- Joined
- Jul 21, 2014
- Messages
- 4
- Purraise
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Hi there, I'm new here and also totally new to keeping cats. My fiance (who grew up with cats) and I recently decided to rescue a young adult cat from our local shelter during an adoption event. We picked him up and got him all the things a kitty apparently needs to be happy and healthy and took him home.
We do have two dogs but they have always been interested yet polite around other animals (they interact with cats when they go for grooming and we have small flightless yard ducks in the backyard that they share space with harmoniously). Before this incident, Dexter (our new kitty) was very affectionate and playful, he liked to climb and explore and was just all sorts of bright-eyed and chatty and happy about life and he didn't mind the dogs either.
But yesterday, totally out of character for my older boxer-mix, he pounced on Dexter and the two of them roughed each other up a bit (Dexter is not declawed because we don't believe in it). There weren't any serious injuries but I think that Dexter got really scared during the altercation. After we separated the two and after checking Dex out for serious injury (there weren't any, just a few broken claws) Dexter hid away under the bed in the guest room (the room where we keep his litterbox and one of his food/water dishes) and he hasn't come out since.
I feel so terrible that something like this happened to him when he's so new to our family and I'm worried that now he's never going to come out from under that bed and be the delightful kitty that we brought home just a short while ago. I've tried to leave him be to decompress and calm down but its gotten to the point that I'm starting to get worried because he hasn't moved from his spot since yesterday afternoon. Last night I wiggled under the bed to check on him and petted him a bit, he rolled on his side and seemed to appreciate the attention like usual. He hasn't been aggressive or anything, just sort of like his confidence in going about his catly business has been broken.
So I guess my questions is: How should we go about helping him to rebuild his confidence? We've been talking about installing a cat walk so he can move freely from one side of the living room to the other without being within reach of any unwanted doggy attention and he does have lots of tall perches around the house and a 6 ft tall kitty hotel. If anyone has any advice on this or any pointers for anything else please feel free to share.
We do have two dogs but they have always been interested yet polite around other animals (they interact with cats when they go for grooming and we have small flightless yard ducks in the backyard that they share space with harmoniously). Before this incident, Dexter (our new kitty) was very affectionate and playful, he liked to climb and explore and was just all sorts of bright-eyed and chatty and happy about life and he didn't mind the dogs either.
But yesterday, totally out of character for my older boxer-mix, he pounced on Dexter and the two of them roughed each other up a bit (Dexter is not declawed because we don't believe in it). There weren't any serious injuries but I think that Dexter got really scared during the altercation. After we separated the two and after checking Dex out for serious injury (there weren't any, just a few broken claws) Dexter hid away under the bed in the guest room (the room where we keep his litterbox and one of his food/water dishes) and he hasn't come out since.
I feel so terrible that something like this happened to him when he's so new to our family and I'm worried that now he's never going to come out from under that bed and be the delightful kitty that we brought home just a short while ago. I've tried to leave him be to decompress and calm down but its gotten to the point that I'm starting to get worried because he hasn't moved from his spot since yesterday afternoon. Last night I wiggled under the bed to check on him and petted him a bit, he rolled on his side and seemed to appreciate the attention like usual. He hasn't been aggressive or anything, just sort of like his confidence in going about his catly business has been broken.
So I guess my questions is: How should we go about helping him to rebuild his confidence? We've been talking about installing a cat walk so he can move freely from one side of the living room to the other without being within reach of any unwanted doggy attention and he does have lots of tall perches around the house and a 6 ft tall kitty hotel. If anyone has any advice on this or any pointers for anything else please feel free to share.