- Joined
- Sep 11, 2016
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Hello cat-loving folks! Very happy to have found TheCatSite and enjoying my first perusal of all things cat here.
I share my house with Bear who I adopted almost 10 months ago from the local cat shelter. She is almost 4 years old now. Although her breed wasn't known at the shelter, doing a picture search and reading descriptions of behavior I'm confident she is a mixed breed with dominant Maine Coon traits in body and personality. She didn't inherit the largeness a lot of Maine Coons are known for but she's not exactly small either. Her fur looks black until sunlight or bright room lights show gorgeous deep dark brown tones, subtle hints of dark muted grays and swirls of black seeming to be the prominent top coat color. When I first adopted her, I thought Bear was entirely black! After she'd been home for a few weeks, she took a sun bath in the living one day and then I noticed the gorgeous color gradations in her fur coat. Her eyes are a magical golden color.
Bear is the first cat I've had who isn't a lap cat! This took some adjustment on my part. We've reached a moderately happy compromise in that I may walk around with her for a minute or so before she begins doing air gymnastics to get away. That's okay. When she first came home, she would only tolerate about 5 seconds of being held so a whole minute is a real treat.
The shelter gave me an interesting history on Bear. She'd been owned by the same young woman from birth. The woman brought her to the shelter the first time because she moved and the new landlord wouldn't allow pets. When she moved again several months later, she came back to the shelter to adopt Bear. Now the young woman had a new boyfriend who didn't like cats. Bear was returned to the shelter again several months later, which is when we'd met. At 3-1/2 years old (when I adopted her), she'd spent over 18 months total living in the shelter and it had definitely taken a toll on her. Bear's coat was dull and almost coarse feeling. She was very much a loner cat with only one neighbor kitty near her the whole 3 hours of my visit. She navigated the large room with about 20 other cats carefully, sticking to the perimeter to go get food and drink before quickly returning to her perch near her one friend.
I'd actually gone to the shelter to adopt a different cat which I'd found online. It was an 18-month-old cat which was predominantly white with brown and black markings closely resembling a Turkish Van cat. Vans are so affectionate and friendly. I've had two others and enjoyed them immensely and was there to see if this one would enjoy coming home with me. It turned out the Van cat was Bear's neighbor on the perch!
Funny thing was I didn't really click with the Van cat. She was pretty and friendly but I found myself drawn powerfully to Bear. At one point in the visit, I was even considering adopting both of them. The only catch was the shelter staff and the written information about Bear, and my own observations all pointed toward Bear probably needing to be the only animal in her new home.
Bear was just plain 'ole sad and scared when I brought her home. But I've adopted several animals in my life and experience told me a few days or a week and we'd be just fine. I'm great with cats and they tend to feel very safe with me quickly.
That's not the way it went with Bear, though.
For the first 5 days, Bear never left my bedroom even though the door was wide open to the rest of the house. She had easy access to the bathroom through my bedroom and would use her cat box, eat and drink, but other than that 'lived' under the bed. For 5 days. I'd never experienced this before with a cat. But then all of my adopted cats had come from either foster cat homes or in the form of a neighborhood stray cat who actually adopted our family. None had spent half of their lives in a cat shelter.
Finally on day 6, Bear ventured into the living room where I was working. (I work from home.) She sat about 6 feet away and set up camp to stare at me. I said 'hi' and then continued working on the laptop like normal. An hour later she jumped up on the ottoman where my feet rested. Bear again set up camp to stare at me until I made the move to get up at which point she bolted back under the bed for the rest of the day.
On day 7, I decided to move her food and water bowls into the kitchen so that she had to leave the bedroom and would have more chances to choose hanging out with me. By the end of day 7, she seemed happy to move back and forth between bedroom and living room which was nice.
The rest of every acclimation has taken months. At first, it was incredibly disheartening to me. I confess momentarily thinking about returning her to the shelter such was the depth of my disappointment in her seeming unfriendliness. But I knew she'd experienced a lot of rejection and probably some mild abuse once her old owner had a new boyfriend. She was way more hyper vigilant than any cat I've ever had.
Now, it feels like Bear is very comfortable with me and happy, too.
I think I'm writing so much because this experience with Bear has given me a different perspective on pet adoption. Many times shelters don't even have as much information about an animal as I was given about Bear. We don't know what an animal has experienced before we adopted them. Were they starved? Were they emotionally traumatized and/or abandoned? Had they gone from a good home with food provided to being abandoned with no regular safe shelter or ready food and fresh water? Has their health suffered from exposure to bad weather? So many challenges they may have faced. And it can take time and a lot of patience to help an animal once again feel safe and at home in new surroundings. If they were emotionally traumatized and perhaps even physically harrassed (as I suspect Bear was), their transition into new surroundings requires even greater patience. In many ways, my experience of taking care of a very ill cat was far easier than the first few months with Bear.
