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
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
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