One hiss from Goo (left), and one growl from Abbey right), and then…
. . . then maaayyybe there’s enough couch for both of us?
(But it looks like New Cat Abbey is claiming the human! Give that Goo some extra pats!)
I notice Goo has her eyes open~she’s not letting down her guard.
Had to urinate. Came back, and Goo was up. She hissed, and then got down off of the couch. She went out onto the catio.
Long, long ago (in a galaxy far, far away…) my late husband and I had five cats and they all got along! We took a long-ish vacation and boarded all of them. They were able to put all five in one enclosure together. The enclosure wasn’t the size of a room or anything-- it was about as big as two large dog crates. A wistfully-remembered Golden Age. Sigh.
Mrs. L.A. is tired of Abbey hiding under the bed. She got her out onto the shelves that she stuck to the front window. Not much drama, though Abbey did growl when Goo came by and mewed. Anyway, we’ve constructed a cat excluder for the bed.
For the curious: I used 2x2s for the tops and bottoms. For the ends, I used 2x4s; perpendicular for the head and foot, and parallel for the sides. This made an interlocking ‘tab and groove’ style of thing so the pieces all fit together. Mrs. L.A. covered the frame pieces with fabric. (I would have preferred plastic mesh fencing material because Abbey might claw through the fabric, but I yield to SWMBO.) Once she does whatever cleaning she wants to do, we’ll put the pieces together and Abbey will have to find another hiding place.
Don’t. Don’t, don’t, don’t.
If Abbey needs to hide, then she needs to hide. Coaxing her out is fine. Preventing her from hiding will only make her need to hide worse. She’ll find somewhere to hide, and it’ll be a worse place. Or she’ll start damaging the house and very likely herself in panic.
Please do not do this.
Strong disagree.
Yes, it’s bad if a cat has nowhere it can feel safe, but there’s nothing wrong with excluding certain spaces. High spaces (like the aforementioned shelves) are good. You can also put out the cat carrier with the door removed and make it comfy inside. Hell, you can buy a case of soda and throw it in the living room once it’s empty. Or one of those cat tunnels if you’re feeling fancy.
Abbey’s not going to immediately go hide behind the washing machine just because you’ve blocked off the bed. She’s only going to freak out if she feels like she has nowhere whatsoever to go.
When Allie, aka the Princess, first came home, she kept trying to go under the recliner. We did not consider this safe, so blocked that spot. She did have enough other options that she coped, and they were safer than something with moving parts.
Yeah, whenever I bring home a new littler of foster babies I wrap the recliner up completely or else they’ll end up tunneled all the way into the mechanisms. I aggressively curate kitty hiding spaces so that they can feel safe without getting somewhere dangerous, inaccessible, or both.
Yes, of course you can block off dangerous spaces, and can direct a cat who’s just arrived to a safer place to hide. In this case, the cat has chosen a safe space to hide, and has been using that space for a refuge for some time. Forcing her out of it before she’s ready will indeed cause her to choose some other place to hide, and the new spot may well be an unsafe space; plus which, forcing her out of an established safe chosen space before she’s comfortable in the rest of the house may well leave her afraid that she’ll be driven out of any hiding place, and overall make the hiding problem worse.
Well, the bed is already blocked off. I’ll bet a hundred quatloos that Abbey will be fine and will watch for updates. 
Allie decided that tunneling under the covers worked for her.
I’m with Johnny Bravo. There are plenty of blankets and pillows for her to make a nest. There’s a chair by the door she can get under. There’s the windows behind the window shades. She was spending all her time under the bed. If you could get her out, she’s sociable (with humans) and likes to play. The whole room is a safe place. By blocking under the bed, she will see that she’s just as safe on top of the bed… and gets more attention.
Abbey has adjusted well to being excluded from under the bed. She’s becoming more adventurous, and she’s discovered that when she’s on top of the bed she gets pets and scritches.
I’m glad that in this case I was wrong.
Major disruptions today. Mrs. L.A. wanted to get rid of her dresser, so it had to go into my bedroom. (We have different schedules, that’s why.) Abbey stays in ‘mom’s’ room, but today she was displaced. Long story short: I got Mrs. L.A.'s dresser into my room. Abbey explored my room for a while, then hid under the bed. After I got all of my stuff shifted, Abbey is laying in the middle of my bed. I pet her, and got her a little over-stimulated. Blood ensued. Abbey still wants to be in ‘her’ room, but she’s fine in mine. Goo is sleeping on the back of the couch.
Speaking of Goo and Ablley, When Abbey was still in ‘momn’s’ room today, Goo came in. We heard an altercation. When I went back, Abbey was on the floor, and Goo was sitting nearby with a puffed-up tail. I called Goo, and she did not want to turn her back on Abbey. She backed up a bit before exiting the room. Mrs. L.A. thinks Goo is bullying Abbey. I think Goo just wante do make friends and Abbey is having none of it.
In any case, Abbey’s world got a little bigger today.
Goo would like to make friends. Abbey still doesn’t like her. Goo has been sleeping on ‘mom’s’ bed during the day, and Abbey sleeps in her ‘fort’ (the cylindrical part of the little cat tree by ‘mom’s’ bed).
Mrs. L.A brought Abbey out in to the living room. (Goo was on the bed.) She decided Abbey would be more comfortable on the couch next to ‘dad’. After a few minutes, I put Abbey on the back of the couch. I went to nuzzle her, and then she licked my forehead. Then she decided I neeeded a bath and spent the next ten minutes licking my hair. I think she thinks she’s my mom.
Cats groom each other socially. She’s definitely saying that you’re part of her clowder.
Goo is on the back of the couch. Abbey was laying next to me – virtually under Goo – and now she’d on the coffee table. Now growls from Abbey today. They’re being good, so I gave them each a Shrimpy Shrimp Temptation.