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- Oct 15, 2018
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Hi everybody! Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to let you know our situation to see if you have any ideas on how to improve it.
I am Sol, the one living in Japan with a feral family inside our house. Kato and the kittens came to live indoors with us since mid October 2018. The kittens, we believe were born in early September.
They live in our hallway, where they have their private space, but still see us often as our toilet is located there, even when we try to ignore them as much as possible (to prevent scaring them).
We replaced their old cage (it was falling due to their crazy jumping) and built a big cat tree, which they love. However one of the kittens (Mini2, who is the one who gets scare easily) feels more insecure now and normally hides under a pillow. But when HE (later on that) is in the highest floor he totally relaxes (he realized this very recently)
They keep coming to our living room daily when I'm around for a few hours while our cats nap. They love the given freedom and play and run, but still they haven't warmed up with us.
Sometimes we can pet them until they realize that nice thing is US touching them so they move away, sometimes they freak out a little bit. They HAVE NEVER EVER attack.
ISSUE 1: no routine
When I am not at home, the ferals cannot come to our living room, so they don't have a daily routine to come... and I travel a lot.
Last time I traveled for 10 days, when I came back the cats were not comfortable around me. Even now (2 weeks after my return) the Mini2 is still afraid of me and gets really stressed when I'm around, yesterday when I had to move him out of his hallway I almost killed him with the door and it was a very stresfull situation for all.
So it's impossible to mantain a routine with them. Sometimes it takes 2 weeks to reach something good, and then one day we go backwards two steps... so we are still not comfortable at all and at times we feel we are hurting them more than we are helping them. I will keep traveling a lot in the next three months.
ISSUE 2: not enough space
We have two resident cats who love humans but hate other cats (including each other). This has been giving us a lot of stress.
Kato and the kittens are IN LOVE with our oldest cat (10 yo - deaf - cancer survivor) and they tend to try to be close to her. Sometimes when she is sleeping they go and try to pet her or they lay down very near her.
At first we would be on top of her in order to prevent any attack, but the reality is she just hisses and goes away and has never attempted attacking them (I think she is too lazy to). She now doesn't hate them as much, but she doesn't interact with them (her mood changed a lot after the cancer treatment and she likes to be left alone, and doesn't like any cats), she simple tolerates them.
On the other hand, our youngest (9 yo) HATE THEM DEEPLY and she is the one we need to be careful with. One time alone she was allowed in the living room (with a leash) and she jumped directly to attack them. She is now used to be locked in the bedroom when the kittens come and has no problems with it, but again, I am starting to feel the ferals need their own house where they are not locked in different rooms all the time but they have freedom...
We tried our best as we considered this to be temporary, but our moving to a bigger place will take at least one more year and many factors do not depend on us.
ISSUE 3: fleas
A couple of months ago our oldest started having skin issues which is potentially bad for her as any wound can wake up her cancer. Many vet visits later and a bunch of bald spots on her; we found out we had fleas and she is allergic to them.
From that moment on we started treating the house for fleas, we applied fleas treatment to our resident cats but we haven't been able to treat the ferals, which of course means nothing will work.
We are currently vaccumming every single day, cleaning the house upside down with vinegar and have had two rounds of fleas bombs and every single day we are killing fleas by hand. Of course it's not enough. And it's started to affect our oldest' health and you have no idea how my legs look.
A potential issue: we were told both kittens were girls when we trapped them... but a couple of weeks ago I saw a couple of what's obviously balls... so Mini2 is A FREAKING BOY.
We already scheduled their fixing date, but we couldn't catch them and they got really stressed out. We have a new appointment and we will leave their old cage in their room for a week so they warm up again and we will try again. That day they will be treated for fleas as well.
( I am trying to use Food grade Diatomaceous earth, but due to the "food" laveling, Japan rejected the importation... so now I ordered from a Japanese provider (which is 10x more expensive) but it will take one more week to arrive :/
Seeking for advice:
1 - Is there anything else we can do to make our daily lives easier with them? We have at least one more year to go in this situation.
I feel no matter how much we try, as now it's affecting our oldest health I am reconsidering I have to focus on her.
2 - Is it time to relocate the cats with a house that would house them only them? I have been asking around but most people are not interested of course in semi-ferals. I call them semi-ferals because they have no issues with the household itself, living inside, the sounds of the house, etc... they simply don't like us.
I am starting to consider a no-kill shelter where they have more experience dealing with this situation but it breaks my heart to take them out of a house to go to an institution. The kittens are 10 months old by now.
I would keep Kato in a hearbeat, but I think Mini2 cannot be separted, so he has to go with his sister or his mom.
I read many succesful stories of ferals suddenly starting to ask affection if you ignore them enough... but the problem is we do not have the chance for them to be around us all the time... that's why I am asking to myself if it's not better to keep trying to relocate them. And if so, where?
