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Re-Homed 8 Year Old Cat
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we have just re-homed an 8 year old female cat whose owners were going abroad and were not able to take her. she has found herself a safe hiding place and we have given her her own space for eating and toileting away from the rest of the house where she can be undisturbed. i have noticed she does come out of her hiding place and explores a little during the night when we are in bed. she is eating and using the litter tray with no problems. how long is is likely to be before she feels safe to venture out when we are around. she is quite a shy cat anyway i am told but was friendly with her previous owners when she wanted to be. i am wondering what is the best thing to do over christmas when the house will be full of noisy kids. we know a really good cattery but wonder if taking her away from the house when she is just getting used to it would distress her even more. her 'safe' space is one of our spare bedrooms which we will need to use on christmas night.
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Sorry, missed the fireworks problem.
Perhaps feeding area could move to your room for Christmas - she will eat anywhere if there is food and she doesn't feel threatened.
They don't usually like toiletting where they eat, so perhaps move the litter tray now to by the back door, utility area or somewhere else. Do you have garage access from the house?
Perhaps feeding area could move to your room for Christmas - she will eat anywhere if there is food and she doesn't feel threatened.
They don't usually like toiletting where they eat, so perhaps move the litter tray now to by the back door, utility area or somewhere else. Do you have garage access from the house?
you are not wrong about cats being escape artists, both getting in where they are not meant to be, and getting out from where they are meant to be!! we are being ultra careful to keep the bedroom window shut when we are not in the room and looking all around when we open doors. fortunately our grand-children are very used to doing this as they have pedigree show cats that are not allowed out so they know to be careful. we can only do what we can do, she is chipped and has a collar/id also. when she comes out of hiding i may carry her outside and try to put her scent around our garden so that if she does get out she has some familiar scent to refer to. i am immensely grateful for all the interest shown in this query and i will post our progress.
sorry missed a couple of responses before reposting. the food and litter tray are as far apart as possible in the room with things inbetween, she appears to be ok with this. we have a downstairs bathroom and as soon as she begins to venture out a little more (we only got her 3 days ago), i plan to gradually move the litter tray bit by bit down the stairs until it is in the bathroom which will be its permanent place. i also plan to do the same thing with the food, into the hallway and then into the kitchen where it will stay. not sure whether to do these things both at the same time or food first, litter tray next. just at the moment she is spending most of her time under the bed, or occasionally on top of the bed in the room where the food is (different bedroom). the only time she ventures downstairs is in the middle of the night, and i have only seen her on the stairs so am not sure how far she goes. it may be that she is doing some exploring without our realising it. i am going slowly though because she is shy anyway and don't want to rush her too much.
many thanks for all the input. molly is now definitely coming around. she is showing all the signs of learning to trust us, head butting, rolling over and exposing her belly, and twice she has jumped up and joined us on the bed instead of staying under it. the food and litter tray have now been moved to their permanent places downstairs and she has had no problem finding them. she still spends hours asleep under the bed but from past experience of cats, this is quite normal whether they are in a familiar environment or not. they are basically just lazy and like any warm, comfortable and quiet place to chill out. she still doesn't come downstairs into the living area when we are around but we have heard her in the hallway while we are watching the tv so she is obviously just taking it slowly and being cautious, again normal for a cat. she has become much more friendly towards us and i think by christmas she will probably be integrated into the household. having said that, she is not used to children, never has been as her previous home had no children, so the plan to give her our room for safety, keep the kids out at christmas probably still stands.
as an update to this thread it looks as though this cat has decided she will keep us. she is becoming very friendly, jumping on the bed to be stroked, and coming out more and more from her hiding place. sadly, despite the brand new scratching post we bought her, she persists in scratching the carpet on the stairs. not quite sure how to stop this. i dont want to shut her in anywhere, in any case she would probably scratch something in there, is there anything i can do to encourage her to scratch the post, and not scratch the carpet. i have attached catnip mice to the post, strangely enough she had no interest in catnip at all. i realise she has to scratch as its in a cats nature to do so but why do the little devils persist in scratching what you dont want them to.
murph shredded the wallpaper on the stairs and ignored the scratching post, one thing i have got is door mats, the hairy ones and she loves scratching those, also as she is an indoor cat now, i do get the vet to clip her nails and this seems to have slowed her down a bit
glad she settling with you now, murph is an ab monster but i wouldn't be without her
glad she settling with you now, murph is an ab monster but i wouldn't be without her
thanks for the link. i think we have an old one of those somewhere around i'll get it out and see. although the base of the scratching post is something similar. i know this is a problem our last cat scratched the carpets and next doors one of them scratches the furniture and the other the stair carpet. seems to be a bit of an endemic problem. hopefully when she starts to go out in the new year she might find suitable scratching opportunities out there. she was very much an outdoor cat in her previous home and they didn't mention scratching carpets. then again they wouldn't say because they were so keen for us to take her!!
