Cinnamon is inside

[Meowmee]

I had made an appointment for him about three weeks ago at a low-cost clinic that treats ferals and I trapped him about 5 PM yesterday. He was in the drop trap overnight, had his appointment this morning and now he’s in a small bathroom in the larger bedroom with Fred. My cameras are no longer working I can’t see short videos on their cloud-they want me to pay a lot of money- so I don’t know if Fred has gone to see him yet.

I’m just wondering if I’m making a mistake here and I should’ve kept him in the trap longer to help him calm down. He was sedated of course for his exam.

They said he’s pretty healthy, unfortunately he also has fiv like Fred. He’s overweight I said I thought he had been losing weight, and I guess he gained it back. He is 13 pounds.
Just wondering if the bathroom is going to be good enough to get him into a more calm tame state and maybe become touchable. He’s got a little cave bed on top of the heater that I was using in the shelter outside, a floor scratcher, some toys, and I’m going to give him some food and water soon. He had all his vaccinations yesterday and they said to come back for boosters but I don’t know how I will get him back In the carrier now.

They also gave me some wormer to give him just in case, because he didn’t poop overnight at all and barely ate anything except before he was trapped. When I get some poop I will test it too.

So far Fred is not touchable at all although he is interacting more but he has not come into my room for a while. I have a feeling when I have left the door open and I am sleeping etc. he may be sneaking around downstairs though but I don’t have cameras on the stairs or downstairs. I’m just so worried I’m going to end up with two untouchable cats and it’s gonna be hard to get them to DVM etc. so far there has really not been hissing or growling… Quinn hissed very softly at the trap set up because I let them in briefly just to see what was going on.

 

[Furballsmom]

Hi
You have time, right? The boosters don't have to happen for a while yet?

 

[Meowmee]

Hi
You have time, right? The boosters don't have to happen for a while yet?

Yes they are supposed to be in 3 weeks I think. They said I can just bring him in for the shots he doesn’t have to have an exam or pay for that I think they’re $30 each so I will probably just do it there instead of bringing him to my regular Dvm. The thing is I’m gonna have to get him to go back in the carrier. I don’t know if I can do that- maybe if he is treat motivated.

for Zena I never got him his boosters but he’s going to go get his shots soon and he will get another FELV prolly and the rabies. He was vetted and neutered at my regular dvm and he was not calmed down enough to get boosters and I was not going to sedate him for that.

I don’t know the history of any of these cats, if they ever had a shot in their life before being dumped etc. but cinnamon had rabies and distemper when I first did his TNR in 2015.

So, so far he’s meowing at me and talking to me, he’s not hissing- he tried to hide in the carrier once when I came in but his bum was sticking out…he tried to go into the cave bed maybe, on the heater, but it collapsed so I guess it’s too small for him… and he was lying on it when I went in there the last two times.

He does not seem to have eaten very much…he knocked over all his water and he knocked The garbage can over which I put in the bathtub over so I cleaned it all up…it wasn’t that bad. While he was at DVM they also trimmed his claws for me and cleaned his ears.

I gave him some treats when I was in there one of the visits I kind of threw some of them towards him, and some of them I just put on his food dish. I forgot to check if he ate them last time or not. I will try to take a photo next time if it doesn’t scare him too much. If he’s treat motivated maybe I can get him in the carrier that way I’m hoping.

 

[Furballsmom]

I don't know how much of an option this might be, or even whether it would be helpful, but do you have a vet who would come to the house?

 

[rubysmama]

Thanks for bringing Cinnamon inside. And the others, as well. How many have you brought inside, and are they all from the same colony?

 

[fionasmom]

Thank you for helping Cinnamon. I have always used a bathroom for all ferals who were brought inside, as opposed to leaving them in a trap, even a larger one like a drop trap.

 

[Meowmee]

Thank you for helping Cinnamon. I have always used a bathroom for all ferals who were brought inside, as opposed to leaving them in a trap, even a larger one like a drop trap.

Here is the set up I have. Just see the pictures. He seems to have regressed a bit because at first he was meowing to me, and he was sitting on the bed with the heater… but now he is hiding in the corner, and he’s not talking to anybody. I just let Merlin in to see him and Merlin sniffed him… he didn’t do anything, just kind of looked at him…but Quinn attacked Merlin after he came out, real screechy growls and spits/ hisses etc. I guess it is referred aggression.

