Frustrating setback!

ebrillblaiddes

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I have two cats; their background is that they had little human socialization as kittens. Panther is cuddly with people she's used to; Squirrel often doesn't even let me pet her but she explores new places before her sister. They're both EXTREMELY skitty around new people--I didn't see them for a day or so after I got my air conditioning at my old apartment worked on.

My parents were in town yesterday, and stopped by my place for several hours in the afternoon and evening. My cats didn't even let themselves be seen the whole time they were here. My mom didn't shut up the whole time (this is typical of her; once, one of my cousins timed her during an evening of watching TV, and the longest she was quiet was 8 seconds), and my apartment isn't that big and it's a fairly open floor plan, so there was no place for them to get away from the sound of her. I'm guessing they were semi-traumatized by the experience, because after my parents left, the cats acted like they were even afraid of me. Squirrel even straight-up hissed at me; she hadn't done that since she was a kitten, when I caught her. Even when BF drove out here for a weekend once, they didn't react this extremely--they found hiding places and only came out at night or when we weren't around, but they didn't act traumatized afterward. Of course, we cleared out of the place during the day a lot, and were comparitively quiet, so, the cats got some peace.

They're doing better today...Panther climbed on me and woke me up this morning, and Squirrel is curling up for catnaps out in the open now. It's just so frustrating for one day to be so hard on them.
 

darlili

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I've a friend with cats in their teens - when 'noisy' people come over, you never see those cats, and it does take a while for them to recover.
 

cheylink

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Chances are that not only were they stressed by the sounds but the scent of strangers. Even after your mom left, you still had her scent as well. It's best to let them warm back up to you, come out in their own time as you did. In the future it would be better to separate them in a room when you have company if they are this stressed about visitors.
 
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