Boyfriend and visitors

He just will not stay in the house if anyone comes.
When I got home from work today he was on his donut bed, quite comfy, and
normally he will stay there until it's time for his meal and then he goes
out for a bit of rat-patrolling and being important around his territory.
Then Simon arrived, my counsellor for his monthly visit. Despite having
seen Simon for around 4 years now (and he is very gentle in demeanour and
cat friendly) Boyfie immediately bolted and headed for the hills. He cannot
seem to tolerate a visitor, even June who looks after him so well when I'm
in hospital and for weeks afterward, if she visits now he is out of the
door. He panics if the door bell rings, always has, and is way out of here
if it does.
I do wonder what could possibly have happened to him in his previous life to
frighten him so much about visitors.
If it was left to him, it would be just himself, his meowmie, and KFC,
always and forever, no-one else.
Now and again I feel a need to have people round..

Tweed

On Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:29:32 +0100, "Christina Websell"
wrote:

He just will not stay in the house if anyone comes.
When I got home from work today he was on his donut bed, quite comfy, and
normally he will stay there until it's time for his meal and then he goes
out for a bit of rat-patrolling and being important around his territory.
Then Simon arrived, my counsellor for his monthly visit. Despite having
seen Simon for around 4 years now (and he is very gentle in demeanour and
cat friendly) Boyfie immediately bolted and headed for the hills. He cannot
seem to tolerate a visitor, even June who looks after him so well when I'm
in hospital and for weeks afterward, if she visits now he is out of the
door. He panics if the door bell rings, always has, and is way out of here
if it does.
I do wonder what could possibly have happened to him in his previous life to
frighten him so much about visitors.
If it was left to him, it would be just himself, his meowmie, and KFC,
always and forever, no-one else.
Now and again I feel a need to have people round..

Tweed

When my doorbell rings all mine head for the bedroom. Little Bit to
hide under the bed, the other 4 head for the bedroom window which
looks out at the front door. If it's someone they know and like,
they'll come back to the living room to visit, otherwise they sit in
the doorway and watch. Princess is the exception, anyone who sits down
can expect her to jump into their lap.
--
Steve Touchstone
Little Bit, Sammy, Spotty, Princess, Furby
and Rocky (RB)
Pix at http://tinyurl.com/22pfn8
Vids at http://tinyurl.com/4yb6nj

Christina Websell wrote:
He just will not stay in the house if anyone comes.
When I got home from work today he was on his donut bed, quite comfy, and
normally he will stay there until it's time for his meal and then he goes
out for a bit of rat-patrolling and being important around his territory.
Then Simon arrived, my counsellor for his monthly visit. Despite having
seen Simon for around 4 years now (and he is very gentle in demeanour and
cat friendly) Boyfie immediately bolted and headed for the hills. He cannot
seem to tolerate a visitor, even June who looks after him so well when I'm
in hospital and for weeks afterward, if she visits now he is out of the
door. He panics if the door bell rings, always has, and is way out of here
if it does.
I do wonder what could possibly have happened to him in his previous life to
frighten him so much about visitors.
If it was left to him, it would be just himself, his meowmie, and KFC,
always and forever, no-one else.
Now and again I feel a need to have people round..

Since Boyfriend came to you as a stray, it is easy to surmise that
something happened to scare him, but it's not necessarily true. Miranda
was born into a loving home where she spent the first four months of her
life, then she came to live with me, where she is spoiled rotten. No one
has ever done anything to abuse her in any way (unless you count the vet
visits), so there really is no explaining why she hides every time the
doorbell rings. She even hides sometimes when it's only me coming home
from work. The only ones she doesn't hide from are my eldest sister and
my niece, whose home was Miranda's first home.

Caliban only hides from the cleaners, because he knows that when they
come in, the sucky monster will soon be coming out of its nest (the
hallway closet).

--
Marina, Miranda and Caliban.
In loving memory of Frank and Nikki.

