Scaredy Cat

gimmick

We have a 9 month old cat, and to say she is constantly nervous is an understatement.

She is forever cowering, if I pick her up her heart beat goes nuts. As a result of this nervousness she has absolutely no personality, juts sits around doing nothing all day long. She wont really play either.

Is this a common thing with a cat who was taken from the mother at about 7 weeks old and has no interaction with other cats since? Does anyone know how she can be drawn out of her shell? Its come to the point that I have come to intensely dislike her.

kerrysgold

aww, bless her, poor little thing! maybe you could get her another cat to be friends with? I don't really know anything about cats, but from being around my neighbours cats they seem to like to sleep together and even just sit curled up together relaxing! and the 2 that are friends are alot more relaxed than the 3rd one who doesn't really mix with them, she isn't as bad as yours but she is quite nervous even though she has no reason to be. (never been abused or neglected, been a house pet since she was born)

MsFifers

Some cats are just like that - I have one thats ok around me but just runs and hides if anyone else comes into the flat.

Try bribing for affection with food! Just be gentle and slow-moving around her and let her decide the level of affection & attention she wants. ie if you feel she is beginning to get a bit friendly - don't pick her up for a cuddle all of a sudden. Don't look her in the eye either.

If you are playing with her try using something dangling on a string or a "fishing rod" type toy - so that her attention is on that, rather than on you. She might get more used to having you close by that way.

summer_ina_bowl

I'd doubt her nervouness comes from lack of contact with other cats, she may just be highly strung. I know of loads of single cats kept indoors and nervousness isn't a trend throughout, for the most part, they are all very comfortable, calm and content.
I live with two 8 month old brothers, both were neutered on the same day - in fact they've shared everything from birth, Dylan is really calm and laxy-daisy, but Chaos is much more high strung and very nervous of new things, so I guess there might not be any specific cause, its probably just her personality. My other cat, Pogo, was quite nervous until she had to go into boarding kennels for a few days, when she came out she was much more settled as if the whole experience had taught her just how good her home life was!!
You didn't mention if she was spayed?

Shewhomustbe...

One of my cats was like that, it may have to do with her self-confidence.

What I used to do was sit on the floor and let him come over to me so he feels in control. You could also play with a toy to show her it's fun.

This guy has a hiding place behind my wardrobe which he scarpers to when we have visitors or gets a scare. All my cats run for the hills when they hear someone coming up the drive-way, our postman is their nemesis! :rolleyes:

I wouldn't worry about it too much but I'd keep an eye on her. If she's on her own a lot she may be getting frights so if you show her she's safe around you she should improve, though a companion mightn't be such a bad idea, once her confidence increases.

Forgot to add all this takes time, Zeke, the fella I've mentioned, only truly came out of his shell over the last six months and we've had him and his brothers for two and a half years. The hard work pays off.

gimmick

summer_ina_bowl wrote: »

You didn't mention if she was spayed?

Nope, not yet. We are wondering should we allow her have one litter or not.

Cheers for the pointers anyways folks. Ill keep them in mind.

Alfasudcrazy

We have had a cat for 13 years that has never meowed let alone purred. She treats us like automatic feeding machines and never interacted with anyone in the family. She has only survived for her supposed mice / rat killing ability.

Our other cat (14 years) is friendlier but also very aloof and independent.

While our newest cat (10 months) is worse than a dog and demands human interaction all the time and has forced her way in to become an indoor cat.
She even prefers us to the other cats - not such a surprise there.

As I type she is having great fun with my sandwich which she grabbed out of my hand.

So cats come with wide variations in personalities which in my experience they more or less retain for life despite anything you do.

Alun

We have two cats, sisters from the same litter, and one of them is just like this. She has certain places in the house where she feels 'safe', and you can approach her in any one of these and she'll let you make a fuss of her, she'll roll over on her back and let you stroke her tummy and all that. But if you approach her anywhere else, she'll act as if you're trying to attack her or something and cower and run away. Whenever anyone strange (to her, that is!) comes into the house she'll slink away to one of her safe places and hide, and only come out when they're gone. Her sister is quite the opposite and a little domineering, so maybe this has something to do with it. We try and engage both of them equally, and not favour either of them over the other, but it can get quite difficult and a little upsetting as well as you think it's something you've done, but basically she's been a little bit like this from the moment we first got her and it's just got worse as time went on.

Puteq

dont give up on this cat gimmick. myself and my g/f have a cat who sounds a lot like this one. she started off being a total nervous wreck about everything, to the extent that it really got annoying for me and i completely disliked the cat for being so pathetically afraid of everything. however when i was playing GTA (a playstation game that takes months to play through fully) i would bring her to sit on my lap and gradually she got used to that to the stage that she now comes to us herself (she is even needy now, a complete change!).

strangely, once my g/f was bringing the cat t the vet, and being a complete nervous wreck she wasnt able to handle the car at all and was going mental and shedding hair and ripping her claws out on the seat, so the vet gave her some drug that relaxed her, and for some reason after that she seemed to be more relaxed overall in her life.

she is still a nervous cat, and totally dominated by the other cats we have, but at least she got a lot better than she was at first