Hi all,
So, we caved in. We bought another cat. Daisy now has a big sister.
A bit of back story:
Her name is Tygra. She was a rescue cat that for three years had not had any interest in her at all. We saw her picture on a facebook posting and immediately fell in love with her. (We love calico tabbies). People seem to have turned a blind eye to her because she began her life as a feral. At 2 months old she was taken from a cat hoarders house (where the cats numbered in the hundreds). There were dead cats, decaying cats, cats with rotting body parts. There were garbage bins filled with cat and human excrement. Three of Tygra's siblings died and she had a respiratory problem that is all better now. For three years she was living with her foster parents who were cat rescuers and tried to re-home these cats. It took her a long, long time to trust her foster parents but eventually came and sat by them for pettings. The fact she wasn't going to be an immediate cuddle cat and needed work getting her to trust you put people off. (Though her story got into newspapers and she became semi-locally famous, and suddenly everyone was interested in her because of that..)
So we had her brought over about 4 days ago and had a room prepared for her. It had box forts, beds, blankets, a scratching post, litter box etc, everything she would need.
We've tried to follow instructions on the internet on how to make her feel comfortable. We've sat in the room with her, let her hear our voices, tried using long stick toys to interest her, and when we did make eye contact (she was hiding for days and we still haven't really seen her in full) we made sure to give her lots of 'kitty kisses' with our eyes. Most of these instructions however are for already domesticated cats, and there's not as much for semi-ferals, and the instructions we have seen for them are relatively the same, or have not shown to work yet.
She barely eats (but has eaten a little), and she is using her litter box. When she sees us she doesn't recoil. When we throw stinky toys toward her (apparently she loves stinky toys) she doesn't even flinch. I don't think she's scared, just incredibly upset about finally trusting her foster parent and then getting sent to a new home. She has basically been an inanimate object with moving eyes for the last few days. She will go an entire day and not change position.
At night she seems to come to life. That's when she eats and we hear her making a little noise and using the litter box. My partner said she heard her scratching at the door. The other night we put Daisy away in her room and let Tygra have access to our apartment to explore. She took full advantage and at 2am we were woken up by her knocking about in the living room. She was on Daisy's cat tree and then she saw me peeking at her and slumped as though she was doing something wrong, crawled onto the window sill, jumped down and ran past me back to her room and up onto the window sill in there. So she does like to explore.
Yesterday my partner tried bringing Daisy into the room and played with her to show Tygra we mean no harm and also let her see her little sister. She didn't seem to care, and Daisy didn't even see her. We're sure Daisy knows there is another cat in there as we swap blankets out and let them smell each others scent every day, and she's been a little startled by the sounds of Tygra in the litter box before.
We don't want to rush in and force them to meet each other and have it end badly. We wanted to go for the 'slow reveal' method, but Tygra literally won't move while we're around, so it's hard to actually progress in the methods.
I know it's only been a few days and this can take weeks in some cases, but Tygra has not shown any increased interest in anything at all. I want to try and let her smell my hand, but I don't want to invade her space and give a bad impression. She stares at us when we're in there, but doesn't recoil as though she's scared. I'd say she almost looks grumpy and miserable which is understandable. She's shut away in her small room all day.
We also bought a cat diffuser, but we're yet to see that take effect.
So what I want to ask is;
What would you all advise in this situation? Should we just give it patience?
Should we try introducing the two cats when so far the signs say that they really don't care too much about one another?
Is there any tricks to getting a semi-feral cat to coming out?
Hopefully you'll know something that'll help.
I'll add a picture of our princesses. Lily, my partner's previous kitty who sadly passed away a year and a half ago. Daisy, our naughty 5-6 month old kitten, and Tygra, our new daughter.
So, we caved in. We bought another cat. Daisy now has a big sister.
A bit of back story:
Her name is Tygra. She was a rescue cat that for three years had not had any interest in her at all. We saw her picture on a facebook posting and immediately fell in love with her. (We love calico tabbies). People seem to have turned a blind eye to her because she began her life as a feral. At 2 months old she was taken from a cat hoarders house (where the cats numbered in the hundreds). There were dead cats, decaying cats, cats with rotting body parts. There were garbage bins filled with cat and human excrement. Three of Tygra's siblings died and she had a respiratory problem that is all better now. For three years she was living with her foster parents who were cat rescuers and tried to re-home these cats. It took her a long, long time to trust her foster parents but eventually came and sat by them for pettings. The fact she wasn't going to be an immediate cuddle cat and needed work getting her to trust you put people off. (Though her story got into newspapers and she became semi-locally famous, and suddenly everyone was interested in her because of that..)
So we had her brought over about 4 days ago and had a room prepared for her. It had box forts, beds, blankets, a scratching post, litter box etc, everything she would need.
We've tried to follow instructions on the internet on how to make her feel comfortable. We've sat in the room with her, let her hear our voices, tried using long stick toys to interest her, and when we did make eye contact (she was hiding for days and we still haven't really seen her in full) we made sure to give her lots of 'kitty kisses' with our eyes. Most of these instructions however are for already domesticated cats, and there's not as much for semi-ferals, and the instructions we have seen for them are relatively the same, or have not shown to work yet.
She barely eats (but has eaten a little), and she is using her litter box. When she sees us she doesn't recoil. When we throw stinky toys toward her (apparently she loves stinky toys) she doesn't even flinch. I don't think she's scared, just incredibly upset about finally trusting her foster parent and then getting sent to a new home. She has basically been an inanimate object with moving eyes for the last few days. She will go an entire day and not change position.
At night she seems to come to life. That's when she eats and we hear her making a little noise and using the litter box. My partner said she heard her scratching at the door. The other night we put Daisy away in her room and let Tygra have access to our apartment to explore. She took full advantage and at 2am we were woken up by her knocking about in the living room. She was on Daisy's cat tree and then she saw me peeking at her and slumped as though she was doing something wrong, crawled onto the window sill, jumped down and ran past me back to her room and up onto the window sill in there. So she does like to explore.
Yesterday my partner tried bringing Daisy into the room and played with her to show Tygra we mean no harm and also let her see her little sister. She didn't seem to care, and Daisy didn't even see her. We're sure Daisy knows there is another cat in there as we swap blankets out and let them smell each others scent every day, and she's been a little startled by the sounds of Tygra in the litter box before.
We don't want to rush in and force them to meet each other and have it end badly. We wanted to go for the 'slow reveal' method, but Tygra literally won't move while we're around, so it's hard to actually progress in the methods.
I know it's only been a few days and this can take weeks in some cases, but Tygra has not shown any increased interest in anything at all. I want to try and let her smell my hand, but I don't want to invade her space and give a bad impression. She stares at us when we're in there, but doesn't recoil as though she's scared. I'd say she almost looks grumpy and miserable which is understandable. She's shut away in her small room all day.
We also bought a cat diffuser, but we're yet to see that take effect.
So what I want to ask is;
What would you all advise in this situation? Should we just give it patience?
Should we try introducing the two cats when so far the signs say that they really don't care too much about one another?
Is there any tricks to getting a semi-feral cat to coming out?
Hopefully you'll know something that'll help.
I'll add a picture of our princesses. Lily, my partner's previous kitty who sadly passed away a year and a half ago. Daisy, our naughty 5-6 month old kitten, and Tygra, our new daughter.
She's interested in lots of things, just not so much in you. That may come with time.
. 
