She was in the clinic because she caught cat 'flu (all too common with lots of cats in the pound, the stress makes them susceptible to it). So for the next few weeks, although the shelter staff and volunteers tried to give her cuddles and hugs along with the medicines, Mira still didn't trust humans at all. When the adult cat got better, she was put in with some kittens of her age, to socialise a bit better, and she was shy and hid at the back of the cage, not liking them very much either.
I've
had some previous success with shy cats - usually it's a matter of
giving them space and letting them know that humans are associated with
food and cuddles and good things and they make up their own minds. So I
took Mira home with me on foster. I put her in the porta-crib, (photo
above) where she was interested in seeing what was going on, but not in
having any human contact. She really was scared.
After
a couple of weeks, I was able to coax her out (with the other kittens I
was fostering) to eat next to me, and was finally able to touch her
very lightly while she was eating. No other contact was permitted, she
ran away if there was too much contact.
Mira
was an absolute sweetie of a kitten, despite her fear and shyness. I
could see that she wanted to trust, she wanted to believe, she just
couldn't quite bring herself to... so, when I'd been fostering her for
nearly three months with little progress, certainly she wasn't going to
be able to go into the kitten adoption room - she'd be too shy to meet
humans, and terrified too, I adopted her.
I
wanted to give her the time to become the cat I knew she was. I wanted
to give her the time to learn that humans can be okay, that we're able
to be trusted to touch without hurting... and lately, I've been rewarded
with her coming over for pets and snuggles. She won't sit on a lap,
and she still prefers to keep moving, but she will purr like an engine,
and rub her head against my hand and leg, to encourage petting. She
likes to have her cheeks rubbed, and even though she doesn't like being
picked up, I can actually get her into a carrier if I need to. It only
took ten months to get that level of trust.
I
have hope that she'll become even more confident, that, with time,
she'll sit on my lap eventually and snuggle with me and the others. She
plays with my other one-year-old kitten, Zuul, and they have a good
time, so I have faith that she'll eventually feel happy and confident.
In the meantime, I have the joy of knowing that she is truly as beautiful and loving and sweet as I always believed she was.
