Me and my girlfriend decided to adopt a kitten from a shelter, but it now keeps hiding under the sofa.
In the beginning, the kitten was fairly calm, it even took the car ride home in the carriage quite well. We created a safe space in the bathroom, with a litterbox, scratching post, food, and some toys. We socialized and played with it 4-5 times a day, about 15 minutes each, so it would get more comfortable with us.
Unfortunately, the kitten has a light eye infection, so we needed to wrap it in a towel to prevent it from escaping, while we're administering eyedrops (two times per day), which it obviously hated.
On day 2, it was comfortable with us approaching it, without bolting away. On day 3, we could even give it scritches and it would eat treats from our hand.
Then we thought that the kitten would be ready to be moved to new surroundings, so on day 4, we decided to leave the bathroom door open slightly, so it could come out and access the living room.
I suppose this is where we went wrong, as we opened the door. It took the kitten 30 minutes to build up courage and come out. As it came out, it bolted straight under the sofa, where it stayed until the rest of the day (only coming out to use the litterbox and eat). We figured that the kitten was just overwhelmed by new surroundings, so we just shrugged it off and let it stay there overnight, to get accustomed to its new surrounding. During the night, the kitty did explore the living room, but as we woke up, it bolted straight under the sofa again.
Kitten has been living under the sofa for about 4 days now. I've been trying to block the entrance to under the sofa with towels, but it keeps managing to push itself in, as it's so small.
I've been trying to lure the kitten out with food, toys, some cat meowing audio. It works at times, but it's very skittish and nervous and does not like being around us at all.
Petting is completely out of the question right now. I'm just thinking if there's anything else we could've done or do or it's simply just too early and I should wait and let the time do its work. Any advice would be appreciated, cheers!
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/ph5kld/adopted_a_4monthold_kitten_from_a_shelter_it/
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