Hi everybody!

I'm quite new to the fediverse but I'd been wanting to quit Reddit for a long time and realized what made me go back, despite no longer having an account, were subreddits I didn't find an equivalent for on Lemmy. Yet, somehow, I was waiting for somebody else to create them for me. 😬

So here it is: a Lemmy community for discussing socializing "feral" cats.

I'm absolutely not very experienced in doing that, I'm learning everything as I go, and I hope we'll help each other along the way. 🙂

Pictured is my recently adopted cat, her name is Mystique and she's two and a half years old. I got her trough a shelter and she's a very skittish, very anxious cat. I'm unsure about her life story, I think she was found in an overpopulated street, but could also have been living in a hoarder's house, the shelter was a bit ambiguous about it.

What matters is that she is (or was, as we've made progress since then) absolutely touch-averse, runs away most of the time if I try to approach her, is really scared of noise, movements, humans etc.

It's been 6 months living together, we initially had some good progress... and then she was diagnosed with gingivo-stomatitis, had multiple vet appointments, and then a teeth extraction, and that made a big dent in our success. I felt very discouraged, even had post adoption regrets... but it's slowly getting better, and even though she isn't a lap cat, we're bonding more and more.

I can now pet her (as long as I'm giving her snacks with the other hand 😂), and she loves to play with feathery wand toys (the first times I tried them, she would snatch them and hiss if I tried to get them back, and then one day she understood that if she released the toy... play time would last longer 😼)

I still have to be careful moving around her as she'll hiss if I'm moving too fast, even if I'm across the room... but she's never been agressive, never tried to bite nor swat! She's just a very small and anxious cat.

I didn't follow a specific method such as Socialization Saves Lives because it was too rigid for me, but I got a lot of inspiration out of it. At first, Mystique only had access to the living room, and the bottom of the couch was taped shut as she kept hiding under there and we wouldn't be able to interact. Well, the bottom of the couch has recently been reopened (thank god, it looked so ugly) and she hasn't gone back to hiding, so she definitely has gained confidence.

The only room that's out of reach is my bedroom as there are too many hiding spots that she would enjoy a bit too much. 😅 I'm hoping once she trusts me more, I can let her roam the entire flat. So for now, she only gets Father's Approved Hiding Spots. (AKA the ones where I can still access if I need to put her in her carrier for emergency vet appointments.)

So here's our story, can't wait to read yours!