Fireworks

[Smilesandpiles]

Another thread has reminded me I need to ask you all something.

I've taken in a 5 month old kitten this week. She's settled in beautifully, has slept on all of us, plays, eats, uses the tray etc...nothing indicating she's stressed or unhappy so far.

Anyway, we all know is coming up to that time of year where some of us will be experiencing fireworks from nowish until about March..

How do you calm your kitten down during this phase? How do you prepare for it?

Luckily, it doesn't seem to be quite so bad these days in most areas. (10 years or so ago, it was pretty awful.)

With cats, I just keep them in at night if they're outside-going and let them stay with me, usually with a movie or something on to provide some other known and comfortable noise in the room. I also keep an eye on the weather round the known 'bad days' (and often work out the days of the week) to try and guess when the worst evenings might be. Bad weather or a weekend coming up will often shift the timing of a very local fireworks event.

She's an indoor cat so there's no isssue over planning weather wise - although, if she was an outside cat, I wouldn't have thought to think of that until you said it.

Will remember the movie idea, I think I'll mover her bed, litter tray, food etc up to my room if she reacts as badly as I fear.

It's not going to be easy this year. DS is terrified of them as it is so the cat may be worse because of his reaction too - full on screaming meltdown here when fireworks and loud storms here...

How old is he - old enough to redirect him into staying calm to provide a 'good example' to the cat? (If he's having a screaming meltdown, I'd have thought that she'd be more likely to be worried by the immediacy of those sounds rather than something outside the house.)

I'm thinking aloud here but maybe - just maybe - it might be a good idea to start things off for both him and the cat a few days before the 5th (or the Saturday before or after - whenever you can find out from the local noise that things are likely to be happening.) Just so that you can have a routine ready and accepted of going altogether up to your room and watching a movie or something and it's therefore more normal.

Just a thought though and other posters may have other comments or different views.