New nervous cat

Hello,

I'm new here and looking for a bit of advice from anyone who can help

I adopted a new cat yesterday and he is very nervous poor thing and has spent all day under the sofa. He got quite used to me visiting him in the rescue centre and was getting friendly but we seem to have gone back to square 1 since he came home. He has not let me get close enough to pet him at all today.

Does anyone have any advice to help him settle in?

Put on some soothing music, put his food and water where he can see it and get to it easily, and his litterbox in view. Then just leave him be - he will come out in his own time.

What you are experiencing is a perfectly normal cat reaction to a very stressful situation, he will settle in fine don't worry. I brought home an adult Oriental yesterday and he spent around 9 hours hiding under the bed - and they are a notoriously confident and curious breed, 9 hours is actually a really short adjustment time for an adult cat! Your new boy will come out when he's good and ready

I'm taking it you probably brought him home and just let him out of the carrier in the middle of the room. Whenver you bring in a cat, you should try to confine them to one room (bedroom/bathroom) for a few days with litter pan, food and water.

Then slowly let them explore the rest of the house under supervision. They need to establish a "safe" place so if they get scared they know where to run. By letting them have the entire house, they have no clue as to where is safe. Right now your "safe" place is under the couch where he can hide.

What I would do is to get the cat out and confine in one room and take it from there

We did actually keep him in the kitchen at first but he cried so much when we went into the living room that we decided to let him in there too - he still has not found any of the upstairs.

My last cat was totally the opposite and demanded to be allowed to see all of the house in the first hour of being at home.

Oh well, patience is needed. He has appeard for dinner and then retreated back to the sofa!