Once you have your kitten or cat in the cage or trap, take it to the room you have prepared as its new home. The kitten may be meowing pitifully or yowling in rapid succession (fear responses) at this point. Place the cage on the floor, sit back, talk to it in a gentle cajoling voice and then slowly open the cage or trap door. The kitten will usually frantically run out and then plunge into the first hiding space it can find where it will stay for several hours. This is the fight or flight survival mechanism at work – in this case it is flight and hide. If you have more than one kitten they will usually hide together. If you have the option of socialising multiple kittens then take it, as they will find solace and comfort in each other.
At this stage I suggest you leave the room and come back every hour or two for about five to ten minutes and just sit down and talk to your cat. What you are doing is getting your kitten used to humans, and specifically – you. Do NOT attempt to pick up or touch the cat at this stage, as you will get badly scratched and it will traumatise the kitten more. It is always my policy to create the trust between you and the cat so that it comes to you willingly.
How long does it take to socialise a feral kitten? That will depend on its age, its temperament and whether you have had the opportunity to do any pre-socialisation prior to capturing it. It has taken me as little as one day and as long as three weeks for kittens aged between six and eight weeks old. The older the cat gets the more difficult it can be because you will be attempting to reverse some pretty serious feral conditioning where you are perceived as a dangerous threat. And in some cases with some people – rightly so – after all, how can you blame the cat for wanting to survive...
The method I use for socialising a cat is based on developing a routine so the cat knows what to expect within a 24-hour period and therefore begin to relax. Your job will be to answer the cats needs based on the following sequence:
(1) Providing safety and security
(2) Providing food and water
(3) Arousing curiousity and play
(4) Contact by touch.
The cat's first instinct, as previously mentioned, is to hide away from danger. It will need to feel a sense of safety and security before it begins to relax and venture out. If it is absolutely starving then hunger will drive it from of its hiding spot sooner, but at this stage it will usually wait until you have gone from the space before it comes out. Most of the feral kittens I have taken through this socialisation process have come from my family farm where I live. I have always fed the feral cats so I know that they have not been starving when I have taken them away from their mother/s. The exception was with Sihri and Sasha (mentioned previously in other posts) who were thrust upon me by a neighbour who had in turn had them thrust upon her by a stranger. These cats were completely traumatised – their eyes reflected their terror and they hissed and spat if I approached them. I had no idea when they had had their last meal but I set some food in front of them and they virtually dove into the dish, eating greedily and hungrily to the point of forgetting anything else around them. When they had finished they reverted to their previous fear position and then backed into a narrow gap behind a cabinet and hid there for many hours. It may be a good idea to put some newspapers around these hiding spots. Although cats are notoriously clean and most of the time know how to use litter trays to go to the toilet, they may be so terrified at this stage that they will not want to come out. The newspapers give them an alternative.
Set up the feeding routine in the morning and evening, with small midday meals if they kittens are quite young. Don't give them too much, as they can gobble up everything and get little bulging tummies that look as if they are about to burst. For the first day or two, leave the room or retreat to a distant corner once you have set up the meal so they can eat by themselves. After that, sit down a few feet away from the feeding station and let them get used to you being there when they eat (this also lays down the foundations for future contact by touch).
What they will do when you are not in the room is to explore. They will be active in the morning till about ten and then sleep for several hours until late afternoon. They will become active again in the evening and especially at night. In the first instance, they will explore the room with the specific purpose of scouting for and establishing lots of alternative hiding places for themselves so they have lots of options. These may be behind a shelf or cabinet, under the bed, behind a basket, in a dark corner and/or in some very obscure places you wouldn't even think to look. Feral cats are in fact quite ingenious.
While all this is happening, give the kittens their space and again do not force yourself on them. The most important attribute you can demonstrate at this stage in the socialisation process is patience.
Once the kittens know where all the safe spots are and once they know that they will be fed with regularity, they will start to relax further and this is the prime time for them to get to know you more. Don't use stand-over tactics. Sit down when you are in their space – a towering person is perceived as a threat and you want to get as close to their level as possible. Sometimes I recline casually on my side and mimic a relaxed cat.
Avoid staring directly into their eyes, as this can also be seen as a challenge and threat. If you are to look at them directly in the face then soften your eyes, blink occasionally and glance away at times as if you are occupied with other business.
You can also start off by communicating with them. Use a high voice that matches their meow pitch. Also use "sss" sounds like "pusssssss" or "ssssweetie". Talk to them while they eat; if you have named them, use their names (naming will be discussed in more detail in a later blog post); and just talk to them in general as you would a child. Cats respond to communication and after a while they will stay on the floor, albeit at a safe distance from you, rather than scampering away.
You can also appeal to their curiousity and sense of play. The best tool you can use is a ping pong ball. I always have a stash of them in the cat room and I was also very grateful to have accumulated a big bag of pink balls when I went to see the musical theatre version of Priscilla Queen of the Desert at the beginning of the year (a net full of balls drops on the audience from aloft in a pivotal scene – if you have seen the film or the stage musical then you'll know where I mean!).
Roll the ping pong ball around the floor – backwards and forwards, side to side – but retrieve it. The kittens will begin to watch this moving ball with fascination. Their playful and predatory hunting selves will start to emerge and they will become hypnotised and on the edge of excitement by the movement of the ball. Later on in the socialisation process, you will start to play with them and you will be swatting and batting the balls to each other with great glee.
If you see that things are falling into place quickly then don't wait for the predetermined time, just accelerate the process until you are ready to touch and make contact, which I will cover in Part IV of this series.
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