Taming a feral 2 year old kitty boy

I am new to this forum and glad to have found it.
My husband and I have been feeding a feral cat boy for approx. 6 mos. He is a Lynx Point Siamese and developed a relationship with my husband who did the twice a day feeding. Sweet Pea used to wait close to the feeding area and just look at my husband while sharing blinks. We decided to trap him and rehab him. On Dec 22nd 2009 we trapped him and took him to the vet to be fixed and vaccinated and brought him home the same day. We put him in a crate in a separate bedroom. A local cat rescue group provided assistance and guidance through the process. They recommended we do not leave food in the cage but offer it to him in a bowl while keeping our hand on the bowl. This may not have been the right thing to do with him. On Dec 24th he attacked and bit my husbandâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s gloved hand and managed to get out the cage and in a frantic pace he started literally flying on the walls. My husband managed to catch him and put him back in the cage.
This incident traumatized Sweet Pea tremendously. We proceeded the same morning to get some wood planks and started isolating him at the back of the cage so that we could clean his litter box and put fresh food/water. We use these planks everyday nowThe problem is that we think he is terrified of our hands. He constantly watches them and once of a sudden he growls and snarls. We are petting him with a back scratcher and he loves it but he watches the hand that holds the back scratcher and is very aware of it, I can see it in his eyes. We stopped leaving the food for him in the cage to eat this past weekend. Instead we put the wooden planks and isolate him towards the end of the cage and then my husband slides the bowl of food (wet and dry) under the bottom plank and puts his finger on it. The first two days of this feeding procedure Sweet Pea did not eat at all but then hunger took over. In a few days my husband intends to put two, then three fingers on the bowl etc. Sweet Pea always comes and eats but hisses and sometimes spits when we move towards the cage, and itâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s usually associated with the movement of our hands. We try to keep them in fist shape when we are around him.
Sweet Pea allows himself to sleep in our presence. A few times he looked playful and curious and when my hand was close enough he reached out with his paw and tapped me, then sniffed my hand. He also tapped my husbandâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s hand the first time we forced him to come and eat. Yesterday he accepted to play with the cat dancer and after that he almost rolled on his back showing off, then he started to groom himself in front of me. We know we have to make him understand our hands love him. He is very vocal. We have four other kitties in the house and we petted 2 of them in the doorway for him to see itâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s ok to be a kitty in our house. We visit him 5-6 times a day. I have a home office and I am the main caretaker. I spend time with him, just being in the room and talking to him, scratching if he wants me too etc, try to get him interested in feathered toys etc. We have classical music for him, a soft light, Feliway and lavender sachets. Can you please advise us what to do next, how to break his fear of our hands? We love him very much. He is approx. 2 years old.
Thank you!

Are you still wearing gloves? If you are brave enough, maybe getting rid of the glove will work. Or try a different color glove. Or try hand feeding only with no bowl option.

I have no expertise btw, only my experience with my 3 ferals. They were willing to be hand fed even when they were otherwise hissing and growling but they were kittens (10-12 weeks) who thought only of eating and nothing else.

Thank you for the reply.
No, we are not wearing gloves anymore. The simple sight of them was freaking him out. We have not used them since the biting incident which was 3 weeks ago. We intend to feed him directly from the hand instead of the bowl, but we were thinking to do it gradually by getting him used to hands on the bowl first.

Put a dollop of chicken baby food (just chicken, no onions) on the end of a spoon and offer it to him - through the bars of the crate is fine.

Pretty soon, you will be able to put it on your fingertips and he will literally be eating out of your hands. They love it that much. We had two ferals who were WILD and it took about three weeks - slowly, slowly a day at a time. They still don't allow too much petting but I can stroke them some if I have chicken baby food on my other hand.

I agree that changing your gloves will help as well - he may not recognize you hand as being the "bad thing" that scared him so much.

Try that first but the chicken baby food really works!

How wonderful of you to rescue this boy!

I'm a little confused - is he in the cage now all the time or is he out of the cage and in the guest bedroom? If he's in the cage - roughly how large is it?

I don't really know what to recommend, because we've never socialized a feral this way. We always release them into a "safe" room that's ready for them with litter boxes, food, water, scratching posts, and lots of hidey places. If you don't already have any cats, I always recommend releasing them into the bedroom, because sleeping people are so non-threatening. But when released, if they bonk out, they bonk out, but they usually calm down and find a place to hide. We use a totally different method, which is very "hands off" for older cats.

I'll post links to a couple of threads that I think you may find have useful information... but I'll explain why we use the approach we use.

