Hi all, I have a bit of an odd situation regarding Sky's previous owner that'd I'd appreciate some advice on.
A bit of background, I put up adverts on some classifieds sites here in the country I live saying that I wanted to give a cat a new home whilst I was looking in shelters also. She got in touch with me and explained that her 16 week old kitten was getting bullied by the family dog, she would hide from their rowdy toddlers and that they wanted to re home her ASAP (I ended up driving to pick her up 24 hours later!) .
When we were discussing me taking her she asked if I would keep her updated on her progress, and I asked how often she would like updates/pictures to which she said 'whenever you would like' .
For the first few days she wanted to know how Sky was doing pretty frequently and I was fine with letting her know how things were going, I know it was tough for her to let Sky find a better life in a new home and it made me feel good about the fact that Sky came from a place that cared about her.
The requests for pictures/updates went from every day in the beginning, to every few days and eventually once a week.
It's been 6 weeks now and she is still asking for updates each week.
One day last week she sent me a message asking how things were at 10pm and I was busy so figured I'd just reply in the morning, next day I woke up to a couple of messages sent about an hour later asking why I had stopped responding to her.
I usually simply respond with some variation on 'all good' and a picture if she then asks for one.
It's starting to make me a little uncomfortable, Sky is very much my cat (I love her to bits) and I worry that this may continue for a really long time. I agreed to send updates on my schedule but I never expected to be receiving a request for an update every single week (I thought maybe I would volunteer a picture/short update once a month in the beginning and eventually peetering out to once a year) and I'm not sure how to go about starting this conversation.
I want to be sensitive to her feelings but also put my foot down a little. Perhaps I'm over reacting a little and this will sort itself out - I very much don't like confrontation!
Thanks in advance!
A bit of background, I put up adverts on some classifieds sites here in the country I live saying that I wanted to give a cat a new home whilst I was looking in shelters also. She got in touch with me and explained that her 16 week old kitten was getting bullied by the family dog, she would hide from their rowdy toddlers and that they wanted to re home her ASAP (I ended up driving to pick her up 24 hours later!) .
When we were discussing me taking her she asked if I would keep her updated on her progress, and I asked how often she would like updates/pictures to which she said 'whenever you would like' .
For the first few days she wanted to know how Sky was doing pretty frequently and I was fine with letting her know how things were going, I know it was tough for her to let Sky find a better life in a new home and it made me feel good about the fact that Sky came from a place that cared about her.
The requests for pictures/updates went from every day in the beginning, to every few days and eventually once a week.
It's been 6 weeks now and she is still asking for updates each week.
One day last week she sent me a message asking how things were at 10pm and I was busy so figured I'd just reply in the morning, next day I woke up to a couple of messages sent about an hour later asking why I had stopped responding to her.
I usually simply respond with some variation on 'all good' and a picture if she then asks for one.
It's starting to make me a little uncomfortable, Sky is very much my cat (I love her to bits) and I worry that this may continue for a really long time. I agreed to send updates on my schedule but I never expected to be receiving a request for an update every single week (I thought maybe I would volunteer a picture/short update once a month in the beginning and eventually peetering out to once a year) and I'm not sure how to go about starting this conversation.
I want to be sensitive to her feelings but also put my foot down a little. Perhaps I'm over reacting a little and this will sort itself out - I very much don't like confrontation!
Thanks in advance!