Hi Everyone,
Just checking in. A quick intro for anyone not seeing my intro post. We are have recently adopted a 13 month out F2 named Zakai. He is our third kitty as we have two DSH that we rescued from the shelter 2 years ago. We have had him since August 7th. He has been in quarantine the whole time. He is UTD on all vaccines, spayed and had his front claws removed all before he was rehomed with us. He had been with the previous owners since they purchased him at 12 weeks. They rehomed him do to the fact that he had been spraying and also because he was a bit to much for them. One of them has medical issues and the other works all the time and he needs to play a lot and also keeping up with cleaning up after the spraying was too much for them. They loved him and hated to rehome him but knew that it was for the best. We had always wanted a SV but could not afford the upfront cost of one so we took him in.
We are not strangers to working with problem cats as our Maine Coon cat had a lot of socialization and litter box issues. We cleaned out a spare bedroom for him. He has a big metal crate draped in sheets with a soft bed in it, a cat tree (one that actually fits him now), a nice big window sill and a few other things to hop up on. Since we have had him he has only sprayed a couple times. Two times were directly behind his litter box so we got him a bigger one and that has stopped. The other one was by the door and we immediately cleaned it up. We had to put a weather strip on the bottom of the bedroom door because my other cats were trying to introduce themselves underneath the door and it was giving Zman some anxiety. We understand this is going to be a long process and have no plans of removing him from quarantine until he is fully bonded with us and knows he can trust us and we can trust him. Here are a few of our challenges. He won't let us in the room. Especially when we have food for him. When we go in he growls and hisses and lunges to bite. After the first attempt he continues to growl until his food is set down. Then he takes just a couple of bites and makes several more attempts at out legs. Forcefully. He has bit both me and my fiance drawing blood on him and bruising me. We had talked to Marylin and she said to use a cardboard box to protect ourselves for when he lunges. It protects us but the whole situation is still so stressful. All we want to do is come in and play with him or feed him or just sit with him. After the first 20 min or so he starts to calm a bit. And sometimes he pulls the same MO when we try to leave.
He will play. He LOVES Da Bird. Sometimes it takes a while to get him going but when he does get going he plays a lot and it fun for all of us. He was eating great and then yesterday he stopped eating as much. He does not let us show him physical affection at all. However he will eat a treat from our hands so gently making sure not to bite our fingers. We really want to make this work and any advice is helpful. We bought the Comfort Zone diffuser today. We are hoping that helps a bit. Any advice on getting him to accept us coming into the room and letting us out?
Just checking in. A quick intro for anyone not seeing my intro post. We are have recently adopted a 13 month out F2 named Zakai. He is our third kitty as we have two DSH that we rescued from the shelter 2 years ago. We have had him since August 7th. He has been in quarantine the whole time. He is UTD on all vaccines, spayed and had his front claws removed all before he was rehomed with us. He had been with the previous owners since they purchased him at 12 weeks. They rehomed him do to the fact that he had been spraying and also because he was a bit to much for them. One of them has medical issues and the other works all the time and he needs to play a lot and also keeping up with cleaning up after the spraying was too much for them. They loved him and hated to rehome him but knew that it was for the best. We had always wanted a SV but could not afford the upfront cost of one so we took him in.
We are not strangers to working with problem cats as our Maine Coon cat had a lot of socialization and litter box issues. We cleaned out a spare bedroom for him. He has a big metal crate draped in sheets with a soft bed in it, a cat tree (one that actually fits him now), a nice big window sill and a few other things to hop up on. Since we have had him he has only sprayed a couple times. Two times were directly behind his litter box so we got him a bigger one and that has stopped. The other one was by the door and we immediately cleaned it up. We had to put a weather strip on the bottom of the bedroom door because my other cats were trying to introduce themselves underneath the door and it was giving Zman some anxiety. We understand this is going to be a long process and have no plans of removing him from quarantine until he is fully bonded with us and knows he can trust us and we can trust him. Here are a few of our challenges. He won't let us in the room. Especially when we have food for him. When we go in he growls and hisses and lunges to bite. After the first attempt he continues to growl until his food is set down. Then he takes just a couple of bites and makes several more attempts at out legs. Forcefully. He has bit both me and my fiance drawing blood on him and bruising me. We had talked to Marylin and she said to use a cardboard box to protect ourselves for when he lunges. It protects us but the whole situation is still so stressful. All we want to do is come in and play with him or feed him or just sit with him. After the first 20 min or so he starts to calm a bit. And sometimes he pulls the same MO when we try to leave.
He will play. He LOVES Da Bird. Sometimes it takes a while to get him going but when he does get going he plays a lot and it fun for all of us. He was eating great and then yesterday he stopped eating as much. He does not let us show him physical affection at all. However he will eat a treat from our hands so gently making sure not to bite our fingers. We really want to make this work and any advice is helpful. We bought the Comfort Zone diffuser today. We are hoping that helps a bit. Any advice on getting him to accept us coming into the room and letting us out?
