Bilbo's progress

I've read there's a general 3-3-3 rule of cat adoption--3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months--each with its general expectations of settling in. I never really paid much attention to time frames with our other cats. Bilbo is ahead of the stages.

He's speeding along in his acclimatization to our household. Only a week after his vet visit, he started playing with toys and scratching on the cat scratchers. It's now been ten days and he's already much less skittish about new sounds and activities and has chosen my husband as his person above all others. Part of that could be due to my encouraging my husband to take Bilbo into his home office at times to avoid potential trouble from our oldest kitty, who still doesn't like him.

Oldest two kitties from months ago, before Bilbo was
ever a visitor, much less a part of the household. I hope
one day Bilbo gets to sleep this close to them.

What's not to like? Alas, I can't make my old momma's boy see reason. He's threatened by a new cat in the house. We do our best to not allow unsupervised freedom. The old cat growls and hisses when Bilbo looks at him but gets up to sniff when Bilbo is looking away.

Bilbo isn't quite familiar with the house rules yet, but he is learning. Today, he jumped into a chair next to hubby, who was eating at the table, and tried to get onto the table. He got scolded and pushed off the table back to the chair, then sat patiently and watched. Then he was rewarded with a little petting for staying down.

Later, he tried scratching on the dining chair's fabric seat. I scolded him and he stopped and didn't return to it. Then I rewarded him with a pet and a "good boy".

Cats can be trained. We've done it at least three times successfully. Bilbo will learn, but since he's still a bit timid in the new environment, we have to be a little milder in our correction than we were with the others. As long as he stops the undesirable activity, the least amount of correction necessary will be used (a harsh "No!" or "Stop!" is generally enough to startle him into stopping the undesired behavior, like clawing furniture, or a "Get down!" like we do with our tortie when she gets on the countertops). Just like with horses, start with light pressure and increase until you get the response you desire; eventually, they learn to respond to the lightest pressure, because they anticipate it getting worse. If a light scold is all it takes to make him quit, that's doing well. Then reward the right behavior.

He's also already eating close enough to the others to learn not to attempt to eat their food. He's tried it, but we push him away and he goes and sits and watches. Our resident cat that was a barn cat wasn't nearly as polite as Bilbo when he first started eating with the others.

It really is that simple. Bilbo is a smart boy. After taking right to the litterbox we provided in his initial confinement, when he was let out into the rest of the house, he found and used the other litterboxes we have. I don't doubt he'll quickly learn the rules.

Since the neuter is healing (no problems there and swelling gone), his eyes are brighter and he's begun cleaning himself like a normal cat again. He's having to decompress from the newness and fear of strange sounds and activities less. He even ventured out to explore the catio with the youngest of our other cats today since the weather was nice enough for them to go out.

In fact, the only thing that's not yet progressing is the relationship between him and our oldest cat.

That will take more time, but with his easy-going personality, I'm sure they'll get along some day.

That'll be an update I'll be excited to share. I wish I knew Bilbo's background, but at least his future looks good.

God bless!

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Update 12/8/24: Bilbo doesn't even freak out from hubby's snoring. 😴 

He knows he's home. 🥰