Hello to all,
I am very much hoping you could offer some guidance and advice regarding petting/touching a feral my partner and I recently adopted.
Quick backstory:
We adopted two 1-year old cats just over 1 month ago, male and female from a shelter. The male comes from a very hard beginning in life but quite simply has an amazing, friendly (and at times outright cheeky) personality, so he made himself right at home when he got in the door and while not a lapcat, loves attention and seems comfy with everything. The female was rescued in a TNR effort from a colony of 24 cats where 4 were released back to the park which they were found - she was estimated to have lived feral for about 10 months. I don't know the rescuers but I guess I have to trust their knowledge and experience to decide that she was worth 'domesticating' without causing her too much stress. These cats don't come from the same colony but appear to have bonded in the shelter and my partner and I were happy to take them in. We live in an apartment so they are indoor only.
We were briefed that the female was very cautious and could take some time to come around. As we have no kids, no other pets and I will be working from home for the forseeable future we are willing to take this challenge on. We dedicated the spare bedroom to them both but they have access to the whole apartment (aside from our bedroom).
In the beginning the girl would almost never come out from under the sofa bed, and once we started to block that off she found ways under the sofa in the living area. Now both have been blocked off and she's settled for spending most of her time in the corner with the cat beds and cat tree of their room (now known as the Cat Room). In 4 weeks she has honestly come on a lot. While retaining her cautious nature, she can become very engaged in play and never passes up an opportunity. She sometimes becomes so engrossed she forgets herself and realises she is in the middle of an open space.
When she feels like it, she'll lounge around different parts of the apartment (often on her side with belly exposed) but between say 9AM and 7PM she mostly stays in the cat room unless coming out when she knows I'm preparing food.
About 2 weeks ago I felt we were maybe 'rushing' her so decided to basically ignore her for a week(aside from wand and feather play where we still didn't make eye contact). This seemed to work quite a bit as she became 'braver' exploring spaces in the home as she realised she was not being 'watched' all the time.
Now in the last week we slowly began to introduce some more interaction and progressed to some chin scratches (which she will at times close her eyes and lean into) but she seems to be somewhat regressing. She's reverted to hissing at us if you accidentally catch her by surprise(walking around a corner etc) and although she has no problem eating from our hands, if they don't contain food she remains very cautious and watchful of your hands at all times.
My thinking was to start introducing the petting/interactions at a 'confident' stage of her time here. I understand it's not a coincidence she became more confident at the same time we were 'ignoring' her but at same time I didn't want to enable her staying completely dis-engaged from us. My plan was to visit slowly and gently 2-3 times a day with small bits of ham(jackpot for them) and give a little chin scratch with them but she recoils unless I am actually holding the food now.
In some ways I see massive progress she has made, at other times I wonder if the rescuers made the right choice in not sending her back with the remainder of her colony.
Am I taking the wrong and impatient approach here? Should I maybe just 'ignore' her for the next week or so? Any pointers at all much appreciated!
A quick note on her personality - while I understand it is normal for ferals and would not take it personally if she were to do so, she has never swiped at us. She always prefers to just remove herself from the situation and we ensure there is an 'escape route' for her at all times. She used to hiss if you went anywhere near her for the first two weeks, and for the last two weeks basically no hissing at all until maybe two days ago(but still not nearly as bad as the beginning).
While I understand it's necessity, playtime has been limited over the last few days as both cats are suspected of coming down with tritrichomonas foetus which is causing consistent anal leakage and diarrhoea. For the sake of our 'rented' apartment we are limiting playtime though obviously we can't control when they decide to play with each other.
I am very much hoping you could offer some guidance and advice regarding petting/touching a feral my partner and I recently adopted.
Quick backstory:
We adopted two 1-year old cats just over 1 month ago, male and female from a shelter. The male comes from a very hard beginning in life but quite simply has an amazing, friendly (and at times outright cheeky) personality, so he made himself right at home when he got in the door and while not a lapcat, loves attention and seems comfy with everything. The female was rescued in a TNR effort from a colony of 24 cats where 4 were released back to the park which they were found - she was estimated to have lived feral for about 10 months. I don't know the rescuers but I guess I have to trust their knowledge and experience to decide that she was worth 'domesticating' without causing her too much stress. These cats don't come from the same colony but appear to have bonded in the shelter and my partner and I were happy to take them in. We live in an apartment so they are indoor only.
We were briefed that the female was very cautious and could take some time to come around. As we have no kids, no other pets and I will be working from home for the forseeable future we are willing to take this challenge on. We dedicated the spare bedroom to them both but they have access to the whole apartment (aside from our bedroom).
In the beginning the girl would almost never come out from under the sofa bed, and once we started to block that off she found ways under the sofa in the living area. Now both have been blocked off and she's settled for spending most of her time in the corner with the cat beds and cat tree of their room (now known as the Cat Room). In 4 weeks she has honestly come on a lot. While retaining her cautious nature, she can become very engaged in play and never passes up an opportunity. She sometimes becomes so engrossed she forgets herself and realises she is in the middle of an open space.
When she feels like it, she'll lounge around different parts of the apartment (often on her side with belly exposed) but between say 9AM and 7PM she mostly stays in the cat room unless coming out when she knows I'm preparing food.
About 2 weeks ago I felt we were maybe 'rushing' her so decided to basically ignore her for a week(aside from wand and feather play where we still didn't make eye contact). This seemed to work quite a bit as she became 'braver' exploring spaces in the home as she realised she was not being 'watched' all the time.
Now in the last week we slowly began to introduce some more interaction and progressed to some chin scratches (which she will at times close her eyes and lean into) but she seems to be somewhat regressing. She's reverted to hissing at us if you accidentally catch her by surprise(walking around a corner etc) and although she has no problem eating from our hands, if they don't contain food she remains very cautious and watchful of your hands at all times.
My thinking was to start introducing the petting/interactions at a 'confident' stage of her time here. I understand it's not a coincidence she became more confident at the same time we were 'ignoring' her but at same time I didn't want to enable her staying completely dis-engaged from us. My plan was to visit slowly and gently 2-3 times a day with small bits of ham(jackpot for them) and give a little chin scratch with them but she recoils unless I am actually holding the food now.
In some ways I see massive progress she has made, at other times I wonder if the rescuers made the right choice in not sending her back with the remainder of her colony.
Am I taking the wrong and impatient approach here? Should I maybe just 'ignore' her for the next week or so? Any pointers at all much appreciated!
A quick note on her personality - while I understand it is normal for ferals and would not take it personally if she were to do so, she has never swiped at us. She always prefers to just remove herself from the situation and we ensure there is an 'escape route' for her at all times. She used to hiss if you went anywhere near her for the first two weeks, and for the last two weeks basically no hissing at all until maybe two days ago(but still not nearly as bad as the beginning).
While I understand it's necessity, playtime has been limited over the last few days as both cats are suspected of coming down with tritrichomonas foetus which is causing consistent anal leakage and diarrhoea. For the sake of our 'rented' apartment we are limiting playtime though obviously we can't control when they decide to play with each other.
