Erika sounds like you have made a wonderful home/palace for Ziggy. Rescue animals are the best. They just seems to know that someone has come to rescue them because they have empathy for them and they in return give devotion. Good luck and send us a picture when he will let you. Under my bed is Melodies place when there is unwanted company in the house. Now when I am trying to give her her medicine, she is under the kitchen table where she knows I can't reach her

Good news.
Ziggy came out from under the bed late last night, ate quite a good portion of dry food and all of the tuna. His water bowl shows that he drank and he has used the litter box as well. With those things taken care of, I'm less concerned about him being back under the bed this morning.

The Cat Rescue sent me this link and said that he was rescued along with his litter mates and feral mother when he was around 6 weeks old and then he was adopted by the original owner at around 8 weeks.

They think that his "attacking" behavior may have to do with the possibility that he was younger than 6 weeks when rescued and that he didn't have the opportunity to play fight with his litter mates enough, or even other cats when young.
Apparently kittens learn not to play too rough at an early age through playing with their litter mates and their mother.

They suggested that if/when he attacks again, to just leave him in the room alone for a few hours. That way he might catch on that when he attacks, that petting and other contact abruptly ends and his life becomes boring.
Sounds like a reasonable approach.

Why Friendly Cats Attack
http://www.azmccr.org/Why%20cats%20attack.htm

With love, Erika

I think human handling also is necessary when very young.

The owner of the rescue where I got Maya, is a friend of ours, and I asked if she would have a black female during the summer.
She had just rescued a farm litter, and chose Maya for me. Now I do like to choose my own kitten, but I really had no choice in this.
So she handled Maya alot, had her cage with one littermate in her living room, instead of outbuilding she used for the animals, and
Maya is very tame. Doesn't like being carried much but never scratched us, even in play. Our friend handled her alot...and she learned about houses too.

Oreo came from a house with several children who played with the kittens alot. So Oreo was very very tame with us, too.

A vet from upNorth, told us last summer --he favors cats---that a new environment is very stressful on them. More than we think.
The stress suppresses their immune systems briefly. They can get sick commonly when adopted or taken on vacation.
Weezie had lost Oreo to cancer 3 days before vacation, the trip was a stressor, then she was bitten by an animal...and boy was she sick (abscess on her neck)! Very high fever etc. So this vet explained all this to us so we could minimize stress when possible. Watch for feline herpes! If it is not treated properly (no steroids), and with Lysine quickly, it tends to pass. It comes out with stress. Mostly it will go into the eye, or lungs if not caught swiftly. I apologize, Erika if you know this already, but a friend of ours lost a cat to feline herpes that went into its eye. 3 visits to her vet resulted in putting the cat to sleep. She was furious. Running eyes, lethargy and coughing are symptoms. Ferals are usually infected as tiny kittens.

Sounds like Ziggy is adjusting quickly... I was thinking of him last night during our nasty storm. (Maya was very upset during the terrible wind part).

Looks like he will do well. Once he ate, I bet he felt better about all the new things, too.

Thanks for the link... it was great!

Thanks Mrs. D,

No I did not know about Herpes in cats. Humans are susceptible to the same thing under stress, and similarly most are infected as children.

I'll certainly keep an eye on him because he's been moved a fair amount in the last month.

A little while ago he came out while I was changing his water and I happened to have a little piece of Willy's jerky in my pocket, so I offered it to him. Looks like he thinks that the jerky is pretty good too.:)
It should be fine for him to have it in small amounts; as its just meat; no salt or spices.

With love, Erika

I love cat threads and the subsequent posts.

Update on my three...all adjusted to the apartment immediately. We have a long hallway which allows for thunderous games of "chase me." I wonder if the neighbor under me can hear when they play.

Also got a nice compliment that for having three cats, there is no telltale smell of the cat box. We have only one box and it gets cleaned twice a day.

Aarcyn,

I can just imagine your cats thundering down the 'race track' hall way :).
What fun! Glad that your fur babies have adjusted and are liking their new home.

Even though I just have the one cat, I too clean the litter box 2x/day, just like I'd check them for the old girl before him (She preferred to step outside to use the box under the porch, but sometimes she'd choose the one inside).
I think that cats prefer to use a clean litter box...I know that I would if I were a kitty.

Ziggy has a big weak spot for tuna (the real kind), so he's showing himself for the 1/4 of a tin that he gets 3 times a day. I've been setting it down at his feeding station by the bed and then I just sit on the floor while he comes out, eats and then crawls back under the bed. At least he's not rushing to get back under there lately. He seems to have just claimed the area under the bed as his resting place.

I put a tennis ball in the bag of cat-nip for a while and left it in the room with him, and he has taken it has taken it under the bed :D.
I'm a bit puzzled on how he got it under there because the bed is on a futon frame that has 8 inch wide boards that contact the floor all the way around. Above those boards there is a 6 inch gap, and then the slats of the frame that supports the mattress.
The futon frame forms a rather large (the area of the bed), flat box, which Ziggy finds quite cozy. His room is the only one in my house that has carpet (a very thick one), and there is also a floor heating vent under the bed too :).

He had to have picked the ball up and lifted it over the boards some how to get it under there, and that's a pretty big ball for a cat to get his mouth around. Hmmmm....looks like Ziggy has magical powers.

I have a large dog crate (Willy's), that I'm going to set up with a couple of pillows and a fuzzy blanket...and some cat nip of course, to see if he will use that as a bed. He hasn't gone into the cabinet part of the wall unit, as I had hoped that he would, so maybe the dog crate will suit him more.

