My aunt's friend was going to get rid of her because after she had a baby the cat would pee on the baby's things. My aunt couldn't bear to let her friend take the less than 1 year old kitten to the pound where it could be put down in a couple days.Unfortunately my aunt Jennifer already had a cat - a very territorial and aggressive cat who would chase the new kitten until the kitten would constantly hide under the bed. Whenever my aunt left her apartment, she had to keep the kitten in her son Hauson's room so that the other cat would not be able to chase her around. She asked if I would take the kitty so that it could live in a better environment. I was ecstatic but I knew it wasn't only my decision to make. To my surprise, Lawrence agreed! :D Granted, we have her for 2 weeks as a trial period. At the end of 2 weeks, we (Lawrence) may decide not to keep her.
Yesterday we brought her home to our apartment. While we were bringing up her stuff from my aunt's car, we let her loose in the apartment. After we brought everything in, we started looking for her and she was nowhere to be found. We looked in all the closets, under the bed, under the couch, we were seriously starting to get scared. I even walked down the hallway in case she got loose without us noticing. Nowhere. I tried to stay optimistic and decided to clean up stuff a bit in the hopes of finding her behind something. I tried to pick up a plastic bag that had a towel in it...and lo and behold...the kitty was hiding in the bag, underneath the towel. :)
After finding her, she left her bag to find a new hiding place. Eventually she settled on the space underneath our bed, in the process picking up all the dust and hair that had accumulated there. It was impossible to get her to come out from under the bed so Lawrence took a nap and I worked on the computer. Eventually though, she came out on her own....only to run and hide in the closet. Luckily she's easier to reach in the closet than under the bed, so I picked her up and put her in the bathroom. Apparently cats need a safe secluded place when they move to a new place, so I put her travel carrier in the bathroom and urged her into it.
We picked up Phillip and went out for dinner. We also stopped by Petco to get some things for the cat - a poop scooper, some canned cat food, some cat treats, and some catnip. When we got home, we all crowded into the bathroom to play with the kitty but none of those things had any effect. She ignored everything! Maybe she still needed to settle in? By the end of the night however, she seemed much more at home. She would still try to get under the bed (we blocked it off) and into the closet (we closed the closet door). She would jump up onto the bed and she even sat on Lawrence's chest.
Early in the morning, I grogily woke to see her sleeping with us on the bed. When I actually got up to get ready for work, she was gone. I found that part of our barricade to the space under the bed was disturbed and I could hear her little bell tinkling under the bed. I wonder if she's running under there because she still feels insecure in our apartment, or does she just need a safe dark place? Is she still traumatized from the other cat chasing her around? I hope she will eventually stay out in the open and we will not need the barricades.
1 comment:
yeah, it's going to take her a while -- especially if the old cat used to chase her under the bed all the time.
my aunt used to have a cat that was scared all the time because my cousins freaked her out and made her hide under the bed. so they ate her.
not joking.
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