself by the bravest and most docile selecting themselves to stay close to human settlements. So whereas a dog is a dog with a common ancestor with the wolf, a cat is at the same time a fully functioning wild animal and a sweet social human kitten making close bonds with other species. Their ability to live with others and thrive in groups is an adaptive state.

The cat's social rules are complex and depend on members of the family having roles, rather than a top cat. Their body language is very different to dogs and I would say one of the most common cat behaviour problems is people applying dog ideas and discipline to a cat, which will not respond well. Modern dog training that seeks cooperation not domination and plenty of positive reinforcement works with cats, think Victoria Stillwell not Cesar Milan and then go a step further to work with a cat. Any kind of punishment means nothing at all to a cat, but offering a better alternative works wonders. Confrontation will not result in submission, cats do not submit, they either square up and fight back or they become a nervous wreck and either way that's not good. It has to be a cooperative relationship, negotiable, and if you accept that you won't win all the arguments, you'll be just fine. What I mean by that is you might win the one about not scratching the couch if you're clever with scratch posts but you might not win the one about not sleeping on the bed - that's just an example - so you can persuade and outwit but you can't force.

The last time I had a kitten was in 1987 and she was 6 weeks old when I got her, which was standard back then. She was a shoulder cat from day one and would climb up, which quickly became very painful. So I taught her to wait until I was ready, and I would kneel down so she could hop onto my knee and then to my shoulder, everyone wins, she gets up high, I don't get scratched. We even had a word, not a command, but I would say wait, wait wait, then Huppy-come! so she had clear signals. Clicker training apparently works really well with cats too.
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Re: i took in a stray kitten but now i need advice

Post by Joe_Danger »

Mollycat wrote: Sun Aug 22, 2021 8:47 pm Joe I don't think we're suggesting kittens don't have to learn to control their teeth and claws, but from that to a syndrome and behavioural issues seems a stretch. But our new member has dogs and a ferret so I should imagine is familiar with young animals and their needle-sharp teeth and playfulness?
Sorry if I came off as rude, didn't mean to say you guys were suggesting anything like that far from it.
Sorry if I was being rude I'm only used to posting on video game forums and my online social skills are very bad :)
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Re: i took in a stray kitten but now i need advice

Post by fjm »

Definitely not rude, Joe - just sharing experience.

The biggest problems I had with kitten/young cat kicking and biting play were with Pippin, when his brother vanished at around 6 months old. After growing up accustomed to having a play fight partner Pip found it very difficult to cope without, and took to pouncing and grabbing human ankles instead, with all the force of a nine-month cat! I don't remember having problems with the singleton kittens I have raised, presumably because they were discouraged very early on and redirected to more acceptable games.
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Re: i took in a stray kitten but now i need advice

Post by Mollycat »

Joe_Danger wrote: Mon Aug 23, 2021 8:29 am Sorry if I came off as rude, didn't mean to say you guys were suggesting anything like that far from it.
Sorry if I was being rude I'm only used to posting on video game forums and my online social skills are very bad :)
No no you didn't, not at all. And I'm not sure where you get the idea your online social skills are bad, you are always polite friendly and respectful, sometimes a little panicky understandably! I am sorry I can come across a little more abrupt than I mean to at times but that's not just online, it's me in real life too.
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