Help! My cats are afraid of me!

About a year ago a homeless cat came to my doorstep in the rain and freezing cold and I decided to let it sleep inside my giant garage since I don’t really use it for much since I park my car outside.

Well turns out, the cat was pregnant! It gave birth to four kittens who now roam around my garage. I clean their litter boxes, replace food, and refill water multiple times a day and leave the metal screen door open so they can look outside and get fresh air, along with placing multiple toys around the garage for their pleasure. Watching them they seem like normal happy cats.

HOWEVER no matter how much I interact with them they always run in fear whenever I’m around. I can maybe pet them a few times on a good day but they eventually will get up and run away and hide from me for seemingly no reason, especially since they should know me already I’ve been feeding them all day. I have a few friends who are interested in the year old cats now that they are spay and neutered but I can’t give them up if they still seem feral and refuse to allow me to get near them.

Any advice?

Try some Feliway.

When you feed them, make sure they watch you put out the food, then just walk back a few steps.

Try some playing with them, things on strings, etc.

Can you bring them inside, so they are used to you all the time?

My cat training method is to be in the same room with them, but not attempting to interact with them at all. Sooner or later they come to see what I’m doing (especially if it’s reading).

The Feliway is a good idea, it’s calming anti-anxiety pheromones. I highly recommend this interactive (but at a distance) cat toy. It’s cheap and decades of my cats have never failed to find it irresistible.

https://www.petco.com/shop/en/petcostore/product/cat-dancer-original-interactive-cat-toy

Apparently, it doubles as a garrote.

In use it isn’t strong enough to garrote a person, nor does it have handles to hold onto for that purpose. Not that I’ve tried, mind you.

These are what I’d suggest. Be around the cats as much as possible, so they consider you a bit of a fixture, and not terribly startling. If you can set up a chair in the garage where you can sit and read, or watch TV or whatever, for a few hours a day, that will go a long way. Have the food near (but not too near) the chair, too, so they have to approach you somewhat. Don’t attempt to approach them, just set out food / water, sit down, and commence reading… Maybe speak to them in a calm voice from time to time.

Maybe even only set food out when you’re there - or at least, if you tend to leave bowls out, leave the boring stuff; put the really tasty stuff (if you do canned food) only when you’re there.

They’ll gradually get used to having to come somewhat near you for food, though don’t be surprised if they bolt if you move suddenly.

You can slowly start to place the tasty food nearer where you’re sitting and they will get more and more used to the idea that SCARYHOOMAN = TASTYFOOD. If you have especially yummy snacks, at this point you can start having those right next to you - maybe within arm’s reach.

I have not had to do this with cats, mind you, but it’s basically how I got our parakeet to approach me. Took quite a while, but I have several photos of him actually on my arm or leg (of course, then I started working in another room in the house, so I’ve reverted to predator-gonna-eat-me-any-time-now status in the bird’s mind).

We have. Brought in two ferals. They did associate us “SCARYHOOMAN = TASTYFOOD” as you say to start, so that helped. But just being around us calmed them down.

Now they loooooove to get petted and attention, but yes, they are not that happy about being picked up.

I suspect your mother cat was a feral. And she’ll have taught her fear of humans to her kittens.

Taming ferals can at least sometimes be done; but it’s a very long process requiring lots of patience, quite possibly over years.

I agree with the advice to bring in interesting food, set it down near you, stay in the room near the food – and then mostly ignore the cats. If you can get an occasional pat in on them without their fleeing then do that – but don’t keep patting. Give one pat and then ignore them again for a while, unless they’re actively asking for more; and if they do seem to be asking for more, then stop the minute they stop asking. Wait for them to come to you.

Here’s the thing though, the mother cat is actually incredible calm and basically 90% of the way to being a normal social cat. She will follow me around and arch her back to let me pet her. It’s her kittens that are completely untamed for me.

So much for that theory. I have been found wrong again.

And it is odd if the kittens are that shy of humans when their mother isn’t.

My late Ambrose would watch me using it trying to entice him to play then be all, “interesting, but not really a cat thing”.

His brother, though! He was obsessed with that thing. He would play with it until we got tired. Then we’d lay it on the ground, and he would pounce. He’d put the handle in his mouth then try to catch the other end. He’d end up going around in circles til he got too dizzy and would have to stop. Once he recovered he’d repeat himself. We used to laugh ourselves sick watching him.

Pick the most important work for you to do on your laptop. Set up a small table on the garage and start typing away, but remember to NOT save it. This last part is important for this to work.

The kittens will be forced by their very nature to come and plop themselves on your keyboard. They can’t help themselves.

More seriously, my mom had a cat that must have had some sort of trauma or some and wouldn’t allow anyone close. I used a string with a toy for it to chance and ever so slowly shorted the string. You can’t go too quickly, though.

That was my thought with the reading suggestion! Their little bungholes are drawn like magnets to the printed page. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: Yours is better, though.

We have a lot of feral cats around and my own anecdotal data is that pregnant or nursing mothers tend to be much friendlier than they’d normally be, especially if you’re providing food and/or shelter. Not always, but often. Once the kittens grow up and run away, they promptly go back to “normal.”

My only advice for making friends with cats is to never loom over them when interacting; sit on the floor or kneel down to get closer to their level and you’re not as scary.

Those kitties are not going to warm up to you unless they are living in the house with you. I don’t think hanging out in the garage on occasion is going to cut it.

And even then, they are not going to be friendly to any would be adopters. Said adopters need to understand it will take time for kitty to warm up to them.

Perseus can turn off the wireless off on my laptop.

I agree that feeding them is key to making them to be unafraid. Can Opener is always a favorite servant of cats.

https://dilbert.com/strip/1994-09-15

Every case is different of course, but I made friends with a pair of feral kittens. They would hang out around the house anyways, and I was feeding them wet food every day. I got them to warm up by scratching that lower back/right-in-front-of-the-tail spot while they were busy eating. I think it helped them to associate myself with good things. I would feed them and just hang out with them for 20-30 minutes a couple times a day. Eventually they’d come to me just for attention and that’s when I knew I had them. Took a good few months. Also their mother didn’t seem to be around anymore, it was always just the two of them, so they may have had a recently developed maternal hole in their lives at the time. Brought them inside after about 4-5 months and they are my excellent little buddies now.

However at some point they’re going to get too old and will never warm up to you, so you’ve got a very limited window.

My old thread about bringing in little Opal and Willa: Anyone have experience taking in feral cats?