How to Socialise a Feral Kitten – Part V

Opening Frontiers – Expanding Your Feral Kitten's Home Territory
Your cat or kitten will signal to you when it wants to move beyond the borders of its safe room, so take your cues from your cat. These signals will include the following behaviour – sitting or scratching at the door, trying to escape around or through your legs when you enter or exit the room, and gazing longingly out of windows to the outside world.

Cats are notoriously curious and intelligent and they need stimulation, so giving them access to the rest of your house will answer those psychological needs and also define their home territory with you. When you feel it is time to let them out, be sure to keep other animals in your household (especially dogs) out of the way (I will cover the subject of introducing your feral kittens/cats to dogs and other animals in a later blog post.)

Rather than picking them up, I recommend you open the door about halfway and then sit down a few feet away. Then – if they haven't followed you already – begin calling to them to coax them out. At this stage what should happen in principle is that they will ease their heads around the doors and look in all directions to assess the situation and then come out to you or start exploring. Just keep talking to them gently and let them find their own way. Keep the door to their safe room open, so if they should feel scared at any time they can just rush back in and hide.

You can explore the territory with them by crawling on the floor beside them and encouraging them and also by opening other doors into other rooms or closets so they can go inside to get a sense of the terrain. They will probably also sniff their way around or perhaps even expand their territory in circles. They will walk tentatively but that's because they are guarded and unsure. They may also scout out other hiding places in the hall or nearby rooms first before checking out the rest of the space.

If you have a large house, it may be a bit confronting for them in the first instance. The trick is to open up the territory section by section until they feel safe and comfortable in each one. Allow one or two days in each territory and then repeat the process, extending the boundary each time. Also, keep to you routine and put their food down in the safe room in the same place as you have before. Later on when they have the full run of the place you can change it if you wish.