Day 3 is more of the same. A few wins, a few new behaviors. The trick with kittens is you need to consistently spend time with them. It doesn’t have to be hours, but they need multiple mini-interactions daily. I’m trying to set up a morning, mid-morning, noon, afternoon, before dinner and after dinner schedule. At least two of the sessions to be 30 minutes and one of the sessions (usually an evening session) to be an hour. I’m not playing the whole time. The short sessions can run between 10 to 20 minutes. When they say they are done, I let them be and simply sit in the room and read a book. My goal is for them to say, I’m done playing and instead of going to their bed, sit next to me while I read. That is when I’ll know they are ready. Although Monroe is learning that being in the human’s lap can be fun, she’s still skitish about it. Walker is a bigger challenge.

Morning Play time

This morning I switched it up. I put a half of a 3 oz can of Hills Science Diet Kitten food in a plate and took that in with me. I sat next to their food and put the plate in front of me. Their sensitive smell must have told them “Breakfast is served” and they came right up to me and ate. Walker was right there with Monroe! No holding back! When they were almost done, I slowly moved my hand to my phone to take a picture. Walker saw it and moved behind Monroe. But not too far. After the picture was taken, he was more cautious, but came back for another bite.

The following is not something I would recommend normally, but I’m trying to get them to associate humans with good things. So instead of using the teaser far away, I stretched my legs out to get them to jump over my legs. I made sure I had on thick jeans so kitty claws would not penetrate. Monroe took to this new play with hardly any problem. Walker, is still a littel hesitant.

Afternoon

We did have a mid-morning play session, but that was just a bit of fun, not something new. This afternoon, we started with the usual, calling them from their sleepy hutch and continued with a bit more of the same with treats to move them closer and over the legs play. Walker DID come close and play. But I didn’t want to scare him away, so no video.

Mid – Afternoon

We had the unexpected again. The Electrician came back out to put things a bit more in place from his visit yesterday. Plus one of the fire alarms he checked chirpped. I DON’T want that chirpping all night and stressing out the babies. To check all the fire alarms, he needed to go into the kitty sanctuary. I went in first and they were in the hutch. I had to break their trust and partially close the other door, just enough so they could not get out. During the time he was in the room, the ladder was situatated so he could not close the door. So I couldn’t use this as an opportunity for them to meet another human. I stayed by the door and spoke softely to them. After he left and closed the door, I set the hutch back to it’s normal config with one door closed and the other with the cat tree holding it open.

After the electrician left, I went back to the room. Speaking softly. I knew I’d scared them and they don’t feel comfortable in their hidey hole now. But I didn’t want them going back under the furniture. Monroe was under the bed and Walker was in the bed by the tall tree. I used towels to block the access to under the furniture then sat by the food dishes, with a teaser, speaking softly and gently tossing it.

Monroe wandered around and sniffed at the towels. Walker came over to play with the teaser. After sniffing the towels, I saw Monroe scratching at her eye. I figured trust is broken now and I need to get a look at that eye, so I reached over and picked her up. Fortunately, I saw nothing wrong with her eye and let her down. To my surprise she didn’t run away, so I continued to pet her. She stayed right by me and started purring! Walker wasn’t sure what to make of all this, but he stayed close and started to eat and drink. I didn’t reach for him, but he definately took note that his sister enjoyed a petting session.

A little bit more playing and I called it done for our afternoon session. Wish I had video of Monroe enjoying her first petting session. What a sweetie!

Evening time!

We had two long play sessions this evening. I varied my location from floor to bed, still coaxing Walker out. Monroe has decided my lap is ok and even enjoyed a nice little petting session and purred up a storm. The second video is from my tablet, you can hear some of the “music for cats” playing on my cell phone. I think the purring sound in the music is a calming effect.

They had periods of kitten with kitten rough house and I just let them go for that until they wear themselves out, then get their attention back on me. After one session, they settled down in the little bed next to the tall cat tree. I leaned over the bed and spoke softly to them. They did the slow eye close. I don’t know if that slow eye close means “I like you” like some of the posts I’ve read. But I’ve seen Hoshi and Lilly also do it — after I started looking for it. When I got my camera to take a pick they opened their eyes! It’s still a cute shot.