Sittin’ with kittens
It’s hard to believe that I’ve been fostering cats for our shelter for nearly a year now. Jumbo, Sisco and Kira, Simon and Garfunkle, Purrly Girl and Onyx (I did not name those two), Bandit and Murphy, Max and Millie, and poor Augie, who we took in as a hospice kitty. A dozen cats in a year’s time. One now deceased, eight in forever homes, and three now in cages at the pet supply store waiting for adoption. Eleven lives saved, and one life that ended in the warmth of a foster home with proper medical treatment before she died. I figure that’s not a bad year’s worth of work, regardless of much of the rest of my life being in shambles at the moment.
I got two new foster cats this past weekend. Both are young adult brown tabbies, with somewhat elongated noses. Both are painfully shy, and these are the first set of cats that I’ve fostered that I seriously worry about for the future.
Both will tolerate being handled, but both run when I come into the foster room. One of the two, Puma, I have yet to see outside the fabric playbox he’s chosen to nest in. Nick, who has the softest fur I’ve ever encountered on a cat (and that is saying something) will come out only if I stay in the room for an hour or so without making any moves toward him.
This is what I’m doing now. I take my trusty Acer into the foster room with me in the mornings, and I spend until lunchtime typing, cruising the web, or talking to the cats without approaching them. Eventually Nick comes out and begins to whine and pace. There is an invisible line down the center of the room he does not cross; that side is his, this side is mine. I turned my notebook around so I could get a picture of Nick with the cam:
That’s Nick, looking at me looking at him. The things hanging in the air are toys on strings that I’ve suspended from the ceiling. The foster room has suspended ceiling tiles, so I got a couple of cheap leashes on major discount and looped them through the tile supports. I then clip toys onto the end of the leashes to give the cats something to bat at. The piece of furniture to the left of the picture is an old computer desk that was left behind in the house when we bought it. The desk has two doors at the base that open into a large storage area. I put the litter box in there so the cats have a semi-secluded place to do their business, with the bonus that they can’t kick litter all over the place.
*sigh* Nick has decided to siesta in one of the carriers I leave open for them. Puma hasn’t even left his box for the last two hours. This will not be the morning that they and I make contact.
I applaud your patience. Did these poor cats come from an abusive situation?
Wow. Fostering cats is a LOT different than dogs isn’t it?
Sometimes my worst problem is CLINGY dogs, not aloof ones. 😉
Snoopy enjoys grabbing my pant leg and walking along with me… attached.
Animals. They can be a challenge !
I agree, dogs are so different from cats. I still can’t reach down and pick up the cat we got when she was 3 months old. Max, however can pick her up, she snuggles with him and sleeps next to him in bed. The only time she likes me is when she is hungry and on the nights Max works graveyard. I got even by naming her Maxine and I put a small framed head shot on the wall of her on Max’s side on the bathroom sink. LOL.
Poor kitties. I hope they warm up to you soon.
You’re doing a good thing there, Salamander.
That’s a wonderful thing to be part of. I hope your patience with Nick and Puma is rewarded.
Do you have any way of sneaking a look into the room without them knowing?
Maybe you need to bring tunafish sandwiches for lunch each time you go in, and have lunch sitting in there?
Hope they warm up soon.
Alli
It’s early days yet with the boys. When we got Romeo back, even though we’d seen him periodically over the years, it was days before he’d come out of the basement. Then he started sneaking to the kitchen in the evening instead of the dead of night to get a drink. Ah, progress 😉
I used to do Persian and Himi rescue and there was one, a beautiful cream point kitten, that took me 6 months to tame. She was born in a garage and never had any human contact. The woman that had her and her mother just opened a bag of food periodically and used a 5 gallon waterer. She never even named the kitten. Harriet did eventually calm down but she never got to be a snuggler. I found an older couple who was willing to take her and they were happy enough to just be around her and take what she was willing to give and that might be what winds up happening with those little guys.
I have a lot of faith that if anyone can rehab them it’s you.
RYC: It seems that he was questioning Maggie’s parentage in Japanese because she was walking so close behind him that she caught his slipper and nearly knocked him sprawling *laffs*
Abused and/or neglected animals break my heart. That’s why I end up with so many of them.
We adopted a feral cat from ARF several years ago. She was so timid that she would not even let us see her for about a month. She’s now been with us a few years, she still is not a lap cat but will actually come scream at us to come brush and rub her several times a day, which she is doing at the moment so I guess I better quit typing and attend to my Queen.