"Christina Websell" wrote in
message ...
He just will not stay in the house if anyone comes.
When I got home from work today he was on his donut bed, quite
comfy, and normally he will stay there until it's time for his meal
and then he goes out for a bit of rat-patrolling and being important
around his territory.
Then Simon arrived, my counsellor for his monthly visit. Despite
having seen Simon for around 4 years now (and he is very gentle in
demeanour and cat friendly) Boyfie immediately bolted and headed for
the hills. He cannot seem to tolerate a visitor, even June who
looks after him so well when I'm in hospital and for weeks
afterward, if she visits now he is out of the door. He panics if
the door bell rings, always has, and is way out of here if it does.
I do wonder what could possibly have happened to him in his previous
life to frighten him so much about visitors.
If it was left to him, it would be just himself, his meowmie, and
KFC, always and forever, no-one else.
Now and again I feel a need to have people round..

Tweed

Poor guy. I feel bad for him.

Molly has gone so far the other way lately, I was afraid the very nice
family that was visiting with her in the road in front of out house
might decide she needed to go home with them. (New neighbor lady out
for a walk with her two small children and visiting with the 'nice
kitty')

Wish he didn't see the world as a scary place.

Jo

My kitnz are chalk-and-cheese in this regard.

When someone comes to the door, Kiki will get up somewhere high
(usually on top of the bookshelves) and turn into an ornament. That
way she can see what's going on without having to commit to anything.

Naughty, on the other hand, will sprint to the door like a d*g and
mowwwwl, because she knows visitors mean "Can I give the kitty a cat
treat?", "Can I play with the kitty?" (and Naughty can *never* have
enough Cat Dancer time), and "Can I pet the kitty?". These are a few
of her favourite things :-)

This is, of course, unless the visitors are my friends with the two
children under five. As soon as they come through the door the kitnz
dissolve into the ether and only rematerialise once the tiny loud
humans have gone.

On Oct 23, 9:29*am, "Christina Websell"
wrote:
He just will not stay in the house if anyone comes.
When I got home from work today he was on his donut bed, quite comfy, and
normally he will stay there until it's time for his meal and then he goes
out for a bit of rat-patrolling and being important around his territory.
Then Simon arrived, my counsellor for his monthly visit. * Despite having
seen Simon for around 4 years now (and he is very gentle in demeanour and
cat friendly) Boyfie immediately bolted and headed for the hills. *He cannot
seem to tolerate a visitor, even June who looks after him so well when I'm
in hospital and for weeks afterward, if she visits now he is out of the
door. *He panics if the door bell rings, always has, and is way out of here
if it does.
I do wonder what could possibly have happened to him in his previous life to
frighten him so much about visitors.
If it was left to him, it would be just himself, his meowmie, and KFC,
always and forever, no-one else.
Now and again I feel a need to have people round..

Tweed

Christina Websell wrote:

Then Simon arrived, my counsellor for his monthly visit. Despite having
seen Simon for around 4 years now (and he is very gentle in demeanour and
cat friendly) Boyfie immediately bolted and headed for the hills. He cannot
seem to tolerate a visitor, even June who looks after him so well when I'm
in hospital and for weeks afterward, if she visits now he is out of the
door. He panics if the door bell rings, always has, and is way out of here
if it does.
I do wonder what could possibly have happened to him in his previous life to
frighten him so much about visitors.

He might not have any history of abuse, to cause him to act this way.
He simply might not be very well socialized to humans. Maybe he wasn't
around humans that much for the first few months of his life. At this
point, he trusts you, but he hasn't been able to generalize that to all
of humanity. I think that's a feral-cat thing, or maybe in his case,
semi-feral.

I think (although I don't know for sure) that this is the case with
Licky. He's not a lap cat, never lets me pick him up, and runs from me
when I walk towards him. But he does trust me more than any other human
on earth, because I'm his caregiver. Whenever other people come over,
he runs off. He will eventually reappear, which is more than what Boyfie
does, but he's usually pretty cautious around visitors.

I suppose it's possible Licky was abused, but I think it's more likely
he didn't have enough exposure to humans at a critical time of his
development, and now he'll always have some level of distrust. I've
been trying to gain more of his trust over the 5+ years I've had him,
and he's relaxed a bit, but very very slowly. He will probably never be
a lie-on-top-of-you cuddly kind of cat.