The way I learned to see it, the process of socialization is basically about building trust. I've come to think of it like this. Imagine you're a young child, and you've been on your own yet managed to survive. Your social skills are nil, because you've never gone to school and don't live with a family. You've been living outside, so you're completely unfamiliar with a home. Somebody comes along and cages you - and sends you to China where you are to be adopted. You're poked and prodded by doctors, probably medicated, and sent home with your new parents. Everything is strange - it looks strange, it smells strange, you don't understand Chinese so you have no idea what anybody is saying, your food is different, your bathroom is different - you have no idea what is happening to you. You don't know what play is because you've never had toys. You don't know what love is, because you've been on your own for so long. You have no idea if you're to be these people's next meal or what the heck is going on.

It's scary if the loom over you, it's scary if they reach out at you, it's scary if they walk toward you - it's all scary.

If you're allowed to kind of hide in your room, and all they do is provide you with food, things to drink, and keep your bathroom clean - and they don't try to comb your hair or hug you - you'll come to trust they're not trying to hurt you.

Things that reinforce this? Your food shows up at the same time every day. They don't force you to eat while they're there at first. When you do eat when they're there, they bring you treats you especially seem to like and don't force you to eat treats you don't like. They don't stare you down, they don't force themselves on you in any way. When you start to venture out - they don't react.

All of these things reinforce that you can trust them. When you walk over to your new mom to "check her out," she lets you. She still doesn't try to hug you or love on you - she lets you touch her hair or her arm, or just sit down next to you. The next day, you feel more confident about coming out and sitting down next to her. She brings you treats and provides you food all the time, and you like that! So you sit next to her. When she finally reaches out to you, it's not to grab or constrain you... it's with your favorite candy in her hand.

So... I don't see it at all as having the cat come to associate hands as being good things - to me, it's about allowing kitty to slowly become comfortable in your home, to make whatever space his territory, to make him feel safe in that territory, to give him the time he needs to learn that you are completely non-threatening, and to come to associate you with good things, happy things, yummy things... and let him come to you in his own time - and to finally pet him when he's shown you he trusts you.

So this way, it seems it's the complete opposite of the approach you were advised to use. ??? My suggestions usually include completely ignoring the cat (pretty much) until the kitty indicates he's ready - whether that's a day, a week, a month, or a year.

I know that many rescues do use different, more hands on methods, and I'm sure they work too! Most rescues don't take older ferals for socialization, because they do take a long time to come around, and foster space is precious - and they need to focus on getting cats adopted, not building a long term relationship, so they need different methods.

But I'll find links that have info related to the build-trust-on-kitty's-time frame method if you're interested.

Other than that, I guess the only thoughts I have for you are... to help this process along, do spend as much time as you can in the room, but don't spend all the time in the room with the cat paying attention to the cat. When spending "ignore the cat" time in there, get down on the floor, and don't face him/his cage. Sit sideways to it. Read out loud, sing, sew, work on a laptop, fold laundry.... whatever.

Do know that looking a feral cat in the eyes is a sign of aggression. Whenever you look toward kitty, look at his forehead, or over his head. The slow blinkies is really good - as is "looking" at him with your eyes closed.

Do you have a sweaty t-shirt in his crate? Leaving treats for him on a sweaty t-shirt, or putting one down to put his food down on is also very helpful. All of these help the kitty come to associate your smell with good things.

Doing things like feeding him, cleaning his litter box, &etc. - whatever you can - on a very regular schedule also really helps. The regularity is comforting.

So... sorry! I didn't mean to write a book here. But I hope some of it's helpful.

I'll go find those links now.

Hope you find these helpful.

http://www.thecatsite.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=210430

http://www.thecatsite.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=206271

You're doing a wonderful thing!! And you've found a wonderful resource for help along the way. You'll get a lot of wonderful advice on here.

I'm also working on socializing a feral kitty - I started the long "Trapping for a 2nd Time" thread about a feral kitty who had been in my neighborhood a couple years before I got her inside. She's been inside 2.5 months now and has a spare bedroom to herself. I'm taking things really slow with her - trying to go at her speed. If she was a kitten, I would be more aggressive about it, but since being inside is such a huge change and I need to gain her trust, I'm being really slow.

It sounds like things are going pretty good with your kitty. I would just be sure you're not coming off as threatening - stay low to ground, don't move too fast towards kitty, don't look kitty in eye, keep hand in non aggressive position (palm down). And just let kitty come to you to investigate. Maybe try the food on a spoon trick to see how that goes - so there's something in between you and scary hands.

Another thing is to maybe start bringing treats to get kitty to associate you with good things - food Food (and trust/routine, which are related to food ) seems to be the way to the heart.

All that said, I am very new to this, but these are my thoughts after reading your post.

What a lucky kitty

Thank you all for the very nice replies and for the encouragement! This is a huge emotional rollercoaster for him and for us. We are fully aware that taming him is a monumental task of patience.