Quinn is so strange, being a meezer. I don’t know what to do with him because he literally was playing patty cakes and sniffing cinnamon through the screen door, like they were best friends, but now he’s apparently very, very upset that cinn is inside apparently, and I know now after what he just did to Merlin there is going to be lots of growling, and hissing due to the new cin smell inside.

I’m kind of worried that he has not eaten very much only a tiny bit and he keeps knocking things over, he was up on the countertop and knocked a bunch of stuff over. And he has not use the litter box at all. That is the most alarming thing for me because when I was in there with him talking to him and doing stuff I smelled P but there was no P in the litter box and no P anywhere else that I could see so I wonder if he emitted a little bit of pee smell while I was there?

I had put a lot of new food early this morning before I went to sleep and he hasn’t eaten any of it or drink any of the water. And then I put a little bit of tuna cat food and he hasn’t eaten that yet either. I’m kind of wishing I had just kept him in the drop trap for a week because that’s the way I got them trained the litter box properly. When they come inside.

I hope Quinn growling etc. is not going to cause more regression. Unfortunately when I was in there earlier in the morning and I was cleaning up, I dropped his water bowl, and it shattered all over the bathroom floor so I had sweep etc., it took me like 20 minutes at least. He did not seem to get very startled, he just stayed in the corner there, and watched me and he hasn’t hissed or growled at me at all. When Merlin sniffed him he went right up to him and sniffed his rear end but he did not attempt to sniff his nose, and cinnamon didn’t do anything… he just sat there.

The litter pan is in the shower.

I know now that Fred has been going near the bathroom door or in that area to look at the trap which is still in the closet directly opposite from there. Because I got my camera working again, I made a mistake, and had turned it off so I had to turn it back on to see the videos. So I’m wondering if he’s communicating with cinnamon through the door and he recognizes his smell still. They were best buddies outside for years.
I also gave cinnamon the wormer first dose yesterday and he had three vaccines, so, he could possibly still not be feeling very well also.

 

[Meowmee]

Thanks for bringing Cinnamon inside. And the others, as well. How many have you brought inside, and are they all from the same colony?

So far I have taken in Merlin, in 2019, Zena, last December, Fred in June and now Cinnamon 2 days ago. I tried to take in Giorgio and Jezebel as well but they both passed away they were too ill by that time. I tried to save them but it was too late. Jezebel had oral cancer which they discovered after her enucleation, and Giorgio had something terrible going on which they never figured out… I just decided it was time to let him go.
I was thinking about Giorgio a lot when I was outside the other day doing stuff with the shelters and doing the water. He loved the kitty tube shelters I bought, and then he was the first to use the one I built with the heater when he started to get sick. He would always run out of the kitty tube shelters if I came near them…but he was touchable outside …he came up to me after a few years and started letting me pet him. So I think he could’ve been living inside too. He was such a beautiful cat, a brown tabby, very large and very dominant- he used to swat the raccoons growl at them, and chase them away from the food, lol.

It feels weird not to have the cats out there, there are no cats now to feed but I did put a little plate of cat food for the opossum and I’m still putting the water in the heated dish for the other animals I don’t know if I should keep doing that or if I should stop in the summer.

The real colony was Giorgio, Fred, and Cinnamon, and then they also were friendly with Jezibel but she never really hung around with them except in the front sometimes by the cars and they would often eat together in the front. are used to only feed them in the front under a ledge by the windows. Jezebel always showed up first but sometimes George or Fred would be there and they would let her eat first. Then I started putting a separate plate out for everybody


Then Merlin showed up and they tried to be friends with him but he was too dominant. He started taming himself and hanging out with me in the garden when I was working on things in the summer and then he bit me so I had to take him into quarantine him etc. and then I tamed him etc. and he stayed with us.

Giorgio was the first to show up, he showed up with a collar and was abandoned obviously, eventually after many years the collar fell off but he still always had a mark on him where the collar was for a long time.
Then next was a Little Cat, I had her inside for two weeks but she seemed very unhappy and I decided to let her back outside as I couldn’t really keep her at that time because I had my other four cats and Wizard was very ill.

