Very often I encounter sick and frightened cats. I can safely say that in my volunteering experience I almost never meet animals without behavioral issues. After each “case” I think I have seen it all but pretty much every new case proves me wrong. The issues repeat very often but their causes and solutions are almost always different that is why it is very difficult to fit them all in one post even though my experience with cats is not that long.
In this post I will tell you about Texas, my ginger furry friend. To satisfy other readers in the next post I will write about fear and combating it based on the case of Texas. Today, as yesterday was a historic day, I wanted to write about fear that adopted cats feel when they arrive in the new house. Let’s start from the beginning.
Yesterday I gave up Texas for adoption – he was living in my apartment for 4 months and during the first two he wouldn’t let me touch him and during the latter two he used to run to my bed every morning to say hello, he loved being stroked and purred whenever saw my hand approaching his head.
Texas although extraordinary is just one of many cats from the “fields.” One day a lady who fed a bunch of cats living in a garage called me about her furry friends…Kiara, Tabsi, Prada, Biggie and Bunia – two females which returned to their place after sterilization, two boys and Texas. It started to get chilly outside and I had the biggest challenge ahead of me – to catch the ginger cat. After a long battle finished in locking him up in a car we got him. When we were waiting for castration we were told that nothing good would come out of him as he was very aggressive. In spite of these words I decided to give him a chance and take him home with me… I had a feeling he would turn out well.
Texas’s problem stemmed from the fact that during his socialization period (cat’s socialization period is short and falls very early between 2nd and 7/8th week of cat’s life) he was with people who fed him but never touched him. In the group he was found with he kept to himself rather than hang out with his sisters. Since as a young cat Texas saw people he was not very stressed in my apartment but it was weird for him that I wanted to caress him. He felt fine in the company of my cats Miciula and Dixi because he did hang out with other cats in his previous environment and they were not a problem for him.
