On 5/25/2024 1:56 PM, cshenk wrote:
jmcquown wrote:
I'm about to bring home a semi-feral kitten. She lives somewhere
outside the office building where I work. A friend who works in the
building started feeding her at the top of the back stairs earlier
this year. I've contributed food and make sure sure the bowl and
water bowl are filled when my friend isn't around.
The little cat is a Tortie who appears to be under a year old. We
know she was part of a TNR program because she has a clipped ear
which indicates she has been spayed.
The cat, I call her Tessa (and she answers to it!) will come running
when I call her. She's skittish, yet craves human affection. She
rubs up against me (sheds all over my jeans!). She loves to get
scritches on her neck and on her head by her ears. I sit outside on
my lunch break and we spend time together. Then she goes back down
the stairs to have a wash and goes back under the bushes into the
shade to take a nap.
I'm going to meet up with this friend tomorrow and we're going to get
Tessa into a carrier and I'm going to bring her home with me.
It's a long weekend so Tessa will have some time to get used to her
new indoor home and to me. My question is, any suggestions how to
litterbox train a young semi-feral cat?
Jill
Hi Jill! She *may* not be fully feral. Reacting to humans like that
isn't an initial feral response. She may have had a human home as a
kitten then gotten tossed out. I'd tend to follow basics of working
with ferals here and see how it goes.
By now, she's home with you I assume?
Tactics for ferals. Deliberately make 'hidey holes' in every room. Do
NOT let her out, short of the house burning down. She'll holler a lot
about it, but ignore it.
The hard one. Ignore the cat unless she comes to you deliberately.
She needs to learn the house and that it's safe and that you won't grab
at her all the time. Pull sofas out a bit to create caves behind them.
Don't try the self-scooping electric cat pans. Just use the clumping
type and put a few around, say, under a coffee table where she will
feel protected but can escape easily.
Don't freak out when she's hiding. They do that alot. She will come
to you for happy scritches in time, but be patient.
Good luck with Tessa!
Thanks, Carol. No, she's not home with me. Francesca and I spent over
two hours yesterday trying to coax her into a carrier after putting her
food in it. Tessa was having no part of that. It occurred to me we
probably should have had the carrier with food & water inside sitting at
the top of the landing all last week so she would get used to it being
there and going into it to eat & drink and not find it threatening.
Hindsight is 20/20.
Francesca managed to catch a totally feral cat there last year using the
same tatics (Babbo - she took him home with her). Tessa is smarter than
that. She would not try to eat if either one of us was sitting next to
the carrier. If we were sitting someplace away from it she would go in,
grab a bite of food and take it down a couple of steps to eat it. It's
pretty clear she knows what a carrier is, perhaps due to having been
trapped in order to be spayed & released.
Francesca is an esthetician and she had an appointment with a client so
after the first 30 minutes it was mostly me sitting outside in over 90°
temps trying to coax Tessa to go in and eat. Excessive heat makes me
feel ill. I couldn't sit out there anymore.
Francesca was working until 8:00 last night said and if she caught Tessa
she'd keep her in her office overnight and call me. She didn't. She
had appointments there today and said if she caught her she'd call me.
I haven't heard from her.
It started storming like crazy just after I left yesterday. It's been
storming here all afternoon today. Lost power for almost an hour.
Another storm is about to blow through. It's that time of year here.
Anyway, I had really hoped I could bring Tessa home so she wouldn't have
to be out in the nasty weather anymore. I had also hoped we could do it
this weekend because I don't normally work on Friday's and Monday is a
holiday. A nice long weekend for her to get acclaimated!
YES, I'd let her hide and explore as she saw fit. Get used to her new surroundings and to me. No way in hell would I have let her go outside,
no matter how much she cried. That would totally defeat the purpose.
Had I gotten her home I had planned to open the carrier in my bedroom
(which is where I always fed Persia and later Buffy), right in front of
the filled food & water bowls. She'd likely have hidden under the bed
but with the food/water right there...
I know all about ignoring the cat and letting her figure things out. I
sure as heck wouldn't be trying to grab her! I'd call her name from
time to time while sitting here at the computer or while in the other
room reading a book, but other than that, I'd leave her be. She craves
human attention enough she'd have eventually come looking for me. :)
She also would have run off again but I know she'd be checking to see
where I am.
As for litterbox training, the litterbox is in the area where the tub &
toilet are in the master bathroom. I had hoped to call her into that
room and scratch in the litter with my hand to show it to her. I read
several articles that said for a semi-feral, associating eating with the
litter box is a good way to help them figure it out.
We're going to leave the carrier where it is at the office and feed her
from it go from there. The nice long weekend to introduce her to her
new home would have been advantageous, though.
Jill
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