I only saw her once again after that I thought she had passed away and a year later she was eating at the door at 5 AM and she looked very thin. I still feel so sad because I’m sure she must’ve passed away by now. When LC showed up my father saw her first, and he thought she was pregnant. That is how I started feeding, to try to get her… before that I would just do TNR on cats and I did not feed them. Some of them ended up getting adopted by people in the neighborhood.

But by the time I saw her and ended up doing her TNR she was no longer pregnant, and someone else had already TNR her, but even though I sent a photograph of her ear, no one there could tell for sure if it was an injury or an ear tip but they discovered that when they tried to do the spay at a feral tnr clinic. Jezebel was also ear tipped and TNR before she showed up here. She used to hang around with the guys in the front they would like to sit on the cars and lay in the sun. At one point I think Merlin chased her away from the food and Fred and cinnamon who were there went under the car with her where she ran to hard to make her feel better.

There were others who showed up to eat around the time Merlin did but they vanished quickly… there was Merlin‘s brother Marlon who was almost a twin, he vanished and I never got the chance to get him inside too.

So since I took Zena in it has been just Fred and Cinnamon after Giorgio and Jezebel died. And they always loved each other, they were always bff great buddies, but I used to call Giorgio Fred, and Cinnamon the three musketeers.

When Zena showed up about three years ago now he was crying, and he had obviously just been dumped. I remember cinnamon and everybody looking at him to see if he was OK - eventually though they were chasing him away maybe from the food so he would only come to eat usually. And I didn’t see him for quite a while then I saw him on my cams and saw that he was still eating here. I wish I had kept feeding him by the patio instead of trying to get him in in the carrier because I thought he was tame because he was meowing at me and coming close to the house, but he got scared and ran away. Otherwise I probably would’ve had him in two years before I did. He was very aggressive when he came in- spitting, hissing etc. lunging, so he had to be on medication for 3 to 4 weeks he’s a love bug now!
Sorry this is so long lol.

 

[Meowmee]

So I just heard cinnamon jumping around in the bathroom… For some reason he is jumping up onto the bathroom counter by the sink and knocking everything over- when I went in everything was all over the floor… so I cleaned it up and put it up on the shelf so he has more room if he wants to jump up there.

But this seems like Feral fear behavior to me because I have seen this before. I don’t understand how he could go from being so friendly outside to be like this inside, it’s very strange.

I also smelled poop smell, but again I did not see any sign of poop anywhere unless maybe he just farted lol…so I sprayed a little odor control and I put his litter box right next to the bench he sits behind in the corner instead of in the shower…I also put some litter from Fred’s litter box in there so he realizes that’s what it’s for in case he has forgotten.

I will feel very relieved when, one, he stops jumping on things and knocking everything over and, two, when I see poop and pee in the litter box.

Any thoughts? I added some of the medication to his food to help him calm down a bit in case this is just caused by extreme stress from being trapped etc.

 

[Meowmee]

I don't know how much of an option this might be, or even whether it would be helpful, but do you have a vet who would come to the house?

I was thinking about that but I think because my cats are so scared of people it would just set off the whole fear reaction, and the way cinnamon is acting now in the bathroom, he seems terrified so I don’t think anybody would be able to get near him really. But if I get him into the carrier they can probably just give him the shots through the carrier hopefully.

I am hoping that he’s going to calm down more in three weeks. It must be such a shock to have been living outside all of these years, lose all of your friends, and then come inside but he kept looking at us through the sliding door, through the screen or the window like he wanted to come in, even when he wasn’t hungry there was food there and he wasn’t eating but he would just look at us and squeeze his eyes. And he has been sniffing noses with and playing with the cats through the screen too. Every once in a while I would put Fred’s scent out there, rubbed on some paper or something so that he wouldn’t forget what Fred smelled like. He truly seemed very lonely out there to be honest.

But out of all of the cats that I have trapped more recently he was the most shy and terrified…I remember I only had him indoors for two days, then I released him in the larger shelter with the door open. He never said a word or looked at me he just looked totally scared. But recently he meows when he came to the door for food and he was meowing at me when he was first in the bathroom. Squeezes his eyes etc. no touching though with people.

Also I don’t know if a traveling vet would treat a feral cat? I don’t even know a traveling vet in our area but I suppose I could look them up, but it’ll probably be very expensive compared to bringing him back to the place I took him to.

