Wednesday, December 19, 2018

Trying to open Darcy's world



Every time I have gone in to visit Darcy lately she has been glued to the back of the upper shelf in the cat cage. I haven't seen her move and it seemed her food consumption was down. I wanted to check her over to make sure that she wasn't having a bad reaction to being neutered (she didn't, everything checked out okay). When I pulled her out of the cage I thought I would try holding her for a while and seeing if I could get her to calm some. I thought I would try bringing her to the couch so I could be comfy while doing it.


She was not comfortable on me, so I thought I would try putting her next to me and giving her a place to hide. That calmed her a bit and we sat like that for a few minutes. I calmly patted her and directed my energies away from her (watching a show I was enjoying) and she started purring!!! *happy dance*

After that, I opened up the blanket a little to see what she would do and she immediately jumped down and headed back to the bathroom, but along the way she actually stopped and looked back at me..


and then, SHE CHECKED OUT MY SHOES!!! before moving back into the bathroom.



This took less than 20 seconds, but the fact that she didn't bolt right back into the room was HUGE HUGE HUGE..  Of course, the next time I went to go get her, she was still less than thrilled, but socializing an under socialized cat takes a lot of time and each win is to be celebrated.

I checked over my webcam, and I see she and Onyx are becoming friends. When I am not around Onyx will go into the room and even into the cage and hang out with Darcy. Darcy will come out and hang out in the bathroom with Onyx as well. She has left the bathroom for short periods, so she is expanding her world on her own without me.. so hopefully with a bit of forcing and a bit of her own exploration she'll feel more comfortable with more territory. This is a good thing.

13 comments:

  1. I admire your tenacity in this worthy endeavor. We have had several feral and undersocialized cats in our care, too, and bringing them around to us is always worthwhile. One of them, Jenny, was caught as a nine-week old kitten, along with her sister, Marbles, a week later. They have been with us for 16 years, although Marbles still doesn't trust easily. Jenny, however, had a lightbulb moment a few years ago, and now she wants to be petted constantly!

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  2. Socializing these kitties is a two-steps forward, one step back (and, well, sometimes one step forward, two steps back sometimes too), as you know, so I'm really happy to see progress!

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  3. You see, you can do it! Just keep your eye on the prize, and say 'fiddle-dee-dee' to set backs. Cats are cats, and don't recognize human timelines.

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  4. Good news! We have two ferals, one I would not even call feral anymore and the other still wants nothing to do with us other than food delivery after 2+ years. Oh well, each is different.

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  5. He hee, step by step... We're so happy to hear of these progresses ! Purrs

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  6. You have such patience and love for your fosters. I hope she can stay with you long enough to be fairly well socialized.

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  7. That is wonderful. You can do it Darcy

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  8. Yeah! We love this. Go, Darcy, go!

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  9. The will is there, she just doesn't know how to do it, and she's not sure of the value, but she will learn both in time. A reward of some sort helps to reinforce it, a treat, a special blanket or a heating pad on low for her to sit on, or a little petting ritual once she is more comfortable and you find something she likes especially. She's got you wrapped around her little pinky toe with that backward glance.

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  10. Wow, that is wonderful progress with Darcy. It is really challenging to social an under socialized kitty but so worthy it. I'm glad she is becoming friends with Onyx. That is a huge plus. Keep up the great work.

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  11. This is so awesome. I’m glad Onyx is keeping her company!

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  12. Wonderful news! Perhaps the two can be adopted together? It would seem that Onyx is also helping Darcy feel more comfortable.

    Eileen

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