I'm hoping so, because if he does and then gets used to that, eventually I can bring it out into the living room with him in it so he can watch the goings on, as well as Willy the dog, from the safety of a closed crate.

For the time being though, we are still working on building trust a-la-tuna-fish.:D

With love, Erika

The dog crate is out in the garage and has been there for over a year, so it doesn't smell like Willy. I'll give it a good cleaning and then rub a little cat-nip onto it on the inside, so that it might be more attractive to him. I also have another blanket that I can drape over the whole business to make it like a 'kitty-cave'.

Ziggy's tray (a litter box bottom), of wheat grass is sprouting nicely, so it should be ready for him by the weekend. My old girl loved to have that to nibble and lay on :)

With love, Erika

That sounds like progress... he is a clever fellow... just like our Maya who makes nests for herself.

Think some cardboard boxes too... we have small Amazon flat ones, all the way up to a big thing that I got from Ebay. The cats LOVE this 30x36x12in monstrosity which I lay on its side, and hide in it, nap in it play in it and shred craft paper (I get in packages too) and then pull it inside to make their own nest. :rolleyes:

Our other cats all liked boxes but not like Maya does! This box is over the boiler pipe (which is in the basement) in our dining room, so it is warm in there now as well. I have a smaller box in the kitchen. This I started with Weezie with toys in it...when a kitten she would play in the box, so as not to get underfoot. Now Maya has taken the baby box over and waits to see if we will give her a treat. (her treat is shrimp and the whipped cream some days in small diblets). She was so cramped in the old one we replaced it with a slightly larger flat Amazon one a few days ago and she is very happy with it. She likes paper so I put in a little tissue paper and she is happy as a clam! LOL

So you found his food treat favorite quickly! I'd suggest you only use "light" tuna and not albacore. Albacore is high in mercury and in children and small pets (but also including humans) should be avoided. We only give tuna once a week, for this reason.
But you could also try whipped cream. If Ziggy is not lactose intolerant he might LOVE it. Oreo lived with kids, and they gave her all sorts of things we had no idea about. Her first Thanksgiving she was new to us, and jumped up on the table when she heard the canister of whipped cream go off for the pumpkin pie. I turned around and when I came back she had her paw on the dish and was pulling it towards herself, to steal the cream! We laughed and laughed...it was like what you see in cartoons!

So whipped cream became her daily treat. When she was dying of her cancer (part was a lump in her neck and the other part in her abdomen), we had to increase her whipped cream too. It will hide some ground up medications as well, as long as they are not too bitter.
She rather lived on it for several months until it was obvious she was in terrible pain suddenly (her remission wore off), and we euthanized her. sigh. Maya can have about an inch squirt, but Weezie gets diarrhea from it. So it is a toss up as to which cats can tolerate dairy, I guess! We used to buy 3 giant cans at a time at Costco for Oreo. She had this for 14yrs!

If Ziggy has always been indoors, I'd give the catnip straight on a saucer...he probably needs greens too. You can buy some catgrass at Petco or PetSupplies plus already germinated. Maya squeals and carries on when I make the pot with the dirt and she watches me avidly when I plant the seeds, then they go under a plant light, and when ready, she dances around us...big time. They have digestive discomfort when grass is not available..so you could spring the $$ to get the first pot at the store and if he loves it, you can grow your own. I think Kitty grows her own too, and has a link where you can buy the seed..and supplies. The cat grass IMO is as popular as catnip or a food treat. (Maya is very reactive and emotional, and so her reactions are obvious. Weezie is calm and watches carefully, and will eat just as much of the grass as Maya. ) So think about the grass. The way Ziggy took that ball, suggests to me he may need some greens too. Many cats sleep well after a catnip blast...so I am sure he liked it very much! ;)

Keep the stories coming... It is very nostalgic for me to share this
event with you. We have a friend of my husband's at work who adopted a 2yr old gray...from the same rescue we got Maya. She has 3 cats and a Lab. One of the cats is giving her a problem and not accepting him, so Stoney lives in the basement for now. But he is slowly coming out, as well, only it has been a very slow process for her. She and I talk alot about his adjustments as well. ;)

Wild Kitties
 

I adopted a brother pair that were not used to people. They were 9 months old and I think were just moved from shelter to shelter. They did not want to interact with me at all. I put them in a bedroom with food, water and a litter box. They were quite content with having so much more room to play in that the cages they had before. They would not approach me at all. I would go in and just lay on the bed or floor and talk softly to them. I had a toy (stick with string and mousy on it) that I would move slowly. They started to play with it. I kept up with that. They would let me pet them while they ate. I just kept up with the quiet talk and the toy. They got curious about the world outside of the one room so I gradually opened it up. One cat took the lead in break thrus. They started to let me do things like pet them on my bed. It was slow and steady. I have now had them for almost three years and they are quite content. I don't have lap cats but they have made so much progress. I suspect that they were abused and I have been overcoming something very bad. You can make great strides with slow easy and quiet moves. Every kitty is worth it!

Hi Erika
 

Great to hear about your new addition. You gave that cat a fantastic home! I did the same 5 month ago, rescued a 3 day old feral kitten. One thing is for sure, he doesn't like other people, just me. I think that wild part of him will not get that much better. I don't know how many generations of "wild" Were in him.
Every time one of us rescues these kittens is a win win.... we love them, and in return we wind up with a friend. My kitten is in my lap right now for morning hugs. If I were younger, I would have a few more. ginnie:grouphug: