I left the cupboard open this evening and the cat was thrilled to discover a new place to explore.
As long as he keeps his little mitts off my gin, I don't mind.
There was a bit of a crisis before this. We were going out to dinner and I walked into the television room where the cat was lounging. I don't know if it was the unexpected click of my high heels or the scent of my perfume or what but the kitten went absolutely mad. Ran away and hid and when I went after him and picked him up anyway, he hissed and scratched.
Even at his most frightened, he's never scratched me before. I have no idea what got into him. We needed to put him out before we could go and so I tried to coax him to come to me. We learned a few things:
1) He does know how to use his claws, he simply hasn't chosen to until now
2) If he really does not want to get caught / picked up, he is fast enough to ensure that he won't be
3) The sliding glass doors are still a bit of a mystery to him. All he's done is learn where they are usually open. Closing them resulted in him running right into the glass. :(
The issue didn't appear to be that he didn't want to go out, he simply did not want to be picked up. This is only an issue because the protected area, where he sleeps, is downstairs and he's still too small to navigate the steps. In the end, as it was a mild night, we moved his bed and his kitty litter to the upstairs balcony and left him there. He was still hiding/upset when we left but by the time we got back he was cuddled up in the towel and in a pleasant mood.
He came into the lounge and joined us in an after dinner drink (see photo) and then was quite happy to be picked up and carried downstairs to go to sleep.
Lessoned learned: in future I'll leave five minutes extra in case of cat-freak-outs. I think if I'd simply sat in the room and let him come to me, we wouldn't have had the resulting freak-out.
He's been so confident this week, it is hard to remember that he's a very small and insecure kitten, still.
As long as he keeps his little mitts off my gin, I don't mind.
There was a bit of a crisis before this. We were going out to dinner and I walked into the television room where the cat was lounging. I don't know if it was the unexpected click of my high heels or the scent of my perfume or what but the kitten went absolutely mad. Ran away and hid and when I went after him and picked him up anyway, he hissed and scratched.
Even at his most frightened, he's never scratched me before. I have no idea what got into him. We needed to put him out before we could go and so I tried to coax him to come to me. We learned a few things:
1) He does know how to use his claws, he simply hasn't chosen to until now
2) If he really does not want to get caught / picked up, he is fast enough to ensure that he won't be
3) The sliding glass doors are still a bit of a mystery to him. All he's done is learn where they are usually open. Closing them resulted in him running right into the glass. :(
The issue didn't appear to be that he didn't want to go out, he simply did not want to be picked up. This is only an issue because the protected area, where he sleeps, is downstairs and he's still too small to navigate the steps. In the end, as it was a mild night, we moved his bed and his kitty litter to the upstairs balcony and left him there. He was still hiding/upset when we left but by the time we got back he was cuddled up in the towel and in a pleasant mood.
He came into the lounge and joined us in an after dinner drink (see photo) and then was quite happy to be picked up and carried downstairs to go to sleep.
Lessoned learned: in future I'll leave five minutes extra in case of cat-freak-outs. I think if I'd simply sat in the room and let him come to me, we wouldn't have had the resulting freak-out.
He's been so confident this week, it is hard to remember that he's a very small and insecure kitten, still.
Tell him to keep his mitts of the Baileys too...