 

[Meowmee]

Here are more pics of Cinnman as I sometimes call him and the new lb set up

 

[Furballsmom]

I apologize if you said but have you tried any calming products with them? I mean like a spray or a plugin?

 

[Meowmee]

I apologize if you said but have you tried any calming products with them? I mean like a spray or a plugin?

No I haven’t I don’t use the plug-in because I have asthma and it makes it worse and it never helped my other cats. I have not given him any calming treats. He didn’t eat the other treats I gave him.

And when I use the spray with Fred he went and peed right where I sprayed it on his bed, lol, so I don’t want to use that with Fred in the next room.

So I just gave him one pill of the meds… I forgot the name of it now, that I used to calm down Xena, Fred and someone else I forgot who now a Jezebel I think.

I tried medication with Quinn when I first brought him home because he was jumping on and harassing Sybil constantly but none of them worked- I guess that is just the way he is. However if I had tried this one then with him it probably would’ve helped a lot.

But I didn’t know about it then.

I think with Quinn it’s going to work out eventually it’s really just a matter of letting him see Cinn through a gate or some thing in the bedroom through the bathroom for a while and he will eventually calm down because he reacted the same way with Fred and now he doesn’t really growl and screech at him anymore, lol, he still chases him behind the bed but Merlin does that too.

Merlin and Zena are totally non-aggressive to Cinnamon so far. I’m more worried about Cinnamon being so scared, knocking everything over and not using the litter pan etc.

Quinn is unlike any other cat I have ever had, he is a pb very dominant meezer… apparently he is hyper sensitive to smells of other cats inside the house even if he is already friends with them through the door outside lol. Although I have seen a reaction before it’s never like him, he’s like the reaction 1 million times on steroids.

 

[Furballsmom]

I think with a little time, hopefully he'll calm down enough to eat, drink and use the box

 

[Meowmee]

I think with a little time, hopefully he'll calm down enough to eat, drink and use the box

I hope so, fingers and paws crossed

 

[rubysmama]

I read your post about all the ferals/strays you've helped. Thank you for all that.

Hopefully Cinnamon will calm down today, and eat something. And use the litter box. One thing you could try is Cat Attract litter. Everything I've read about it suggests it works.

 

[fionasmom]

I think that you are in the very early stages of adjustment. As you said, this is huge; he was outside and now suddenly is indoors. Even if he is out of the cold, it is still very strange to him and possibly frightening. Moving the litter box is a good idea. I have put boxes in the shower stall when I have rescued, but it worked best with kittens who did not know enough to wonder what was going on. Older rescues have seen it as odd, I think.

My Rikki is a meezer; in fact, you helped me to identify him. He is, now that he has been inside long enough to understand, extremely sensitive to smells, has to know what is going on and has to be in control. He is the last one in, but I am sure that if I rescued another cat right now he would go onto high alert and want to run the show.

 

[Meowmee]

I think that you are in the very early stages of adjustment. As you said, this is huge; he was outside and now suddenly is indoors. Even if he is out of the cold, it is still very strange to him and possibly frightening. Moving the litter box is a good idea. I have put boxes in the shower stall when I have rescued, but it worked best with kittens who did not know enough to wonder what was going on. Older rescues have seen it as odd, I think.

My Rikki is a meezer; in fact, you helped me to identify him. He is, now that he has been inside long enough to understand, extremely sensitive to smells, has to know what is going on and has to be in control. He is the last one in, but I am sure that if I rescued another cat right now he would go onto high alert and want to run the show.

Unfortunately Cinn was peeing allover the floor on his bed and heating mat and on the other side of the toilet bowl on the floor and pooping and sitting on top of it! I have never seen that before with an adult cat- I have seen them sitting in the litter box after they pooped but never for 2 to 3 days now sitting on their own pee and poop.

I am so distressed and I don’t know what to do because this is the one thing I cannot tolerate. I went through this with Sybil, she had peeing problems her entire life and I never would’ve given her away or anything like that but I said to myself I’m never going to go through that again. He is either going to have to use the litter box for pee and poop and not pee anywhere else or he’s gonna have to go back outside or even worse maybe I will have to euthanize.

