Getting a feral used to humans

[tracyq]

Are you able to dedicate at least one half hour per day to concentrate only on playing with her/engaging her? Sounds like she's a bit bored.

Cats can hear/see/sense things we can't, sometimes this causes them to run around wildly. Kika looks  young, so it could be just getting bursts of energy out of her system. Sometimes my cats do that, and I just let them, I figure they have some energy they want to expel. Cats are still kind of wildish animals, so they do things like that. 

One of my cats used to love eating with his hands, so I got a mat to put under their bowls for easy clean up. 

Cats can growl but it's more gutteral than dogs. Purrs are almost always contentment, but can happen out of severe stress (which is much less common.)

You might want to leave the carrier out all the time so she can go in and out of it freely, and at the same time do the hit and run aka drive-by pick up, kiss, put down so she doesn't think one is mutually exclusive to the other. 

The 5-6am thing might be from her having been an outdoor cat, that is usually the time the sun starts to rise and when they were outside, would look for somewhere to hide and sleep. She should get over it in time. Hope this helps, and good luck!

 

[reiten]

Thanks Tracy. The tip with the playing really helped. I thought that some toys would be enough, but it looks like active playing is required. I've been playing with her twice a day(20-30 mins each time) before I give Kika food. She has calmed down significantly.

She has also developed some new habits like sleeping under the table in my room, which generally is nice except the fact that I have to be careful with my feet or she starts biting them.

Kika has also stopped playing with her food. That seems to have been her way of telling us that she doesn't like the food very much.

And the playing with stuff from the litter box could be her way off telling us to clean it. Not sure of this though.

Now some questions:

1) Can cats get a cold? Kika has been sneezing the whole day now. I kinda doubt that she is sick since it looks like she has been crawling around in dusty places.

2) Maybe some people can suggest some ways to play with Kika? At the moment I'm using a mouse toy with a string attached, but that kinda gets repetitive both for her and me. She also has another mouse like that and a ball laying around.