Apparently the novelty has worn off.

[Siwsan]

Last edited Wed May 17, 2023, 08:42 AM - Edit history (1)

Sian is now getting very gently 'bops' from the kidcats when she gets too rough with them. She is absolutely fearless!

[wnylib]

1. She needs those gentle bops as part of socialization.

If she doesn't get the hints, the others might get more insistent when she gets too rough.

[Siwsan]

2. Absolutely. This is why I was so anxious to introduce her to the kidcats

Yesterday they acted very intimidated by her. Today she's being reined in. Naturally, I am keeping a close eye on their behavior.

She gets 10 more minutes and then it's back to the guest room. These play sessions really wear her out.

Besides, I have to feed the ferals AND myself. As soon as I get the mowing done, she can rejoin the family.

[Crazyleftie]

3. ??????????????????

[niyad]

4. She has a precious new rescue who is gradually being introduced to her kitties.

you can read the posts detailing the adventures.

[Siwsan]

5. The little spitfire named Sian is learning her place in the fur baby pecking order.

This 5 week old, less than 2lb, blue eyed little cutie tried to tackle the FAR bigger Gryff, last night. She practically bounced off of him.

This morning that kind of behavior is being answered with (fortunately) gentle bops and 'nips'. In other words, she's learning to be a feline.

[ShazzieB]

6. Yes, and that socialization is very important.

When my husband and I were newlyweds, we were gifted with a Siamese kitten (Sapphire) who was only 6 weeks old. The owners of her mom and dad were in a hurry to rehome 2 of the 3 kittens in the litter so they could leave to spend the summer in another state. Due to a book with some really bad advice, they thought 6 weeks was old enough. Wrong!

Sapphire and the other kitten they rehomed at that age both had behavior problems that I now know were due to insufficient socialization. Because she was separated from her litter mates and parents so young, she never learned how to play with without biting so hard it hurt, and we didn't know how to teach her ourselves. At the time, we had no idea why she was so bitey you couldn't even pet her without getting your hand chomped. (And I mean chomped, not a gentle nip! )

She also was very high energy and needed a lot more attention than we could give her. I was a full time student with a part time job and hubs was working full time, which meant she was left alone for a large part of the day. (Of course, I now know what a bad idea that was, but at the time, we were very young and not too smart and didn’t have enough sense to know that.)

We kept Sapphire until she was about 8 months old, during which time we had her spayed and did our best to deal with her quirks, but we didn't know what we were doing, and things did not get any better. Fortunately, we found a great new home for her with a family that included a sahm (so she wouldn't be home alone so much) and a couple of older children who knew how to behave properly with pets and had lots of time to play with her and give her an outlet for her extremely abundant energy. So things worked out pretty well for her in the end but could have turned out a lot worse. Especially since this was back in the days before no kill shelters and rescues that carefully vet adoptive pet parents.

Anyway, the moral of that story is that kittens really need interaction with other cats to learn how to be civilized felines! This happens as a matter of course if they get to spend enough time with their mom and litter mates, but if things don't work out that way, they need to get this experience some other way, as Sian is doing with the kidcats. It sounds like she is on her way to becoming a well-socialized little ball of floof!