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Posted Thursday, April 22, 2010
Some cats just seem to be born scaredy cats from day one. Usually though, that’s not the case.
Just like with People, animal behaviorists say that the critical period for socialization of kittens is 2 - 7 weeks of age; the age at which their personalities are forming. During that period of time is when their attitudes and
personalities relative to people, even caregivers, determines whether they will see humans as scary and to be avoided whenever possible or as friendly, caring beings with the cat’s best interests at heart.
It even seems true that, like painting, putting an extroverted cat and a shy cat together will result in each cat’s personaliy migrating toward the other cat’s, each becoming more or less like the other.
Changing an adult
cat’s behaviors from scaredy cat to loving lap cat is a big job requireing lots of patience if the kitten was abused or otherwise felt fear and discomfort during that formative peiod of their life when their personalities formed. This is most of the reason why feral cats (definition) are so afraid of humans, in fact: Most have never been handled at all by a human, especially second and following generations.
The Scaredy Cat will
often be nowhere to be seen whenever company comes over; it has found what it considers the best hiding place in the house and hides there, evading discovery and all people until the household returns to normal. Often, in a multi-cat household, this particular activity will eventually extend to the other cats too, depending on which have the strongest personalities. As you know “kids talk”
One of our own cats came to us
like that. She was feral and found at a local eatery, trapped in their fat-trap out back. The local SPCA rescued her and, always one who loved the underdog, we adopted her.
The first week here we never laid eyes on her although we gave her a good “warming up” period in a cage to get used to everyone and not have to put up with the other animals “greeting” her. Eventually everyone was either friendly or ignored each other, so we let
her out of the cage, whereupon she promptly ran around the house for a couple of hours and then disappeared, never to be seen again for several days.
We knew she’d found a place in our bedroom though, so we left food and water out for her. It disappeared periodically whenever no one was around, so we knew she was eating. We kept ignoring her and eventually she started looking out the door at us, watching us. To keep from writing a book about her, which
I am prone to do, let’s just say she is a textbook case of what this page is about.
Probably one of the worst things for a Scaredy Cat is for people to find here when she’s hiding. Cats need a safe place to hide and infringing on that space removes some of the safety factor they feel they need.
I had to “save” a feral kitten once who had gotten herself trapped in a furnace fan stored out in our
shed where Mon had decided to raise her family. Finally I got her into an area where all she had to do was turn around or back out, and we left her to figure it out. But about 3 hours later her mom actually came to get us and led us back to the shed. Her baby was still there, squealing and squealing. Mom sat a safe distance from me as I got down and reached into the cage and, not being able to turn the kitten around because of the hold it had on the fins, I finally
pulled her tail until I could get my fingers around her hips and break her hold on the fins, finally pulling her out easily. The kitten briefly let me cuddle her and even purred a bit as I held the her, until she realized where she was, I guess. As she turned into a meat-grinder, I gently put her down in front of her mom and the two of t hem took off to the dark corners of the shed like bullets shot from a gun! But mom became less shy and would let us see her as long as we
didn’t stare at her or move toward her. A couple more weeks and she started letting us see her kittens, too; there were 4 of them.
ANYway, once everyone respects the shy cat’s hiding place/s, she’ll usually a little braver. Over time, our Scaredy Cat became comfortable sitting on the bed instead of under it. And after more time, she would come out of the bedroom and sit in the living room watchin us – as long as we pretended we didn’t see her.
When Scaredy Cats get up the courage to go into a room full of people, the best thing to do is to still ignore them, not praise and pet them as you might expect. Paying any attention to th em will usually result in them returning to their hiding place and maybe even starting over again.
This is why when a non-cat lover visits, the Scaredy Cat will often go to
that person’s lap and want to settle down, or try to climb up their pant legs on the pretense of being held. That person paid no attention to the cat, so the cat felt comfortable meeting and discovering what it might about the person. It perceived no threat from them.
A cat needs to feel in control so it might take several “visits” to where the people are (ignoring him/her) before they can become comfortable around people. How much of a
relationship a cat wants with its human counterparts varies greatly from cat to cat but if the cat feels in conrtol of the situation, it will react in positive ways.
I mentioned feral cats earlier: do NOT take it that I mean feral cats can be tamed in this manner. Most feral cats will never make good house cats, although with proper methods and training for the owner, it is sometimes possible.
The feral cats we
have live in our shed and basement as they please. They tolerate us and even like to be held on occasion, but it HAS to be at their bidding, not ours.
Feral cats (definition) can be dangerous and carry diseases so if you are untrained in their handling, I would not suggest doing so. The mom is semi-friendly and occasionally comes into the house but she doesn’t allow her kittens to come in here. We think she’s the first
generation feral: Some idiot dropped her off on the roadside because she was pregnant. She had her kittens and eventually ended up here, half dead and close to death, unable to feed her kittens. We have no idea whether there were more kittens or not or if there were what happened to them. I was amazed she managed to get those 4 here when I saw her condition
So, we nursed all back to health, once mom would let us see and touch her kittens; all 5 of them were
severaly malnourished by that time. We fed mom super-vitamins and special vets-food and as we prepared to feed the babies, she began letting them suckle again so we were able to just monitor them after that. She had been feeding them all along, but was so malnourished she had little milk to give them and no energy to go hunting.
One of the kittens has already succumbed to a motor vehicle so only three remain now, and mom. We’ve had them all spayed/neutered thanks to our local SPCA so, if they decide to run away or to continue to protect our shed and cellar from mice and other rodents, they’re welcome to do that too. Now that the weather has turned nice we don’t see much of them but they all return for their evening meals each day, so apparently they’ve adopted us rather than start hunting for their own food again.
It’s been a lark watching the family and kittens grow up and the many methods mom still uses to control the kittens and thell them to go hide or not, supper’s here, and many other things. I still wish we could take them inside the house, but that’s not possible - and they don’t want to be here. So they may not have long lives compared to a housecat, but they are living happy lives as long as they have us in their back pocket to appreciate them. They’ve shown us over and over now that they’re grown that they appreciate us, too.
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