Hi all,
We are moving on apace with our adoption journey and are considering plans for introductions.
However, our lovely cat has caused us some minor concerns.
She has always been quite chilled with visitors etc, either being quite affectionate or just leaving them well alone. We've had my nephews and friends children round, and she either stayed away from them entirely or allowed a few strokes before retreating to our bedroom when she has had enough, a rule we intend to hold for her with our children (you can't play with the cat if she is in our room). So no prior problems or concerns.
However, we recently had her in a cattery for a couple of weeks, and then (due to my poor diary keeping) had family round the day after. She doesn't travel well, and was incredibly stressed after the long journey home. (Think vomiting goblin yowling pitifully at our hideous cruelty at putting her in a cat carrier etc) the next day she then hissed and batted at one of my family members that tried to stroke her, and they said that they were surprised at her behaviour. To me, the behaviour was kind of understandable- undesirable, but understandable. The day before she had been a vomit covered gremlin and had to be physically washed, so had not properly recovered from that ordeal. A hiss of not wanting to be touched is a clear warning that worked.
Now, the spanner in the works is that we were originally considering putting her in a more local cattery for the first few weeks of any children being home just to ease them in as neither of the children have had pets and we want to reduce stress for them and her initially- we thought it might be helpful. However, we appreciate this takes the cat away from her routine, which we now have proof that it might make it difficult for her to reintegrate to. We don't want this to be a problem for the kids after on, and are now considering whether a phased introduction would be actually as good a thing for her as it is for them, rather than having her arrive into the melee a few weeks later.
We are wondering whether anybody else has ever boarded their cat initially during the first few weeks, or whether their cat had a subsequently adverse reaction to visitors after boarding? Like I said, she is normally so chill with visitors normally that I think it was triggered by the journey, not them, if you see what I mean. Now they have all gone she is just relaxing and behaving as usual.
Things we have considered to help her are:
A local cattery (so less travel vomit time)
Stocking up on Feliway
Speaking to the vet about a calming treatment
Calming spot on
phased introductions
keeping her away from the children initially to get used to their noise and smells
Possible playing videos of children playing to accustom her to the noise?
Are we just overthinking here? We love our little kitkat and just want to do the right thing for everyone, kids and cat included.
Thoughts, comments and speculations are all appreciated!