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Adopted world's most frightened cat

I suspect it was a light-hearted post purposefully misunderstanding the previous one as being about the Frolicat rather than the not-Froli cat...

Blimey.
 
But clearly, I misjudged the correct tone to be used here.

01-i-are-serious-cat.jpg
 
girasol said:
You can make that happen for free with a mirror, on a sunny day.

Or even a torch!!! ;) :p etc...
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Not if you want to watch the football at the same time. Or go to bed. Or to work. Or cook dinner. Or masturbate into a sock. Or a combination of the above.
 
girasol said:
Even that isn't 100% guaranteed. Actually, out of our two cats, it's the stray one who's really loving and looks at us in the eye, like a puppy dog! Yep, the one that turned up in our garden out of the blue one day and never left (and who was pregnant with 7 kittens :oops:).

The one we got from kitten is a lot more aloof! Although, you are right there, she does sit on our our lap often (more so in Winter ;) ).
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I don't have cats myself but at one point my sister had three. She had two from a rescue centre and one a pedigree bought as a kitten. One of the rescue centre ones is incredibly nervous; it won't enter a room when there's guests but has slowly warmed to my sister and her husband - but it took time. The other one from the rescue centre (female :D) was aggressive to the two others - although I don't know how much of that was due to history or just being a cat amongst other cats and territory and stuff. The pedigree ginger, like you describe, is incredibly aloof :D isn't particularly bothered about anyone or anything and mainly busies itself sleeping and licking plastic bags. The point being, I guess, is that if you get a cat from a rescue centre (or one that originated from one) you should be prepared to be taking onboard a damaged cat (if it isn't then that's a bonus I suppose) - which the op evidently wasn't.
 
Corax said:
Not if you want to watch the football at the same time. Or go to bed. Or to work. Or cook dinner. Or masturbate into a sock. Or a combination of the above.
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And the cat wants to do it for a lo-o-n-g time; it can get boring.

We hung a little mirrored mobile thing in the garden: light breeze on sunny day = hours of fun. Kittens running head-long into each other, causing stars and planets to boing out and orbit their giddy little heads.
 
stuff_it said:
Afaik you could frontline/flea treat the bugger with the spot on one now (you can get a cheaper version some places, and often chemists sell it cheaper than a vet too). This should at least kill any ticks or fleas, the ticks will end up dead and be easier to remove (if that is what it is). You need to use a decent flea treatment such as you would get in a vet though, eg Advantage, Frontline, Fiproline, etc and it may be useful to know the cat's weight though afaik there are only two cat sizes, big and small.

I would wait and ask the vet about wormer, feeding the poor sod a horrible tasting dinner or worse trying to pill him is probably not going to go down too well at all. And yes get some cat toys, Wilkos is good if you're skint.
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There's issues with some other flea treatments (don't want to say which brands just incase like), but I use frontline, and it's fine
 
story said:
We hung a little mirrored mobile thing in the garden: light breeze on sunny day = hours of fun. Kittens running head-long into each other, causing stars and planets to boing out and orbit their giddy little heads.
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That's a good idea, I like it :)
 
sim667 said:
There's issues with some other flea treatments (don't want to say which brands just incase like), but I use frontline, and it's fine
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Tbh, anyone who reads the online reviews of bob Martin would probably avoid it :D

That said, the pet shop attached to our vet's nodded and agreed and sold us something different which turned out to contain exactly the same active ingredient. So we returned it and used frontline initially, now advocate. Both spot on rather than pills.
 
mrs quoad said:
Tbh, anyone who reads the online reviews of bob Martin would probably avoid it :D

That said, the pet shop attached to our vet's nodded and agreed and sold us something different which turned out to contain exactly the same active ingredient. So we returned it and used frontline initially, now advocate. Both spot on rather than pills.
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:D
 
mrs quoad said:
Tbh, anyone who reads the online reviews of bob Martin would probably avoid it :D

That said, the pet shop attached to our vet's nodded and agreed and sold us something different which turned out to contain exactly the same active ingredient. So we returned it and used frontline initially, now advocate. Both spot on rather than pills.
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Fiproline is exactly the same as Frontline, just cheaper. You can get it from Pets at Home, and probably other places as well. TBF some of the 'cheaper price' comes from it being sold in 2s and 4s rather than 3s and 6s but always useful to know when you have an infestation. All of the good ones can be obtained cheaper from the human chemist than from the vet, as with many vet medicines.
 
i'mnotsofast said:
Have we met ?!?!

