social skills

Mom noticed on Sunday evening that Hemlock and Sumac seemed....slightly....friendlier after their siblings had been gone all afternoon. It was an interesting change. And it has stuck a little bit.

For their meals, mom puts the canned food in the dish and then at breakfast hangs around until everyone is eating and then makes sure to pet everyone. At dinnertime, she sits on the floor, puts the dish in front of her and makes the kittens come to her. The scaredy girls take a little shorter time to come over each meal and this is a good thing. Plus both girls have stopped hissing at mom unless they get startled.

left to right: Suman, Hemlock and Juniper

While their social skills aren't perfected, at least mom is seeing some progress. Heck, the other day she grabbed Hemlock (who has always been the most scared) and held her for a while. It was the first time that Hemlock didn't pin her ears back the entire time she was being held.

Monday evening mom grabbed Daiquiri and brought her into the foster room to see what would happen. To this point, Daiquiri would hang out near the door and wave her paws around if mom left an opening between the door and the wall, but she hadn't come in the room. Mom wasn't sure what Daiquiri would do, but in true form, she wandered around a little and then sampled the kitten food. MOL  The kittens at first surrounded her and then wandered off. Cedar went over to play with mom. Hemlock laid down to watch. And Birch .... well, he came unglued. He flattened himself to the floor and YOWLED! Luckily Daiquiri didn't see him as much of a threat (poor boy - all that effort for nothing). Everyone else kind of followed her around for a while. Daiquiri did find their catnip toy though and once she got her nip on, the kittens were just annoying and mom sent her packing. So, she may not win the "Uncle Tim" star for socializing kittens, but she can at least help get them used to seeing other cats.