Here are some of the sign posts I've chronicled along the way to encourage myself that progress was occurring:
1. Bear transitioned from a cat who didn't even meow the first 3 weeks she was here (!) to one who walks up to me and starts meowing at several points during the day.
2. Bringing out the broom would cause Bear to run and hide for at least an hour. After 6 months, I could bring it out and sweep but she would cautiously move away. Now I can sweep very near her and she keeps eating or whatever without seeming concerned.
3. Bear would only let me hold her a few seconds at a time. Now we are up to about 1 minute! She's also begun climbing on my lap every few days for a few minutes at a time. For most of her time here, she spends a big part of each day sleeping on the ottoman next to me while I work. That is lovely.
4. Her first 5 weeks here, Bear would eat, drink, use the litter box and sit somewhere she could observe me. She wouldn't play. She wouldn't lay in window sills to enjoy the sun or the view. (She's an inside only cat per the cat shelter.) I bought her cat toys which she seemed afraid of whenever I tried to play with her. About week 6 we started playing with a toy together. Now she gets a toy from her box and carries it over to me announcing she wants to play! Amazing change.
5. Bear would not sit in the window and I could tell she wanted to but she was so afraid. After about 3 months here, I decided to rearrange all my houseplants that were near windows and create a green 'screen' of sorts with them. So she can sit in the window sill but also be kind of hidden. The first day I put her up there, she loved it. Now she will sit in one of 5 different window sills throughout the day enjoying different views. Intuitively this felt really important to me to give her more spaces to hang out and to cater to her climbing instincts.
6. After 5 months or so, Bear started napping on my bed during the day. Before that she'd run and hide if I walked in the room and she was on the bed, despite the fact I've never yelled at her about it or tossed her off the bed. Now I often wake up to find her sleeping by my pillow. Or in the morning, the moment she hears me stirring she will jump up on the bed and start purring hello and head bumping for petting.
7. I got my first head butt about a month ago. You KNOW that made me happy!
8. Bear started wrapping around my legs when waiting for her food about 3 weeks ago.
Now it seems as though Bear is fully her free, happy self every day. I enjoy her deeply and am glad raising my own children gave me a lot of patience to spare for Bear when she was in need of it.
This is my gorgeous Bear cat in a painting. One of her ears was overclipped when she was captured for neutering but we made it perfect in the painting!
Here is a live picture of Bear luxuriating next to me while I work.
I share my house with Bear who I adopted almost 10 months ago from the local cat shelter. She is almost 4 years old now. Although her breed wasn't known at the shelter, doing a picture search and reading descriptions of behavior I'm confident she is a mixed breed with dominant Maine Coon traits in body and personality. She didn't inherit the largeness a lot of Maine Coons are known for but she's not exactly small either. Her fur looks black until sunlight or bright room lights show gorgeous deep dark brown tones, subtle hints of dark muted grays and swirls of black seeming to be the prominent top coat color. When I first adopted her, I thought Bear was entirely black! After she'd been home for a few weeks, she took a sun bath in the living one day and then I noticed the gorgeous color gradations in her fur coat. Her eyes are a magical golden color.
Bear is the first cat I've had who isn't a lap cat! This took some adjustment on my part. We've reached a moderately happy compromise in that I may walk around with her for a minute or so before she begins doing air gymnastics to get away. That's okay. When she first came home, she would only tolerate about 5 seconds of being held so a whole minute is a real treat.
The shelter gave me an interesting history on Bear. She'd been owned by the same young woman from birth. The woman brought her to the shelter the first time because she moved and the new landlord wouldn't allow pets. When she moved again several months later, she came back to the shelter to adopt Bear. Now the young woman had a new boyfriend who didn't like cats. Bear was returned to the shelter again several months later, which is when we'd met. At 3-1/2 years old (when I adopted her), she'd spent over 18 months total living in the shelter and it had definitely taken a toll on her. Bear's coat was dull and almost coarse feeling. She was very much a loner cat with only one neighbor kitty near her the whole 3 hours of my visit. She navigated the large room with about 20 other cats carefully, sticking to the perimeter to go get food and drink before quickly returning to her perch near her one friend.
I'd actually gone to the shelter to adopt a different cat which I'd found online. It was an 18-month-old cat which was predominantly white with brown and black markings closely resembling a Turkish Van cat. Vans are so affectionate and friendly. I've had two others and enjoyed them immensely and was there to see if this one would enjoy coming home with me. It turned out the Van cat was Bear's neighbor on the perch!
Funny thing was I didn't really click with the Van cat. She was pretty and friendly but I found myself drawn powerfully to Bear. At one point in the visit, I was even considering adopting both of them. The only catch was the shelter staff and the written information about Bear, and my own observations all pointed toward Bear probably needing to be the only animal in her new home.
