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Organza Quiz posted:The thing I'm worried about is that she spent over a month hiding and only coming out to dash to the litter box and this morning when I came into the room she was sitting on the floor and hardly budged, and yesterday she hopped up onto my computer desk to investigate what I was doing and walk around and sniff everything casually, so I'm really pleased about how much she trusts me right now and I'm concerned that if I try to pick her up or hold her in place it's going to set me back again by months or something. I do have treats on hand and I often put them down next to me and make her come close to my hand to get them. She'll eat treats from right underneath my hand pretty much as long as I don't move the hand at all. When I adopted my cat, Snicket, she hid under the bed for a solid two weeks, only sneaking out to use the litter box and eat a little. I'm friends with her previous owner, so I know her backstory to some extent. For much of the time she was with my friend, she was a sweet, affectionate kitty. She was bullied a bit by their other cat, but she was sweet and moderately outgoing. Then her previous owner had a baby. Overnight, Snicket went from being outgoing to being reclusive and shy. She would hide in the basement all the time and pee on the baby's stuff any time she could. Because of the changes in her behavior, I think the bullying from the other cat got worse as well. The owners took her to the vet and she got a whole battery of tests, but nothing was abnormal. The antisocial behavior continued. They gave her a year to settle down, but she never did. She had lost a lot of weight (at one point she was an overweight 14 pounds. When I took her to the vet she was 6.7 pounds). They took her to the vet again, and all of the tests were still normal. I was in the office and overheard my friend saying that she had scheduled an appointment to surrender Snicket to a no-kill shelter. I had wanted to get a cat, so I said that I'd take her. Aside from the moment that Snicket was released from her carrier, I barely saw her for the first two weeks she lived with me. I'd catch a glimpse of her, but that was about it. Her food and water would disappear and waste material would show up in her litter box, so I knew that she was eating and drinking. After two weeks of this, she jumped on the bed at 7am for scritchies. I was overjoyed. She had ten minutes of scritchies and then hid under the bed again. This became our ritual. Every day at 7am she would get scritchies and then hide again. This continued for another two weeks. She started spending more time in the living area and begging for scritchies. These days, she begs for scritchies all the time, yells at me when she wants fresh water (I have never seen a cat drink as much water as her), begs for treats, meets me at the door when I get home from work, and gives me attitude when she's mad at me for some imagined slight (It's not my fault that you coughed up a hairball in your favorite box, Snicket). It took us over a year to get to this point, and three years before she was comfortable enough that she wouldn't hide when people came to visit. She's still terrified of other cats though. TL,DR: Be patient. Keep doing what you're doing, and hopefully she'll come around. It sounds like she's already started.
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Apr 7, 2016 15:16
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Chili posted:The only problem with this post is that there are no pictures of Snicket. I can totally fix that. I have so many Snicket pictures. Unfortunately, nearly all of them are crappy cell phone pictures.  "Tuna? Tuna for me?"  I put bananas in "her spot" (all spots are her spots).  Fluffy face.  How to deactivate a Snicket: Put a hat on her.  She is a good cat.
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Apr 7, 2016 16:45
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Chili posted:This is grade A catte. I agree.
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Apr 7, 2016 17:15
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Alteisen posted:Hey Chili maybe you can help me out, I have a pretty large cat I'd like to give a bath to, he's not butterscotch size but he's pretty big and is all muscle, this is a cat that could beat my rear end if he wanted to and sent me to the hospital once with a bit so vicious it came out the other side of my hand. A friend knows how much trouble I have giving Snicket her twice yearly baths, so she recommended a waterless cat bath product. I haven't used it, since the reason Snicket gets her baths is to help keep her coat from yellowing, but she said that it works wonders. I believe the brand she used was Vet's Best. You might also want to look into pet wipes, as Chili recommended. Not all cats will tolerate them (it's actually easier to give Snicket a bath than to use wipes - and it's pretty terrible giving her a bath), but some of my pet guardian friends swear by them.
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May 1, 2016 05:45
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Chili posted:What a pretty bugger! When you first got Butterscotch, you said that he had trouble cleaning his backside because of his weight. Has he gotten any better at it or do you still have to give him regular baths?
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Aug 7, 2016 01:45
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You are a good person, and that is an awesome dog.
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Nov 13, 2016 04:20
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Chili posted:She pooped! I had this exact same reaction to finding cat poop in the litter box yesterday and today. These were Snicket's first bowel movements without the assistance of a vet in three weeks. My family and friends are not nearly as excited as I am. Right now she's throwing shade because she's not allowed to have food before her consult with an internist about her kidney stones. 
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Dec 15, 2016 14:11
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and she even did a great job burying it!
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Chili posted:
They've changed color so much since your first pictures. 
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Jan 21, 2017 18:32
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Maggie Fletcher posted:
When I first got Snicket she hid under the bed almost constantly for three weeks. After six days in my tiny studio apartment, she started to come out for occasional scritchies, mostly at 6:45 AM for a duration of exactly 20 minutes. It took her a while to realize that this was her new permanent home and that she was safe here. Her previous home of 5 years had changed rather abruptly with a new baby added to the mix. There was also a cat with a "big personality" who bullied her. She was also having some food allergy issues and came to me with a rather nasty rash and fur falling out. She was loved in her previous home, but it just wasn't a good fit for her. When I first got her, I was afraid that I had ended up with a permanently broken cat who would just slink around the apartment like a ghost. After a month, I realized that wasn't the case, and after 6 months, we were pretty much inseparable. I've had her 4.5 years, and she's become a really great companion. We had a little bit of a bad span about 9 months ago when her kidneys decided to poo poo the bed, but that's another story. Solar charging:  Here she is expressing disappointment that I left her alone for 12 hours. 
