Four days ago we brought two twelve week old exotic shorthair kittens, straight from the breeder where I know they were kept in a pet cage for the majority of the time.
At first they were absolutely terrified and hid under the sofa for the first cuple of days. The last couple of days they have been busy exploring and love to play, especially with each other!
They are eating and drinking well and using their litter tray.
My only worry is that they are still very skittish and obviously frightened and hate either me or my husband going near them, let alone try to stroke them or pick them up and run as far away from us as they can but they will eat from our hand. The only time they allow us to come close to them briefly, is when they are on their cat tree at a high level. However, one of them will purr loudly when you stroke her but the other one doesn't purr at all, which makes me think even then she is still scared.
We have tried the Feliway plug in and catnip spray which does seem to have helped slightly/
Can anyone advise on the best way to get them both to trust us and allow us to handle them? I am worried as we will need to take to them to the Vets soon and as things are, there's no way we would be able to pick them up to get them in their carrier!
I'm presuming this is all fairly normal behaviour but if anyone can offer any advice or reasurrance, it would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you.
At first they were absolutely terrified and hid under the sofa for the first cuple of days. The last couple of days they have been busy exploring and love to play, especially with each other!
They are eating and drinking well and using their litter tray.
My only worry is that they are still very skittish and obviously frightened and hate either me or my husband going near them, let alone try to stroke them or pick them up and run as far away from us as they can but they will eat from our hand. The only time they allow us to come close to them briefly, is when they are on their cat tree at a high level. However, one of them will purr loudly when you stroke her but the other one doesn't purr at all, which makes me think even then she is still scared.
We have tried the Feliway plug in and catnip spray which does seem to have helped slightly/
Can anyone advise on the best way to get them both to trust us and allow us to handle them? I am worried as we will need to take to them to the Vets soon and as things are, there's no way we would be able to pick them up to get them in their carrier!
I'm presuming this is all fairly normal behaviour but if anyone can offer any advice or reasurrance, it would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you.