Hello
I’m new here at the cat site and happy to have found this place! It seems to be full of cat lovers with lots of knowledge and experience. I would like to share the story of my cat Alba, and maybe you have some tips and/or thoughts for us.This is my first cat so I’m kind of a beginner at this. My boyfriend grew up with cats so he has some experience.
We adopted Alba 2 weeks ago. She is an 11-year old beautiful grey tortie. She has spent most of her life homeless and in shelters. Before she came to us she lived in a foster home for about 6 months. She made a lot of progress there but would not let the foster parents touch her - so petting is not something she is used to. When we visited her in the foster home she was very shy and didn’t approach us, but for some reason we just fell in love with her.
Since Alba moved in with us (about 2 weeks ago) she’s been making progress. Very shy at first, but now you can tell that she is curious, walking around the apartment sniffing and scent marking with her cheeks. She’s playing more or less every day and she has been eating, drinking and using the litter box since day one. So that is good. It really makes me so happy just to see her out and about, sitting in the window sills looking at us and everything that goes on outside. She seems fine with hanging out in the same room as us and she sleeps in our bedroom, under my boyfriend’s bedside table (where we prepared a small bed for her) or on the window sill in the bedroom. This is also where she goes when she gets scared or just wants to be by herself.
We have not tried to pet her yet since we want everything to be on her terms and we really don't want to stress her. She comes up to sniff our feet if we walk by her and she reaches out to sniff our hands if we put it in front of her. But she always backs off after a little sniff. She has not yet made any invitation to touching. We let her sniff and walk away. One time she booped my boyfriend’s fist. We don’t know if it was intentional or accidental though
If we sit or lay on the floor with a treat in the hand she comes up, sniffs the treat and backs away staring at the treat. She does not take the treat from our hands. But if we put the treat on the floor she is brave enough to get it, most of the times. Sometimes when she has taken the treat from the floor she freezes and it seems like she just realized how close to the hand she is and you can tell she gets scared. One time she got so scared that she even hissed and scratched my hand, even though I just held it completely still on the floor. She did not run away but backed up a couple of feet.
It is interesting that she hesitates so much taking treats we put on the floor, since she has no problem eating from her food bowl if we hold it. When it is feeding time one of us usually sits on the floor holding her food bowl. She runs up to it, no hesitation. It seems like she forgets to be scared when it’s food time. One time she even licked my thumb because there was some wet food on it. But as soon as she has finished her meal she walks away. We thought about trying to touch her when she is eating (since she seems quite relaxed then) but we don’t want the feeding time to be associated with something negative for her. So I guess that is a bad idea?
As I said she likes to play. The feather wand is her favorite. She also has a catnip toy that she loves to snuggle with. During playtime we have tried to touch her very gently with the wand. Mostly she seems to be irritated by this and when we get that reaction we stop and continue playing. But sometimes she actually seems to enjoy it. One time she laid down and even closed her eyes as my boyfriend was stroking her with the feathers.
She has only been here for 2 weeks and we know that it’s not very long. We understand that it can take a long time for her to fully trust us. Our plan right now is to keep doing what we’re doing and hopefully she will eventually overcome her fear of our hands and touching. We are totally fine with her not being a cuddly lap cat and don’t expect her to be. But it would be nice to be able to touch her and for her sake we really wish for her to be more comfortable with touching. Eventually we will have to take her to the vet, check her teeth and trim her claws. It will not be easy if we don't make any progress with the touching.
Sorry for such a long post! We would be so happy if you have any tips/thoughts or just share similar experiences. What can we do to help Alba? Do you think she is too old to learn to like, or at least stop being scared of, petting? As I said the foster parents couldn't pet her for 6 months (not sure how much they tried though). Maybe she will never take the initiativ to being petted? Might she need a little ”push” to challenge her comfort zone? Should we try to reach in for a pet? We don’t want to scare her or make it worse but maybe that is necessary to get her to realize nothing bad happens if we pet her. We really want her to be comfortable enough for us to touch her.