LDG, thank you for the links, I will read them today. Below are the answers to your questions and also questions that we have for you.

Yes, he is still in a cage and your comparison to a homeless child sent to China makes perfect sense. The cage measures 36L X 27H X 24W. He is a pretty big boy, has a very long body. I have been wondering everyday about his fear associated with being in the cage. Perhaps like you said this is the reason everytime we enter the room or move towards the cage, he hisses- he feels threatened and exposed with nowhere to go.

We have 4 other kitties. Two of them talk to him all the time and try to go and see him when we go in the room. So, we can not put him in our bedroom, it would have to be the room he is in now. We petted them in the doorway for him to watch how comfortable the are with us.

For the past 6 days we did not leave food for him in the cage but brought it to him three times a day morning, noon and evening. He loves wetfood, so he gets wetfood and dryfood at every meal. Joe has his hand on the bowl under the wooden planks and Sweet Pea comes and eat (the first two days he did not come to eat, the hand on the bowl scared him but I guess hunger convinced him). I understand your approach is not related to the kitty getting to trust the hands. How do you recommend we feed him to ensure some transition in the process? What I am asking is how do you recommend we do the feeding process once we let him free in the room? Do we continue to bring the food to him at the same times in the same manner, hand on the bowl and wait for him to come and eat because this is what we have been doing lately? Do we bring the food in the room and wait for him to come and eat without us being close to the bowls? Do we leave the food in the room and walk out? We do not want to confuse him and add to his anxiety. Should we put the food in his cage where is used to eat?

The other question is how do we handle the case of him having to go to the vet in case he is not feeling well. How would we trap him?

At the vet he was checked for FLV/FIV , had the first immunization shots, was dewormed and neutered and had a dose of Revolution. He laso had hist teeth checked and they are fine and he had his nails trimmed and of course they are long again He is supposed to go back for the second immunization shots but we are thinking against it since it would be very traumatic again. Did you take your ferals back to the vet for the second immunization shots? We did not use our regular vet since she was on vacation and we did not want to wait 2 weeks- the weather was supposed to get very cold and it did. We took him to a vet who handles a lot of ferals.


We will make sure that he will have some hiding spots, a kitty tree and two litter boxes in the room. Do you think there is a chance he will still bonk out and fly on the walls once he is free, although he has been in the room for 3 ½ weeks?

Should we be concerned that he will dig at the vent trying to get out? What do we do about this?

He has been using the litterbox very well, do you anticipate based on your experience any regression on his part with this?

We do not look him directly in the eye, only brief contact with blinks and then we look away. We speak very softly to him and we just look away. We sigh a lot and also mimic the process of grooming our faces. We do spend as much time as possible in the room, just being there- he loves it when we read to him. Both my husband and I work, I have a home office my husband works for a local company. We try really hard to balance the work, caring for him and for the other 4 kitties (they have become needier since he has been home and we donâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t want to upset them either).


Thank you so much for the guidance and care, we are very grateful!!!
I will keep you updated and hopefully figure out how to attach a photo of him.

For hand feeding when they were loose in the room, I sat down on the floor, put a towel over my lap and loaded up my fingers with food. The towel came in handy to give them a platform to stand on and to give me something to wipe my fingers on. They calmed down significantly when my tame cat came into the room to see what was happening.

Of the 3 cats, 1 became tame in about 2 weeks, 1 got better in about 8 weeks after I started forcing myself on her (picking her up, petting etc) and 1 is slowly getting better, after 6 months, after I stopped forcing myself on her and let her come to me. (she asks to be pet non-stop as long as I am in bed, I put my feet on the ground and she stays out of reach) After the initial terror, they kind of clue you in on what works.

Early on the toy called Turbo Track really helped me to get closer, physically, to them. I sat on the floor and rolled the ball around on the track. They would stampede over me to get to the ball.

I'm so sorry, I really don't know the answer to any of your questions! We've never had a cat caged for any length of time, so I really don't know what happens if you let him out.

If those are inches, I would definitely either invest in a large dog crate, a multi-tier cat cage, or I'd let him out into the room.

If you choose to go with the latter, I would definitely have curtains tied up (we used to push them over the top of the rail) and make sure there's nothing breakable out.... but we never made an issue of the cat eating while we were there. In fact, we let all of our rescues free feed on dry food, and we'd feed one wet meal a day (evening) and put that down on a sweaty t-shirt (to get them associating our scent with good things). Initially, we'd just leave it out for them to eat and leave the room.

We leave the crate we use to transport to the vet out. A few days before you need to get him to a vet, start feeding him in there. Then it's a matter of closing the door on the crate (usually). Sometimes people have had to use live traps again to get the cat back to a vet.

