Chester is hiding

[catfella]

Hi, I'm very happy to have found this forum.

My daughter and I just adopted a male cat from our local animal shelter yesterday. His name is Chester. He is approximately 15 months old and came into the shelter with his mother and siblings pretty much at birth, from what we were told. He immediately took a liking to both of us. Chester has the most gentle disposition and is incredibly sweet. At the shelter, he jumped right into my arms and let me hold him and pet him for 30 minutes while we walked around and filled out the paperwork.

He is in reported good health and actually didn't put up "too much" of a fight getting into the carrier. The claws came out a little, but he did not scratch at or bite at anyone. I was shocked just how gentle of an animal he is.

We brought him home. I set up a new litter box for him on the landing of the basement stairs and put out food and water in the same general area. We also put some cat toys and a mini cat tower in the same area.

Well, the reason for my post is that Chester is pretty much moving from hiding place to hiding place throughout the house. He occasionally makes an appearance to peek at us from the stairs and then disappears. I have gently approached him in his hiding places and offered some low-key play with toys and treats. He played back "a little" and a few times willingly took treats from my hand and ate them.

My concern is that I see no activity in the litter box yet and I'm unsure how to proceed from here. Do I leave him be? Do I approach and interact, but not touch? Do I gently pick him up and plop him in the litter box?

I'm at the point where I know I can either start to build positive associations or negative associations.

Any advice will be extremely appreciated!

- Chester's Dad

 

[stephanietx]

Congratulations on your new addition!!

It's very common for kitties to hide and not eat or use the box for a day or two when they are in a new home.  Their whole world has been turned upside down and they are scared and nervous, not knowing what's happened and what's going to happen.  Be patient and let  him come out on his own.  I'm thinking that he will eat and explore at night when the house is quiet.  If he's not confined to one room, I would do that.  You can leave him in the bathroom or a bedroom with all the amenities (food, water, litter, toys).  Go in and visit him frequently.  Talk to him calmly and quietly.  Let him come to you, don't pick him up.  Each time you go in, take some yummy canned food for him to enjoy.  Let him come to associate you with something pleasant.  Get some toys on wands/sticks to use to draw him out and play with him.  Leave some soft music playing for him when you're not in the room.  He'll come around quickly; he just needs time to adjust.
 

 

[mrblanche]

Even with fairly normal adult cats, we advise confining the cat to a fairly small area (one room, a bathroom, something like that) for a day or two where they can't hide from you, they can easily find their food, water, and litter box, and there won't be accidents or disappearances or anything.  It sounds to me like you may need to do that, expecially since it sounds like this cat is used to the confinement of a shelter cage (or even a single room).  It will take him a while to know that all those big people and devices are not actually trying to kill him and eat him.
 

 

[sivyaleah]

We're experiencing the same thing right now.

We brought home our adopted very lovable DLH tortoiseshell girl Saturday.  Her name currently is Elmora ("Mora") but we aren't nuts about it so we're going to rename her as soon as she lets us know what her name really is lol.

She's somewhere between 3-5 years old, so they say (we suspect younger, she's very small but that could just be her size too).  We found her on PetFinder, and the liason for the organization that was fostering her felt she would be a good addition to our current one cat household, based on what we shared with her about our resident cat, and us.  Mora, had been found on a local street, being cared for by some people, but also has some background of being abused by children.  In spite of that, she is very sweet and loving, so the abuse didn't imprint on her deeply it seems other than making her cautious, and needing for you to prove your trustworthy to her before she will come out to you.

Thus far, she's been very timid about coming out from under the bed/dresser, however, once out she craves physical attention from us.  She has been coming out on her own to eat meals and drink.  We were concerned about her litter box situation because she had not used it for the first day and a half being here.  After getting her to a point yesterday, where we thought she felt somewhat more confident about being around us, but not ON top of us, she seemed to be able to "let it go" enough to use the box.  Our resident cat clued us in lol.  It was the first time he actually had some realization there was "someone" in that room, I think, other than smelling her on us.  He alerted us by growling and hissing at her door haha.

Things are going slow with her, timid is the word for her.  But we can see the potential in her as she is very trusting in us, exposing her belly for rubs all the time, making good eye contact, and she reaches out with her paw to remind us to pet her more.  Her appetite seems fine; she's been grooming herself now a bit.  Now if we could just engage her in some playtime, that would be a huge step forward.  So far, she is still too cautious to relax enough or, we haven't found the right thing yet to get her involved.  She doesn't want to move from your side yet, so that's going to be a difficult hill to climb I think.

We have no intention of bringing her out for a few days at least.  She's obviously still too overwhelmed unless she is right in our arms or near us. And Casper, needs more time to acclimate to even her scent being in the house and on us.  I have off until 1/2, so we have plenty of time to take it slow.  The room she is in isn't needed any time soon either.  I'd rather make sure she feels confident in her current surroundings before introducing her to the rest of the house.  As for Casper, he has moments where he seems to really mind her being here and others, not so much.  Last night she was meowing a lot, but he just ignored that completely.  We're going to start doing some scent exchanges in the next day or so - and start giving him some meals near her door, so we can help him start associating her scent with good stuff.  

 

[catfella]

Thanks to all who replied. Chester is doing much better now! As I type this, he is pacing around the room and watching the TV and meowing at me.

To help him with his transition, I did a few things in order to be proactive. First, I put out a second litter box. One in the original location on the basement stairway landing and another near his favorite "hiding" spot in the basement itself. I set his kitty tower, his food and water dishes, several home made cat toys (hanging from the ceiling, hehe!), and some carpets for him to scratch on all in that area. In doing so, I was hoping to turn his "hiding" area into more of a kitty apartment! It worked, as he came out from behind my exercise equipment and migrated right into his new domain.

The past three days have been interesting. Several times per day, I simply approach his area slowly, talking to announce my arrival, and bring a toy and treats. I lay down on my side in a non-threatening stance and get him to engage in just a little play, I then make a certain sound and give him a treat. He does take them directly from my hand. I then sneak a little bit of petting him on his head before he goes off to do his own thing.

It took him about one-and-a-half days, but he is now using both litter boxes. He uses the one in the basement during the day and the other one during the night while he "stalks" throughout the house attacking invisible enemies apparently. He is also eating and drinking!

I tried to give him several places to "hide" near his kitty apartment.

My next project is the giant kitty tower I will undoubtedly be constructing. I'm sort of a Tim the Toolman type, so I don't need much of a reason to build something.

He still doesn't come all the way to me or seek to be petted or touched. But he is now making his presence known in the same room that I am in and occasionally walks past or meows at me. This is definitely progress. He has also found another hiding spot between the couch and chair (I sleep on the couch) and for the past two nights, he has sort of camped out there just a few feet from my head.