--
Joyce ^..^

(To email me, remove the X's from my user name.)

wrote in news:490035dd$0$33509
:

I think (although I don't know for sure) that this is the case with
Licky. He's not a lap cat, never lets me pick him up, and runs from me
when I walk towards him. But he does trust me more than any other human
on earth, because I'm his caregiver. Whenever other people come over,
he runs off. He will eventually reappear, which is more than what Boyfie
does, but he's usually pretty cautious around visitors.

Harley adores me, but she gets totally ****ed if a visitor shows up. She
hisses and spits and yowls like *I'm* the devil and will go hide somewhere
until the visitor is gone. Scares the hell out of me. It takes her a couple
hours to return to her usual cuddly demeanor. My mom used to visit
regularly but not so much for a long time due to her age and now stays away
to avoid sending Harley into her tantrum.

wrote in message
...
Christina Websell wrote:


He might not have any history of abuse, to cause him to act this way.
He simply might not be very well socialized to humans. Maybe he wasn't
around humans that much for the first few months of his life. At this
point, he trusts you, but he hasn't been able to generalize that to all
of humanity. I think that's a feral-cat thing, or maybe in his case,
semi-feral.

Boyfriend has never been semi-feral, like KFC was. The boy was lost. He
had an expensive collar on, and was a teenager with no hunting skills
whatsoever who got thinner and thinner following KFC around until his
desperation to find a warm place in the winter made him find a place in my
conservatory overnight which is open and he disappeared the moment I opened
my back door in the morning.
I realised he was homeless and started to feed him outside and gradually
moved the food nearer to the kitchen. It was 4 months before he would eat
inside and 4 years before it was OK for me to shut the kitchen door so he
couldn't get out.
I know he's been in a home before (apart from the posh collar he had that
gave me a clue g) He is immaculately litter trained and thinks only dry
food is good enough for cats. Poor lad made the wrong choice of home here -
he gets gooshy with a sprinkling of dry to keep him happy.
Just a joke. He struck lucky, I suppose. Not only does he have acres to
roam in safe from traffic, and have opportunities to catch ratties (small,
ok!, he doesn't do the big ones) and mousies but he can sleep on the spare
bed all day if he wants, which he often does. It's raining? - spare bed.
ZZZZ.
He's out on rat patrol at the moment. We did get a dead vole on the rug
today but Kitty is not up for wild food any more.

Tweed

Christina Websell wrote:

Boyfriend has never been semi-feral, like KFC was. The boy was lost. He
had an expensive collar on, and was a teenager with no hunting skills
whatsoever who got thinner and thinner following KFC around until his
desperation to find a warm place in the winter made him find a place in my
conservatory overnight which is open and he disappeared the moment I opened
my back door in the morning.

Many ferals were once pets who had run off, gotten lost, were dumped, etc.

But you're right that if this was the case, then my theory that he wasn't
socialized to humans would be incorrect.

--
Joyce ^..^

(To email me, remove the X's from my user name.)

wrote in message
...
Christina Websell wrote:

Boyfriend has never been semi-feral, like KFC was. The boy was lost.
He
had an expensive collar on, and was a teenager with no hunting skills
whatsoever who got thinner and thinner following KFC around until his
desperation to find a warm place in the winter made him find a place in
my
conservatory overnight which is open and he disappeared the moment I
opened
my back door in the morning.

Many ferals were once pets who had run off, gotten lost, were dumped, etc.

But you're right that if this was the case, then my theory that he wasn't
socialized to humans would be incorrect.


I am very sure that his hoomins who bought him such a posh collar must have
loved him very much. It makes me sad that despite my best efforts to
publicise him locally at the time, I didn't get a response. They will never
know what happened to their cat. Maybe they think he is dead and have
mourned him already and got another one.
I will never know "from whence he came" but his fancy collar told me that he
was important to someone.
I wish they could know how happy he is here, now.
They wouldn't be allowed to have him back though, 5 years, he's mine ;-)

Tweed