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Mar 1, 2017 15:10
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If the cat tuna doesn't work, Trader Joes has no salt added tuna, which is preferable to the regular kind because too much salt is not good for kitties.
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Mar 3, 2017 03:43
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MisterBibs posted:
Can you set up an outdoor shelter somewhere? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpW69fNzcjc
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Mar 3, 2017 04:13
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Maggie Fletcher posted:It's been two weeks and my foster still won't come out of hiding unless I'm asleep or gone. I got the smelliest treats I could find--literally individually wrapped chunks of fresh salmon--with the intention of sitting near her while she ate it. She hissed at me when I put it in her hiding place and waited until I scooted out of sight before she ate it. This is absolutely progress. Try doing it a few times per day, skittering away less or putting it farther away from her incrementally. You're essentially training her to trust you. And keep in mind that she's eating while you're there (even if you're asleep), which is a hell of a lot better than when you got her. You're doing great. In a week or so, you might consider sitting on the bed and playing with a dangly cat toy near where she's hiding before you feed her. (Don't stab it at her or anything). You might not know if she's actually paying attention, but ideally, a paw will poke out from her hiding place after a few days. If it does, keep playing and give her some food right afterwards. Play may help to relieve some of her stress, and the food will hopefully help with bonding as she starts to associate play with you and other happy things.
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Mar 14, 2017 15:10
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Maggie Fletcher posted:Does this count as a foster fail? You did your best. You gave her tons of love, and hopefully, that glimmer will stay with her and help her the next time a kind soul takes her in. She just wasn't ready yet. She might just need other cats around to teach her how cushy the life of a domesticated cat can be. Snicket approves:  I've shared the story of Snicket here before, so I wanted to let everyone know the good news! Snicket was diagnosed with Chronic Kidney Failure about 10 months ago (not the good news). We just had another round of blood tests yesterday, and her Creatinine levels are almost normal. One of her other levels is still high, but much lower than it was four months ago. Pretty good considering the rough state her kidneys are in. We had a bunch of very scary months, but things have been much better lately. As you can probably tell, I'm over the moon about these results.
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Apr 20, 2017 04:29
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Last year, when Snicket was very sick, I joked that my next cat would be a grey, one-eyed cat named Wednesday. Snicket is doing much better now (aside from going blind a few months ago), but she's still afraid of other cats and her health isn't great. But, guess who followed my friend home just 5 days before I was going to stay with them.  Right now, she's living in my friends' enclosed sunporch, but they can't keep her. They're going to take her to the vet on the 15th, and if bill of health comes up clean, I'm hoping to adopt her next month. Fingers crossed! She's so sweet! She wanted scritchies so badly that I had to hold my phone upside down and backwards to get a picture.
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Oct 13, 2017 00:48
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Welp, my first foster is a fail before I even brought him home. Back in January, my cat Snicket passed away due to complications from kidney disease. When I dropped her off for cremation, my vet mentioned that they had a perfect senior cat waiting for me when I was ready. I told them that I was going to wait a month. I didn't even make it a week. Meet Scout.  Scout was an outright adoption. He's 13 and has a heart condition, but he's fine as long as he's on his medication. He was surrendered to the vet in dire condition because his previous owner couldn't care for him because of her own health issues. I can't go into too many details, but he was abandoned in her house for a week and arrived at the vet in the back of a cop car. He's a sweetie and loves to keep me company while I cook. So, back in October, Scout had to go back to the vet for some tests, and while I was waiting, one of the vet techs popped her head into the room and said, "I have a surprise for you!" She came back with an enormous, fluffy, white kitty. He's probably in the realm of 21 lbs. Meet George.  George was surrendered to the vet a few times because of bad luck. I don't know the whole story, but he was there for 7 months the first time around and was shy and miserable the whole time. He wouldn't play and would run and hide the second anyone looked at him directly. I met him previously when he ventured out into the hallway, and Snicket, who was there for tests, hissed at him. This was probably back in 2016. They found a home for him, but unfortunately, the lady who was caring for him got sick and had to give him up. When I met him, he hid in a cabinet the whole time, but purred when I pet him. They asked if I could foster him, and I said yes, but I couldn't take him home for a few days because I had to ask my landlord. Yeah, by the time I actually picked him up, it had turned into an adoption. He has his own cushion on the couch and his own cat tree because God forbid that Scout and George share a 7 foot cat tree.  "Mom, he's in my spot!" George isn't really fat. He's just a huge cat. I gave him a flea bath, and he's mostly muscle. He does like food though. This is his nightly ritual.     Well, thanks for reading! 
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Dec 2, 2018 02:16
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spookygonk posted:They are both adorable cats. Yeah, I'm going to keep them around even though George keeps stealing my spot on the couch.   Scout is not happy about it either since I can't give him scritchies from the inferior side of the couch. I'd be angry if I didn't love George's little fluffy face so much. 
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Dec 13, 2018 02:40
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| # ¿ Apr 30, 2024 07:05 |
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Seat Safety Switch posted:That’s amazing. How do you even make that? There are more complicated ways to get the same effect, but I took the easier route. I snagged a pic of Butterscotch from the thread and manipulated it with Gimp. There's a company online (Spoonflower) that prints fabric to order, so I just got them to print it for me. From there, it was just a matter of assembling a quilt in the normal way. I bought fabric from the store for the back, put some batting in the middle, put the Butterscotch fabric on top, pinned it all together, and sewed around all of the black details to bring them into relief. The last step was putting the binding around the edges. All told, the whole process took 3-4 hours, not counting waiting for my fabric to arrive in the mail.
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Dec 16, 2018 21:53
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