If you’ve been following regularly, you know about the feral kittens I adopted.\u00a0 They were intended to be adopted out, but it hasn’t worked that way.\u00a0 The four run the spectrum of socialization from Floyd who is simply a hoot and rolls with whatever comes his way.\u00a0 To Delta, who’s pretty laid back.\u00a0 Then there’s Ruby Mae who is a high strung laid back — if that makes any sense.\u00a0 She can be a sweetie one minute and fighting you to get away as if she thinks you’re going to eat her the next.\u00a0 Then we have Rossie.<\/p>\n
Rossie is an adventure.\u00a0 The other three carry their tails high and proudly.\u00a0 Rossie carries hers low. She’s jumpy.\u00a0 She comes around us, but she won’t come within reach most of the time.\u00a0 When she does come within reach, it’s close enough to sniff an outstretched hand, or, if we’re lucky to accept a rub from an outstretched hand, but she’s cautious not to allow us to come close enough to pick her up.\u00a0 She doesn’t like that.<\/p>\n
She’s a good cat in the house.\u00a0 She uses the litter box.\u00a0 She eats, drinks, sleeps, plays, and scratches in appropriate places.\u00a0 She’s a perfect house cat.\u00a0 Except, she doesn’t want to be handled by humans.\u00a0 With her having the run of the house, she’s becoming more distant from us.\u00a0 Other than our personal disappointment at not having a snugly kitty, this works out okay.\u00a0 Except when we need to take her to the vet or to transition to or from San Antonio. We have the overarching question, “Will we be able to catch her?”\u00a0 So far, we have always been able to do so.<\/p>\n
I brought a couple of carriers in from the closet the other night.\u00a0 Rossie, like the other cats, was inspecting them.\u00a0 I said to her, “Rossie, we have to go to San Antonio tomorrow, and we’ll need you to get in a carrier for the trip.”\u00a0 Her eyes widened, and she bolted into the entry hall.\u00a0 Tell me that cat doesn’t understand English.\u00a0 I dare you.<\/p>\n
Other than the capturing dilemma, I’m left to wonder what is the right thing to do for her?\u00a0 Do I let her continue in this vein?\u00a0 Do I try to confine her to a smaller space, spend time with her, and entice her to be near me?\u00a0 Do I insist upon holding her and handling her in hopes of her getting used to it and welcoming it?\u00a0 Are any of these approaches irreversibly wrong?\u00a0 How do I know what is right for her? Is there another, better approach we should try?<\/p>\n
I’m reminded of Kitty, a cat I adopted from atop a water heater who preferred to keep her distance.\u00a0 As she aged, she became more affectionate.\u00a0 Then there’s Natasha, but she was always approachable even though she was pretty firm about what she would and would not tolerate from us.\u00a0 After eight years together, we have a pretty good understanding between us.\u00a0 I’m inclined to respect Rossie’s space as much as we can reasonably do, but is that the right thing to do?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you’ve been following regularly, you know about the feral kittens I adopted.\u00a0 They were intended to be adopted out, but it hasn’t worked that way.\u00a0 The four run the spectrum of socialization from Floyd who is simply a hoot and rolls with whatever comes his way.\u00a0 To Delta, who’s …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[28,117],"tags":[99],"class_list":["post-6202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-z-challenge","category-animals","tag-rossie"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6202\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}