Hello!
I recently agreed to foster 3 kittens for a month that were born feral and bottle fed. They are now about 7 weeks old. Two of the kittens are super tame and friendly. They love interacting with people and my other 2 older cats. The third kitten, however, is still kind of wild. In the almost 2 weeks that I’ve been caring for her, we’ve gone from her hissing and hiding in the back of her kennel, to her allowing me to handle her. At first, I was keeping her in a large kennel in my guest room, but it was pretty much fully enclosed and dark, so I moved her to my living room and a larger open kennel. But, as she didn’t have the room to move around and run, I felt really bad for her, so I bought one of those outdoor pet tents and set it up in my living room. It’s quite large. About the size of a child’s tent. I’ve been getting inside of it with her, and everything was going well enough that I decided to let her out with the other kittens into the rest of the house. As soon as I did that, though, she immediately ran and hid, only coming out when she thought I wasn’t there or to eat and use the litter box. I lured her back into the tent with food, but I can tell she really wants out and to be with the other kittens. What should I do? Should I let her run around the house, knowing that I can recapture her if necessary, or should I keep her in the tent where she can’t hide from me so she gets human interaction? Keep in mind that this tent is fully mesh, so she can see out all the sides. It’s essentially an outdoor play tent for pets. She has plenty of toys and a litter box in there as well, and I put the other kittens in there to play with her periodically.
I recently agreed to foster 3 kittens for a month that were born feral and bottle fed. They are now about 7 weeks old. Two of the kittens are super tame and friendly. They love interacting with people and my other 2 older cats. The third kitten, however, is still kind of wild. In the almost 2 weeks that I’ve been caring for her, we’ve gone from her hissing and hiding in the back of her kennel, to her allowing me to handle her. At first, I was keeping her in a large kennel in my guest room, but it was pretty much fully enclosed and dark, so I moved her to my living room and a larger open kennel. But, as she didn’t have the room to move around and run, I felt really bad for her, so I bought one of those outdoor pet tents and set it up in my living room. It’s quite large. About the size of a child’s tent. I’ve been getting inside of it with her, and everything was going well enough that I decided to let her out with the other kittens into the rest of the house. As soon as I did that, though, she immediately ran and hid, only coming out when she thought I wasn’t there or to eat and use the litter box. I lured her back into the tent with food, but I can tell she really wants out and to be with the other kittens. What should I do? Should I let her run around the house, knowing that I can recapture her if necessary, or should I keep her in the tent where she can’t hide from me so she gets human interaction? Keep in mind that this tent is fully mesh, so she can see out all the sides. It’s essentially an outdoor play tent for pets. She has plenty of toys and a litter box in there as well, and I put the other kittens in there to play with her periodically.
