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- Nov 15, 2015
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Hello everyone!
A feral cat has lived under my house for about a month. We needed to get him out, he looked sickly and was about to die. He was blind in one eye, his ears were all torn up, and he had various cuts and scrapes all over his body. We fed him and slowly started giving him affection (the affection came after he started to trust us and would stop meowing at us). We decided to bring him into our home and call him ours.
He stayed in our house where we fed him an nurtured him. He slowly started to get used to us.
He has had a plethora of problems though. He is easily scared of everything. I live in an eight person house with five younger siblings ranging in age from 6-16 years old, plus two parents. This cat has developed a strong aversion to my Dad who was the one the cat trusted the most. The aversion spawned from my Dad taking him to get his shots and getting him checked out. After the first time, the cat was trusting of him a few hours after the ordeal. After the second, the cat will runaway when he sees him.
One of his other problems is that after he eats, he hurries and hides under my bed. And this is after he eats anything: one treat, his food, etc. And will not come out for quite sometime. He also has a strong aversion to anything that is not wet cat food, excluding treats. The only thing he has even tried is processed turkey. Other than that, no dice.
In addition to this, he is potty trained. We have a litter box just for him and he uses it. However, he pees on clothing that we have around the house even though he knows where his litter box is. He does this at least a couple of times a week. When we catch him about to commit the act, we give him a stern "No." It doesn't seem to be working though, because he still does it.
And last but not least, he will not play with anything but our hands. We tried giving him cat toys, tried the laser, tried sock on the hand, but he would only be scared of those things. He only will play when you are using your hand as the toy. He has extremely large claws and teeth from being abandoned for approximately 10 years (we found him with his flea collar still on, it was choking him. We got him seen at a mobile vet clinic and they aged him and guessed this). So it is extremely painful when he does this. I believe that a lot of his pent up energy is causing some of his skiddish behavior and we have no way of helping him.
I forgot to mention this earlier, but he is now horrified of going outside and only leaves our house for about five minutes, never leaving the backyard. He also never leaves my and my sister's room. He sleeps with my sister every night and only leaves to eat and use the bathroom.
I would really appreciate any advice or help when addressing these behaviors to help my cat feel happy and not be scared constantly. Thank you for your time!
A feral cat has lived under my house for about a month. We needed to get him out, he looked sickly and was about to die. He was blind in one eye, his ears were all torn up, and he had various cuts and scrapes all over his body. We fed him and slowly started giving him affection (the affection came after he started to trust us and would stop meowing at us). We decided to bring him into our home and call him ours.
He stayed in our house where we fed him an nurtured him. He slowly started to get used to us.
He has had a plethora of problems though. He is easily scared of everything. I live in an eight person house with five younger siblings ranging in age from 6-16 years old, plus two parents. This cat has developed a strong aversion to my Dad who was the one the cat trusted the most. The aversion spawned from my Dad taking him to get his shots and getting him checked out. After the first time, the cat was trusting of him a few hours after the ordeal. After the second, the cat will runaway when he sees him.
One of his other problems is that after he eats, he hurries and hides under my bed. And this is after he eats anything: one treat, his food, etc. And will not come out for quite sometime. He also has a strong aversion to anything that is not wet cat food, excluding treats. The only thing he has even tried is processed turkey. Other than that, no dice.
In addition to this, he is potty trained. We have a litter box just for him and he uses it. However, he pees on clothing that we have around the house even though he knows where his litter box is. He does this at least a couple of times a week. When we catch him about to commit the act, we give him a stern "No." It doesn't seem to be working though, because he still does it.
And last but not least, he will not play with anything but our hands. We tried giving him cat toys, tried the laser, tried sock on the hand, but he would only be scared of those things. He only will play when you are using your hand as the toy. He has extremely large claws and teeth from being abandoned for approximately 10 years (we found him with his flea collar still on, it was choking him. We got him seen at a mobile vet clinic and they aged him and guessed this). So it is extremely painful when he does this. I believe that a lot of his pent up energy is causing some of his skiddish behavior and we have no way of helping him.
I forgot to mention this earlier, but he is now horrified of going outside and only leaves our house for about five minutes, never leaving the backyard. He also never leaves my and my sister's room. He sleeps with my sister every night and only leaves to eat and use the bathroom.
I would really appreciate any advice or help when addressing these behaviors to help my cat feel happy and not be scared constantly. Thank you for your time!