I just cannot go through this again. Once one cat starts peeing outside the box they can all start doing it and I’m going to have pee and poop everywhere, it will drive me crazy and ruin the house. I spent many, many hours for years dealing with this because I had two girl cats having a dominance war with each other after Syb started with the peeing. It was also maybe partly issues with cystitis for her too, and we tried everything but nothing helped.

I had to put litter pans all over the place with wee pads because she wouldn’t use the litter to pee, she would only poop in the box with litter. And she still, even years later would pee on paper and other things. I had to reupholster couches and throw away a lot of things, too may to count, and constantly clean things- it was just so awful.

I think it was a big mistake not to just put him back in the trap when he came back from the Dvm. Hopefully I will never be in the situation again but I will never do that again even if the cat seems totally tame etc. Because that way I could train him to use the litter box. I had to do that with Fred and Zena who first pooped and peed on the wee pads and I told them and showed them to use the box which worked.

I’m so upset. I spent at least three hours in the morning when, I should’ve been going to sleep, cleaning the entire bathroom with sanitizers and Scoe, cleaning out everything… I had to wipe the floor numerous times…I put weed pads all over the floor and I put back the one litter box he was not using and another one on either side of the toilet one has clay litter, the other one has worlds best cat litter. There was P on a lot of items- I had to try and clean them off and throw a lot of things away.

Every square inch of the bathroom has wee pads all over right now. So if he pees I should be able to see it. However he is sitting in the bathtub now, I didn’t wanna start trying to put them in while he’s in there because it would scare him.

I guess finally it was too much for him to be sitting on poop and pee all over the place so he retreated to the bathtub.

I kept wondering what smelled so bad and I knew I had smelled pee before, I think he peed once while I was there doing stuff and talking to him, but I could not see it or the poop because he was sitting right on top of two different poops and who knows how many pees. One of the poops had actually dried out a bit.

I ended up just giving him water and no food for now because if he doesn’t start peeing in the boxes in the next several hours I am going to try to retrap him in the have a heart trap, and put him back in the drop trap which is still in the closet area.

Thank goodness when Sybil was having all of her P issues at some point I discovered Scoe which is the only thing that really eliminates the pee and poop odor. I hope it works, because otherwise the other cats can go in there at some point and smell it and they could start peeing too. I used full strength on the floor areas where he had been peeing so it should work.

I don’t know what I’m gonna do if I can’t get him retrapped and back in the drop trap. I don’t want to try touching him, I have those big gloves, but that will probably just cause more stress for everyone. And I sort of fell and injured my back putting curtains up before I discovered all of this.

It’s too late for me to go out and get cat attract now until Monday which I was thinking of trying to add to the litter boxes to see if that would coax him in there. I’m thinking maybe he really was a true feral in the beginning anyway because he’s the only cat out who did this except for Giorgio who was very ill and he was doing it because he was so ill. He had had vision loss and he was getting paralyzed in his back legs and we let him go not long after I brought him in.

This all also explains Quinn’s extreme reaction on some level because the smell was so strong for him etc. Merlin though just went up to him and sniffed his bum and that was it. Love that your guy has the strong meezer personailty

 

[Furballsmom]

Hopefully you don't have anyone with cystitis so hopefully nobody starts peeing, especially after your cleaning efforts.

Are these products scent free?

 

[CatladyJan]

So I just heard cinnamon jumping around in the bathroom… For some reason he is jumping up onto the bathroom counter by the sink and knocking everything over- when I went in everything was all over the floor… so I cleaned it up and put it up on the shelf so he has more room if he wants to jump up there.

But this seems like Feral fear behavior to me because I have seen this before. I don’t understand how he could go from being so friendly outside to be like this inside, it’s very strange.

I also smelled poop smell, but again I did not see any sign of poop anywhere unless maybe he just farted lol…so I sprayed a little odor control and I put his litter box right next to the bench he sits behind in the corner instead of in the shower…I also put some litter from Fred’s litter box in there so he realizes that’s what it’s for in case he has forgotten.

I will feel very relieved when, one, he stops jumping on things and knocking everything over and, two, when I see poop and pee in the litter box.

Any thoughts? I added some of the medication to his food to help him calm down a bit in case this is just caused by extreme stress from being trapped etc.

I would say because Cinnamon is in a completely different environment and it will take some time for him to acclimate.