But really, at this point, if you let him out, when it comes to feeding him, I think you should experiment with what feels comfortable to you and see how things go! Our technique uses getting the cats associating our scent with good things (like food) and just used to our physical presence... and we just give them whatever time they need to come out of their shells.

If you have floor vents (like me) that you can lift off easily? YES the cat may try getting out that way.. It happened to me once

If necessary, use carpet tacks to hold them down.

Hi Everybody
We decided to let Sweet Pea free in the room. So today we worked on the room and it's finally ready for him. He has a very nice multilayer kitty tree with sisal posts and bare wood posts (which I think will remind him of scratching outside on trees), a very nice hooded double door bed and a box with a blankie inside. There are two litter boxes available for him. We will serve him dinner in about an hour and before we leave the room we will open the door crate for him to investigate at night. I am so nervous for him, my heart is in my throat. We told him what will happen and asked him to not be scared. I will post again tomorrow with updates! Please say a prayer for him.
thank you
Marina

Hope its not too late for a suggestion - prop the crate door open with something. When you come in tomorrow, make a bit of noise just before you open the door - that way, if he wants to seek a hiding place, he will have time. And if the hiding place is the crate (where he's been safe for a couple of weeks), he'll be able to get into it without the door interfering.

All else should be as normal as possible tomorrow.

Good luck!

Great suggestions!

Sending mega vibes to Sweat Pea!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

...and plenty of hugs to see you through what I'm sure will be a worrisome night!

Just catching up with threads. I'm glad you are letting him out of the cage, as I have seen that approach used with kittens but never adult ferals. Also the recommendation of placing your hand by the food bowls is also something used with kittens, not adults.

I socialized 3 adult littermates at the age of 2. What worked best for me was to simply not force myself on them and let them come to me. Let your presence be known but ignore him at all costs.

If the box you placed in there does not have the opening facing a wall, do that to give him a place to "hide" where he feels he cannot be seen.

When you are in the room with him, grab something to read, sit on the floor and read out loud to him. The preference is to sit on the floor because you are not towering over him - something that threatens feral cats. Likewise don't stick your face in his "space" (the reason why cages don't work with adult ferals), as you are threatening him.

Keep a supply of stinky clothing worn by either you or your husband inside his safe box (or wherever he chooses to escape to in the room).

If you have a bed in the room, put the mattress on the floor - don't give him a bed to hide under as an option.

Your eye blinks are perfect. Feeding on a schedule with wet food is perfect.

Originally Posted by LoveWhiskers

Hi Everybody
We decided to let Sweet Pea free in the room. So today we worked on the room and it's finally ready for him. He has a very nice multilayer kitty tree with sisal posts and bare wood posts (which I think will remind him of scratching outside on trees), a very nice hooded double door bed and a box with a blankie inside. There are two litter boxes available for him. We will serve him dinner in about an hour and before we leave the room we will open the door crate for him to investigate at night. I am so nervous for him, my heart is in my throat. We told him what will happen and asked him to not be scared. I will post again tomorrow with updates! Please say a prayer for him.
thank you
Marina

Click to expand...

I see you live in Stow.. We are just about neighbors. I live in Chagrin Falls!! for you and kitty..

Everything went well
Last night after we left the room he was very quiet. Then when I went to bed I heard him jumping on the kitty tree. He used to cry and call all night when he was in the crate but last night he only called a couple of times and he played, and played, and played. We heard him running and jumping and having lots of fun exercising those legs. Then at 5:30 he stated calling for food- no wonder, all the running that he did made him hungry.
At 6;30 which is his breakfast time, we tapped the door gently and waited before going in. The room was quite and no sign of Sweet Pea. The litterboxes were both used. And then we heard two chirps “I am here, I am here†coming from the carrier
We put out the fresh food and water, cleaned the boxes and talked gently to him pretending we did not know where he was.
Thank you so much for all the caring and good wishes. Sweet Pea is definitely much happier and so are we
Last night I was a bit concerned because we did not prop the crate door…
We will rotate the box so the entry faces the wall- the first chance we get…There is no bed, just a large couch in the room with no space to go behind or under.
Yes, Chagrin falls is very close...I will post later with more news…
Marina

I've just read up on this thread, and your last post had me clapping my hands and cheering out loud! Then I burst into (happy) tears, geesh.

So thrilled what you have done for and are doing for this cat. You are true Heros. What is his name?

What have you decided about the boosters?

YAY Sweet Pea!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh that is fabulous! He must have loved being able to stretch those legs!

The only thing I'd consider doing right now is adding a few more "hidey places" in his room - boxes on their sides with their flaps down are great. Also, a table (we just used a folding card table) with cloth draped over it with a few inches between the bottom of it and the floor works well too.

Please keep us posted?????????