This is Tilly! - Our Fosterers Tail
23 July 2018
Tilly is our second foster cat and if you see her now you would not think she was the same cat! She is lovely soft, affectionate and playful. We cannot keep her due to our family disappearing to the four winds shortly, otherwise we would.
Tilly was very traumatised when she came to us. She would hiss, growl and swipe (claws out) anyone who came close. She did not come out from under the sofa for 6 days! My daughter brought her home and I hadn’t a clue what she looked like for the first week, as I could not get near! I could hear her playing at night and so we tried playing with a long stick with a string on the end. In those moments she forgot herself and would come out and play but, then would be spooked and disappear under the sofa growling. She was well behaved otherwise eating and using her cat tray.
It was a slow process, the changes came in increments, first she began greeting my daughter with a “meh” usually followed by a growl. She was allowed to roam our house and disappeared under my daughter’s bed for a week, only venturing out for food and the litter tray at night. Then she began sitting at the top of the stairs staring at us from a distance, she would actually cat smile at my daughter (you know the slow blinking they do when happy). Only to hiss and disappear when we went near.
She began to sit down stairs in the doorway (for escape I think) and smile at us, feet curled in and I knew then she really wanted to trust us and wanted affection, we were winning.
My daughter spent a lot of time sitting near to Tilly, usually at the top of the stairs and Tilly would purr and smile, rub the wall, still no contact. At 6 weeks, Tilly gave in and came over to my daughter to be stroked and fussed for the first time. It was fabulous, she was behaving like and ordinary cat! She disappeared when she’d had enough but there was no going back now.
Two weeks after that she came to me for attention and it felt great! Now she’s lovely, she will get on my lap and be fussed. She greets us and will run up to us when we arrive home. I must add this is all on her terms she is very wary of me approaching her (probably unsure of my objectives) and she stares very unnervingly at strangers, but things are changing so rapidly now.
Right at this moment, she is patting my leg for attention!
As for a new home, I think anyone who is willing to be patient, spend time with her will have a beautiful affectionate cat. She will probably suit a one or two-person household with no other pets. She has never been outside except onto my flat roof (when she squeezed through a gap in the window and could not get back, she looked positively guilty and very uncomfortable huddled on the windowsill). Up to then she has never shown any interest in going outside but she may change with time.