hi, hi! my mother and i (as i am a minor) live in an apartment complex (ground floor) and have ended up with stray kitties in our care. we found them around late summer-fall trying to eat the bread left out for the birds. we've checked that they are genuine strays and not lost cats, so we decided to adopt them and get them inside. we're well aware of the troubles that would come with strays and specifically ones that seemed to be abused in the past and kept that in mind when making our decision. (they do not portray normal feral behaviour but they are clearly afraid of being touched [in certain ways, will elaborate later] and have a clear unease when someone raises their voice and other things that lead us to believe that they were abused.)
their names are echo and onix.
we assumed that we would have more time to work with them and get them used to touch and specifically being picked up/put in carriers. in fact, we were told that due to covid pest control would not be working until it was safe to do so, and tbh it's still not "safe to do so," but we got notice today that they will be arriving on the 27th to spray apartments.
echo is very friendly and we've been able to touch and pet her. she seems to enjoy being pet and i've taken notice to particular spots she seems to like and in the mornings (well, like 12-2pm) she comes out into the living room and is basically half asleep purring into my hand, it's adorable. :) but there are still times where she is fearful, typically when i reach to pet her from above, or when she isn't the one to initiate contact. i'm hesitant to try to pick her up due to this and ideally would have liked more time to work with her.
onix is like... the absolute opposite of her. she's a very anxious cat, and we've tried feliway stuff and calming treats, but for the most part i feel they haven't done much. or maybe they have, just not in the way i've expected them to, dunno. we've got her comfortable enough to come near us when we beckon (wiggling our finger towards her, she comes up and sniffs us) and i've noticed during play she's no longer hesitant to run around near us. just yesterday she was staring at us from their room and watching us instead of diving under to her hiding spot! it makes me very happy to see progress like this in her behaviour, especially since i know going from outside to inside has been very stressful on her specifically. but she's also nowhere near letting us get her into a carrier.
some extras: they were a pair when we found them, and they're still a pair now. they look nearly identical, too, aside from fur lengths, so we assume they're related in some way.
we have a carrier that was originally part of the plan to get them inside (and checked up by vets) but only echo bothered to use it as a napping spot when we were feeding them outside. now that they're inside and have tons of areas to nap, neither of them bother with it. (hell, i've seen echo napping on the towel on TOP of it now, instead of inside it.) it's not one of the bag carriers though, would it be possible that they'd take better to those?
we're also pretty sure they're young! they're not kittens, obvs, but we assume they're probably around 1-2 years old.
thank you for taking the time to read this, and if you can, please offer any advice to help with this! we're planning to get a bag carrier tomorrow. cat sedative stuff is a last resort, i'm aware, but i genuinely do not think onix will not willingly get in a carrier, so we're thinking of that as a possibility to help onix.
once again, thank you guys, i'm really unsure on what to do and scared for them. :(
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/l34x04/pest_control_is_will_be_coming_soon_cats_are/
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