Any advices???
Thank you in advance!!!!!!
Sol
I am Sol, the one living in Japan with a feral family inside our house. Kato and the kittens came to live indoors with us since mid October 2018. The kittens, we believe were born in early September.
They live in our hallway, where they have their private space, but still see us often as our toilet is located there, even when we try to ignore them as much as possible (to prevent scaring them).
We replaced their old cage (it was falling due to their crazy jumping) and built a big cat tree, which they love. However one of the kittens (Mini2, who is the one who gets scare easily) feels more insecure now and normally hides under a pillow. But when HE (later on that) is in the highest floor he totally relaxes (he realized this very recently)
They keep coming to our living room daily when I'm around for a few hours while our cats nap. They love the given freedom and play and run, but still they haven't warmed up with us.
Sometimes we can pet them until they realize that nice thing is US touching them so they move away, sometimes they freak out a little bit. They HAVE NEVER EVER attack.
ISSUE 1: no routine
When I am not at home, the ferals cannot come to our living room, so they don't have a daily routine to come... and I travel a lot.
Last time I traveled for 10 days, when I came back the cats were not comfortable around me. Even now (2 weeks after my return) the Mini2 is still afraid of me and gets really stressed when I'm around, yesterday when I had to move him out of his hallway I almost killed him with the door and it was a very stresfull situation for all.
So it's impossible to mantain a routine with them. Sometimes it takes 2 weeks to reach something good, and then one day we go backwards two steps... so we are still not comfortable at all and at times we feel we are hurting them more than we are helping them. I will keep traveling a lot in the next three months.
ISSUE 2: not enough space
We have two resident cats who love humans but hate other cats (including each other). This has been giving us a lot of stress.
Kato and the kittens are IN LOVE with our oldest cat (10 yo - deaf - cancer survivor) and they tend to try to be close to her. Sometimes when she is sleeping they go and try to pet her or they lay down very near her.
At first we would be on top of her in order to prevent any attack, but the reality is she just hisses and goes away and has never attempted attacking them (I think she is too lazy to). She now doesn't hate them as much, but she doesn't interact with them (her mood changed a lot after the cancer treatment and she likes to be left alone, and doesn't like any cats), she simple tolerates them.
On the other hand, our youngest (9 yo) HATE THEM DEEPLY and she is the one we need to be careful with. One time alone she was allowed in the living room (with a leash) and she jumped directly to attack them. She is now used to be locked in the bedroom when the kittens come and has no problems with it, but again, I am starting to feel the ferals need their own house where they are not locked in different rooms all the time but they have freedom...
We tried our best as we considered this to be temporary, but our moving to a bigger place will take at least one more year and many factors do not depend on us.
ISSUE 3: fleas
A couple of months ago our oldest started having skin issues which is potentially bad for her as any wound can wake up her cancer. Many vet visits later and a bunch of bald spots on her; we found out we had fleas and she is allergic to them.
From that moment on we started treating the house for fleas, we applied fleas treatment to our resident cats but we haven't been able to treat the ferals, which of course means nothing will work.
We are currently vaccumming every single day, cleaning the house upside down with vinegar and have had two rounds of fleas bombs and every single day we are killing fleas by hand. Of course it's not enough. And it's started to affect our oldest' health and you have no idea how my legs look.
A potential issue: we were told both kittens were girls when we trapped them... but a couple of weeks ago I saw a couple of what's obviously balls... so Mini2 is A FREAKING BOY.
We already scheduled their fixing date, but we couldn't catch them and they got really stressed out. We have a new appointment and we will leave their old cage in their room for a week so they warm up again and we will try again. That day they will be treated for fleas as well.
( I am trying to use Food grade Diatomaceous earth, but due to the "food" laveling, Japan rejected the importation... so now I ordered from a Japanese provider (which is 10x more expensive) but it will take one more week to arrive :/
Seeking for advice:
1 - Is there anything else we can do to make our daily lives easier with them? We have at least one more year to go in this situation.
I feel no matter how much we try, as now it's affecting our oldest health I am reconsidering I have to focus on her.
2 - Is it time to relocate the cats with a house that would house them only them? I have been asking around but most people are not interested of course in semi-ferals. I call them semi-ferals because they have no issues with the household itself, living inside, the sounds of the house, etc... they simply don't like us.
I am starting to consider a no-kill shelter where they have more experience dealing with this situation but it breaks my heart to take them out of a house to go to an institution. The kittens are 10 months old by now.
I would keep Kato in a hearbeat, but I think Mini2 cannot be separted, so he has to go with his sister or his mom.
I read many succesful stories of ferals suddenly starting to ask affection if you ignore them enough... but the problem is we do not have the chance for them to be around us all the time... that's why I am asking to myself if it's not better to keep trying to relocate them. And if so, where?
Any advices???
Thank you in advance!!!!!!
Sol