Before our cat Pepsi had her kittens, she was very fearful.* We got her as a three-month-old feral, and she's been slowly improving since then, but she was still very skittish and was especially afraid of hands and feet moving toward her, even though she loved being in bed with us and would sometimes come to us if we were sitting down. She's never been aggressive, just overly timid.
Fast-forward seven weeks: Pepsi now will let us walk toward her with only a shadow of her former skittishness. I can step over her when she's laying down. She has also become a total mooch for food scraps (we only give them tiny pieces of meat we are eating, or an occasional veggie if they want it). She just seems so much more relaxed.
My question is, is this normal? Will her personality return to its former (skittish) self once we find forever homes for her babies and have her spayed? Of course, we love her no matter what (she's my husband's baby, really), but for her sake it would be wonderful if she weren't so scared of eveything. Our house is so quiet; sometimes I wonder if she would have become less fearful if she had to adjust to a more active and noisy home.
Also, is there any way to reduce the anxiety of bringing her home after her spay appointment?
*Background: Until about five months ago, we had three adult cats. Ace (neutered male, 10 years old), Skittles (neutered male, 18 months or so), and Pepsi (female, 18 months or so), all indoor-only cats. (I had to cancel several spay appointments for Pepsi because I just couldn't get her into the carrier—I have the scars to show for it, too—and she was way too wild to allow loose in the car. Shortly before we found out she was pregnant, we got some sedative pills from the vet and will try to get her into the carrier using those when the babies are fully weaned.) Then my husband's 19-year-old sister came to stay with us for a while because she'd had an argument with their dad.
She brought her four-month-old kitten, Ozzy, with her. In a few weeks, she went back home; Ozzy didn't. As soon as we realized that he'd be living with us permanently, we made an appointment and had him neutered. He was six months old at the time, old enough, apparently, to father kittens.
Fast-forward seven weeks: Pepsi now will let us walk toward her with only a shadow of her former skittishness. I can step over her when she's laying down. She has also become a total mooch for food scraps (we only give them tiny pieces of meat we are eating, or an occasional veggie if they want it). She just seems so much more relaxed.
My question is, is this normal? Will her personality return to its former (skittish) self once we find forever homes for her babies and have her spayed? Of course, we love her no matter what (she's my husband's baby, really), but for her sake it would be wonderful if she weren't so scared of eveything. Our house is so quiet; sometimes I wonder if she would have become less fearful if she had to adjust to a more active and noisy home.
Also, is there any way to reduce the anxiety of bringing her home after her spay appointment?
*Background: Until about five months ago, we had three adult cats. Ace (neutered male, 10 years old), Skittles (neutered male, 18 months or so), and Pepsi (female, 18 months or so), all indoor-only cats. (I had to cancel several spay appointments for Pepsi because I just couldn't get her into the carrier—I have the scars to show for it, too—and she was way too wild to allow loose in the car. Shortly before we found out she was pregnant, we got some sedative pills from the vet and will try to get her into the carrier using those when the babies are fully weaned.) Then my husband's 19-year-old sister came to stay with us for a while because she'd had an argument with their dad.