Great post, mrs quoad. There was definitely one moment of irresponsibility in the first week of having the cat when I let him escape. If I am honest I didn't care if the cat ran away at that point, because I was so nauseous from the smell when I went to empty out the cat litter tray, and I thought no way will I be able to do this regularly. I opened the door to go outside to empty it into a binbag, but left the door open not minding if the cat fucked off. So at this point yes I was wildly irresponsible, and had done a bad thing by taking this cat on the premise I'd give it a good home, then finding myself unable or unwilling to do so.


.
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The red bolded bit, what type of litter do you use? IME the wood based stuff smells a lot lesss than the mineral type
 
Frontline has been nerfed though which is why its not prescription only now. We used advocate (sp?) and that works fine where as everyone I know with pets has had problems with re-infestation with frontline.
 
Citizen66 said:
The point being, I guess, is that if you get a cat from a rescue centre (or one that originated from one) you should be prepared to be taking onboard a damaged cat (if it isn't then that's a bonus I suppose) - which the op evidently wasn't.
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I got the cat after replying to an advert placed by a couple whose landlord didn't allow pets. I didn't know that the cat had spent time in a rescue place until they told me, when I was round their house to pick up the cat, having traveled over an hour to get there. So I wasn't about to turn round and leave. Well, maybe I would have left if the cat had been snarling and spitting, but of course he wasn't doing that, he just seemed a bit shy. It's true, though, that I went there not knowing much about cats, and not being very well prepared. I got the cat on impulse.

I still don't know how much time he spent in a rescue place or how he ended up there - I think he's about a year old. ButI don't think he is massively messed-up. He hides behind the sofa when someone new walks into the room or he hears a bang from upstairs, but he's getting much more confident. He spent much of the morning climbing over me and falling asleep on top of me.
 
Minnie_the_Minx said:
and what's that knobbly thing standing up next to one of his front paws? :hmm:
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Eh, not sure what you mean.

We've noticed though that the bottom half of his back leg is pink - you can see this in the photo - as if he's been in a fight. He walks absolutely fine, and doesn't seem in any pain, but it does look like something must have happened to him when he was outside.

Also his right eyelid seems a little lower than the other, and the bottom of this eye is a little bit red, so I wonder if he got something in his eye.

There's a vet a mile from here, so we'll take him there later this week or early next.
 
Omg teh cuuutez!

That vet is vg btw, I recommend :) (and according to my housemate the vetinary nurses are 'well fit' ... )
 
I have always got my cats from rescue centres or similar, and that includes ones who were terrified. My favourite cat of all time was called Esther, and she was so scared of humans that they rescue centre couldn't even catch her to put her in the box for us to take home with us, so we had to leave with just her sister (the deal was, because both cats were nervous, they had to be homed together) and we then went back the next day to collect Esther.

She and her sister both lived under the wardrobe in my bedroom for several days - we even fed them there - and it took a long time before they trusted us. I didn't let them out of the house for quite a long time - a couple of months, iirc - because I wanted to be sure they did trust us, and felt safe in our house, before letting them wander.

After a while, Esther became very much my cat, and I absolutely adored her. I used to chat to her often, and I always felt that she looked out for her sister, who was very small and doesn't have a cat. Both cats, even after they trusted the family, used to disappear when we had visitors or parties, but they always reappeared afterwards. Esther never was much of a lap cat, though - she would decide when she wanted cuddling, and would struggle out of my arms if I picked her up when I wanted a cuddle rather than when she wanted one!

I still miss Esther, who died a few years ago from a blood clot. Her sister is still alive although elderly and with lots of health problems, and lives with my daughter, since both cats were originally a present to her when she was a child.

As others have said, if you don't have patience, and if you are not prepared to accept whatever personality this cat shows as it does learn to trust you, then you should arrange for it to be rehomed.

Assuming that you do have that patience, I would advise you to lock it in the house for a while, if you possibly can, to get it used to the knowledge that there is somewhere safe and warm, even that is under a wardrobe or a bookshelf, or whatever.
 
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