So as a favour to a friend who is going through a bit of a housing crisis that means her likely sofa surfing for a couple of months, we've taken in her 10 year old cat for the foreseeable future. No real history of health conditions, my friend fed back that she can be quite a timid cat but also very affectionate and as our household will be much quieter than hers was, she feels she'll settle into our really well.
She came to us Monday lunchtime and, as expected, was very timid and went straight from her cat carrier into a box we set up in the kitchen (where we have set her up for the time being with the food bowl, water bowl, tray all brought from her home) and stayed there for several hours but no noises, really quiet. Later on that Monday evening she was coming out of the box to sniff my hand, take treats from me, she was purring like crazy and lots of nubbing the box, rubbing round mine and my partner's legs. We actually couldn't believe our luck that she seemed so settled with us and affectionate so fast.
We shut the kitchen door and left her there overnight. When we came down the Tuesday morning she was much the same and seemed so happy to see us. She'd used the litter tray twice, eaten all her food. We noticed that she'd opened a gap underneath our lower kitchen cupboards and must have gone exploring under there overnight. All of a sudden, she bolted under that kitchen cupboard space and stayed there the vast majority of yesterday, hissing and low grumbling at us.
I'm currently off work for health reasons so I'm around all day, and I tried to basically leave her to it (thinking it's maybe dawning on her that she's somewhere new and she needs space) but did intermittently pop in to sit at the other end of the kitchen and just talk to her to get her used to my voice, left a trail of treats to see if she'd come out. She didn't respond to any of this and wouldn't tend to make any noise unless I crouched down to physically look at her, when she'd then low grumble and hiss at me. I went out for 2 hours and then came back to find she had clearly been out the space as she'd eaten more food and the trail of treats but back in the space immediately and hissing again.
Last night we decided to go to bed early and let her have the run of downstairs (it's open plan living room, hallway, stairs) and kept all the doors upstairs shut except our bedroom, expecting she wouldn't come up but she did creep up and nudge into our bedroom. She more or less ignored us but she clearly knew we were there and she sniffed around the whole room, left, came back 20 minutes later and did the same then we fell asleep.
This morning it's almost deja vu again. Came downstairs same time, food eaten, litter tray used overnight, affectionate and rubbing around our legs seemingly happy to see us, then suddenly hissing and slinking back to her hiding space in the kitchen. She has today however come out when I've shaken the treat pouch and taken some treats from my hand, rubbed against me purring, then switched back into hissing immediately and crept back to her spot.
I appreciate cats are very overstimulated when moving into a new space and I absolutely expected behaviours like hiding, hissing, stress output but it's the fact she's very affectionate and purring with us at times then the sharp changes in behaviour that are confusing to us. We are planning to coax her out later today and block up the space she's going to just because it's quite deep and wouldn't be safe for us to retrieve her if she, for example, got injured and retreated there and we've got lots of other hiding spots for her, lots of boxes, an igloo bed we've bought her, space behind armchairs etc. Hoping this won't upset her too much but it needs to happen and would rather nip it in the bud.
We just want to know we're doing right by her and if this is just her confusion at settling in or if there's anything more we need to consider.
Other things:
- we have a pheromone plug in and a spray, plug in has been on since Monday (it's the one from the owner so I know they can take a day or so to kick in) and we've used the spray, but sparingly as didn't want to do too much
- she's reportedly never played with toys. I couldn't resist buying her a small soft donut toy and a bell and feather on a string. She's moved the donut overnight from where we left it in the kitchen so has seemingly interacted with it slightly, and she came out with intrigue at the sound of the bell but turned straight back into the space when she saw what it was
Thanks in advance!