Pikelet’s next two weeks

The previous post about Pikelet covered the first two months of her stay with us - it was a fairly long and slow journey from being a newly arrived terrified cat, through to a confident kitty but with a firm “no touchy” rule, to her finally realising that actually those hooman hands and their pats can be pretty darn nice. That’s when the Behaviour Team at RSPCA Queensland began asking whether Pikelet was ready to be made available for adoption. We felt that she wasn’t quite there yet and asked for another two weeks to see where we could get to in that time. This update covers those two weeks but I had no idea how much progress that Pikelet would make!

Week 1

Our fosters all start out in our spare room - we basically need to do this because of our complicated situation with our four resident cats (those stories for another day) but giving them a “base camp” (a.k.a. launch room) is an essential first step to help cats settle into their new environment. You can read more

about base camp here.

Spending time in with Pikelet on Friday 7th August, she was really showing signs of being very confident with my presence in her room. While I was sitting on a comfy blanket, she was quite happy lying right next to the blanket, grooming herself and confidently showing off her soft little belly, almost inviting me to give it a little scratch. (Fortunately I’m not that silly.)

Two days later on the Sunday night Pikelet had finally decided that it was safe enough to join me on the blanket and she was rewarded with some nice chin rubs.

Then on the Monday night, I was exhausted and fell asleep on the blanket. It was a little cooler that night and when I woke up I found a little warm buddy snuggling up beside me!!!

Pikelet was clearly becoming more and more confident every day. We began letting her out into the living area more regularly. She was surprisingly comfortable being out and about, and she quickly settled on the cat tree as her favourite place to be close enough to the action to supervise us.

By the end of week 1, Pikelet was already well beyond my expectations of where we would get to in two weeks.

Week 2

The progress in week 2 can be summed up in one photo. It isn’t the greatest quality photo and I’m going to crop out the goofy grin on my face but week 2 was all about Pikelet starting to let me pick her up.

Last Monday (17th August) I was chatting to the Behaviour Team, boasting about the great strides that little Pikelet had made but lamenting that she still wasn’t interested in being picked up. She was letting me pat her with long strokes right down her back and getting more comfortable with the sides of her belly, but as soon as I started to move my hands towards being able to lift her up she would scurry away.

Then late that Monday night after spending a long session in with her she let me pick her up and hold her. For the first few seconds I froze trying to work out whether she was actually letting me pick her up - she was! Pikelet waited patiently while I called out to my wife to come take a look who was as shocked as I was. Eventually Pikelet decided that it was all becoming a bit too much and started to squirm so I put her down and made sure to give her a tasty treat as a reward. Every day for the rest of the week, Pikelet allowed me to pick her up - some days longer than others but we’ll just keep chipping away and it feels like she is becoming more relaxed each time.

By the end of the week, every time Pikelet was shut in her base camp she made it clear that she wanted to be out in the rest of the house with us. And with the progress that she has made it seems like that it’s time to start trying to find her furever home. I’ve written up an adoption profile, taken a few extra photos and the Behaviour Team has written up their requirements and advice for potential adopters. Pikelet is a special little girl who needs to go home with an experienced cat owner who can read her body language, is patient enough to get to know Pikelet at her pace, and continue working with her - Pikelet is sweet and loves to spend time with humans but is still a little scared and is still learning how to interact with us. I’ll link to Pikelet’s adoption profile as soon as it goes live, in the meantime enjoy looking at her beautiful face here! And leave a comment below which photo you like more for her main profile pic - left (my fav), right or any other one posted here?