- Joined
- Oct 15, 2019
- Messages
- 3
- Purraise
- 3
I got my boy, Eli, when he was 6.5 weeks old. A friend's cat unexpectedly had a litter, and the mother ran away when the kittens were four weeks old. I had already been slated to adopt my boy and was going to around 10/12 weeks. Unfortunately my friend then had a sudden death in the family, and out of concern I offered to take mine early to take some of the bottle feeding/weaning/litter training off her hands. So I took mine early, and realize now it was definitely a mistake. Fast forward to now: he'll be 12 weeks on Thursday, and all the kittens had gone to different homes. My friend called me on Sunday and told me his sister had been returned to her after some landlord issue with her initial owner, and she asked me if I wanted to take her. So I did, and now I have Eli and Olive. The problem is, Olive had been around her siblings much longer and went to a home briefly at 9 weeks old with other cats. Eli has been the only cat in my home since 6.5 weeks. He immediately began playing with her way too rough and clearly showed that he hadn't had time to learn acceptable playing behavior with his littermates (This is my first cat and I know now I made a mistake taking him too early, I was just afraid he would be neglected as my friend was going through a really rough period.) Although Eli and Olive are littermates and the same age, he was the biggest of the litter while she was the runt, and he frequently throws all his weight on her and bites. She plays along at first but immediately begins yelping out and hissing and runs for cover. This seems to only excite him more and he chases her like she's a toy. Is it too late for him to get used to playing the right away, or did I mess up his socialization forever? It's only been two days and they've been eating fine together, curling up together to sleep.. it's just the playtime that ends in Eli roaming around the room looking for her and Olive hiding out of his reach until he calms down.