I’m new here at the cat site and happy to have found this place! It seems to be full of cat lovers with lots of knowledge and experience. I would like to share the story of my cat Alba, and maybe you have some tips and/or thoughts for us.This is my first cat so I’m kind of a beginner at this. My boyfriend grew up with cats so he has some experience.
We adopted Alba 2 weeks ago. She is an 11-year old beautiful grey tortie. She has spent most of her life homeless and in shelters. Before she came to us she lived in a foster home for about 6 months. She made a lot of progress there but would not let the foster parents touch her - so petting is not something she is used to. When we visited her in the foster home she was very shy and didn’t approach us, but for some reason we just fell in love with her.
Since Alba moved in with us (about 2 weeks ago) she’s been making progress. Very shy at first, but now you can tell that she is curious, walking around the apartment sniffing and scent marking with her cheeks. She’s playing more or less every day and she has been eating, drinking and using the litter box since day one. So that is good. It really makes me so happy just to see her out and about, sitting in the window sills looking at us and everything that goes on outside. She seems fine with hanging out in the same room as us and she sleeps in our bedroom, under my boyfriend’s bedside table (where we prepared a small bed for her) or on the window sill in the bedroom. This is also where she goes when she gets scared or just wants to be by herself.
We have not tried to pet her yet since we want everything to be on her terms and we really don't want to stress her. She comes up to sniff our feet if we walk by her and she reaches out to sniff our hands if we put it in front of her. But she always backs off after a little sniff. She has not yet made any invitation to touching. We let her sniff and walk away. One time she booped my boyfriend’s fist. We don’t know if it was intentional or accidental though
If we sit or lay on the floor with a treat in the hand she comes up, sniffs the treat and backs away staring at the treat. She does not take the treat from our hands. But if we put the treat on the floor she is brave enough to get it, most of the times. Sometimes when she has taken the treat from the floor she freezes and it seems like she just realized how close to the hand she is and you can tell she gets scared. One time she got so scared that she even hissed and scratched my hand, even though I just held it completely still on the floor. She did not run away but backed up a couple of feet.
It is interesting that she hesitates so much taking treats we put on the floor, since she has no problem eating from her food bowl if we hold it. When it is feeding time one of us usually sits on the floor holding her food bowl. She runs up to it, no hesitation. It seems like she forgets to be scared when it’s food time. One time she even licked my thumb because there was some wet food on it. But as soon as she has finished her meal she walks away. We thought about trying to touch her when she is eating (since she seems quite relaxed then) but we don’t want the feeding time to be associated with something negative for her. So I guess that is a bad idea?
As I said she likes to play. The feather wand is her favorite. She also has a catnip toy that she loves to snuggle with. During playtime we have tried to touch her very gently with the wand. Mostly she seems to be irritated by this and when we get that reaction we stop and continue playing. But sometimes she actually seems to enjoy it. One time she laid down and even closed her eyes as my boyfriend was stroking her with the feathers.
She has only been here for 2 weeks and we know that it’s not very long. We understand that it can take a long time for her to fully trust us. Our plan right now is to keep doing what we’re doing and hopefully she will eventually overcome her fear of our hands and touching. We are totally fine with her not being a cuddly lap cat and don’t expect her to be. But it would be nice to be able to touch her and for her sake we really wish for her to be more comfortable with touching. Eventually we will have to take her to the vet, check her teeth and trim her claws. It will not be easy if we don't make any progress with the touching.
Sorry for such a long post! We would be so happy if you have any tips/thoughts or just share similar experiences. What can we do to help Alba? Do you think she is too old to learn to like, or at least stop being scared of, petting? As I said the foster parents couldn't pet her for 6 months (not sure how much they tried though). Maybe she will never take the initiativ to being petted? Might she need a little ”push” to challenge her comfort zone? Should we try to reach in for a pet? We don’t want to scare her or make it worse but maybe that is necessary to get her to realize nothing bad happens if we pet her. We really want her to be comfortable enough for us to touch her.