Bear was just plain 'ole sad and scared when I brought her home. But I've adopted several animals in my life and experience told me a few days or a week and we'd be just fine. I'm great with cats and they tend to feel very safe with me quickly.
That's not the way it went with Bear, though.
For the first 5 days, Bear never left my bedroom even though the door was wide open to the rest of the house. She had easy access to the bathroom through my bedroom and would use her cat box, eat and drink, but other than that 'lived' under the bed. For 5 days. I'd never experienced this before with a cat. But then all of my adopted cats had come from either foster cat homes or in the form of a neighborhood stray cat who actually adopted our family. None had spent half of their lives in a cat shelter.
Finally on day 6, Bear ventured into the living room where I was working. (I work from home.) She sat about 6 feet away and set up camp to stare at me. I said 'hi' and then continued working on the laptop like normal. An hour later she jumped up on the ottoman where my feet rested. Bear again set up camp to stare at me until I made the move to get up at which point she bolted back under the bed for the rest of the day.
On day 7, I decided to move her food and water bowls into the kitchen so that she had to leave the bedroom and would have more chances to choose hanging out with me. By the end of day 7, she seemed happy to move back and forth between bedroom and living room which was nice.
The rest of every acclimation has taken months. At first, it was incredibly disheartening to me. I confess momentarily thinking about returning her to the shelter such was the depth of my disappointment in her seeming unfriendliness. But I knew she'd experienced a lot of rejection and probably some mild abuse once her old owner had a new boyfriend. She was way more hyper vigilant than any cat I've ever had.
Now, it feels like Bear is very comfortable with me and happy, too.
I think I'm writing so much because this experience with Bear has given me a different perspective on pet adoption. Many times shelters don't even have as much information about an animal as I was given about Bear. We don't know what an animal has experienced before we adopted them. Were they starved? Were they emotionally traumatized and/or abandoned? Had they gone from a good home with food provided to being abandoned with no regular safe shelter or ready food and fresh water? Has their health suffered from exposure to bad weather? So many challenges they may have faced. And it can take time and a lot of patience to help an animal once again feel safe and at home in new surroundings. If they were emotionally traumatized and perhaps even physically harrassed (as I suspect Bear was), their transition into new surroundings requires even greater patience. In many ways, my experience of taking care of a very ill cat was far easier than the first few months with Bear.
Here are some of the sign posts I've chronicled along the way to encourage myself that progress was occurring:
1. Bear transitioned from a cat who didn't even meow the first 3 weeks she was here (!) to one who walks up to me and starts meowing at several points during the day.
2. Bringing out the broom would cause Bear to run and hide for at least an hour. After 6 months, I could bring it out and sweep but she would cautiously move away. Now I can sweep very near her and she keeps eating or whatever without seeming concerned.
3. Bear would only let me hold her a few seconds at a time. Now we are up to about 1 minute! She's also begun climbing on my lap every few days for a few minutes at a time. For most of her time here, she spends a big part of each day sleeping on the ottoman next to me while I work. That is lovely.
4. Her first 5 weeks here, Bear would eat, drink, use the litter box and sit somewhere she could observe me. She wouldn't play. She wouldn't lay in window sills to enjoy the sun or the view. (She's an inside only cat per the cat shelter.) I bought her cat toys which she seemed afraid of whenever I tried to play with her. About week 6 we started playing with a toy together. Now she gets a toy from her box and carries it over to me announcing she wants to play! Amazing change.
5. Bear would not sit in the window and I could tell she wanted to but she was so afraid. After about 3 months here, I decided to rearrange all my houseplants that were near windows and create a green 'screen' of sorts with them. So she can sit in the window sill but also be kind of hidden. The first day I put her up there, she loved it. Now she will sit in one of 5 different window sills throughout the day enjoying different views. Intuitively this felt really important to me to give her more spaces to hang out and to cater to her climbing instincts.
6. After 5 months or so, Bear started napping on my bed during the day. Before that she'd run and hide if I walked in the room and she was on the bed, despite the fact I've never yelled at her about it or tossed her off the bed. Now I often wake up to find her sleeping by my pillow. Or in the morning, the moment she hears me stirring she will jump up on the bed and start purring hello and head bumping for petting.
7. I got my first head butt about a month ago. You KNOW that made me happy!
8. Bear started wrapping around my legs when waiting for her food about 3 weeks ago.
Now it seems as though Bear is fully her free, happy self every day. I enjoy her deeply and am glad raising my own children gave me a lot of patience to spare for Bear when she was in need of it.
This is my gorgeous Bear cat in a painting. One of her ears was overclipped when she was captured for neutering but we made it perfect in the painting!
Here is a live picture of Bear luxuriating next to me while I work.
