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Stray kitten - developmental/behavior ??

MMathis Sep 29, 2010 01:34 PM

Yesterday I found a tiny kitten in a busy parking lot, so I brought it home for safe-keeping and care. From what I can tell, it's about 6 wks. old [give or take]. It's temp. was normal, and it's eating, drinking, and using the litter box. It was covered with fleas, and I know I shouldn't have, but I bathed it with flea soap. We have a vet appt. this afternoon for a general health check.

The kitten doesn't act at all feral: it doesn't run or act afraid of me; it craves my attention, is almost clingy, and wants to be in my arms. It enjoys being petted and purrs if I pet it while it eats, etc. But there's something about the kitten's behavior that doesn't seem quite right and I can't put my finger on it. The baby doesn't seem to know how to play, [although I did get a slight response to my finger moving under a towel]. If I move a toy around it, the baby just looks at it and sometimes reacts with a little fear. It doesn't seem to like anything like a ball or fuzzy toy to touch its paws or it's face [though it doesn't mind at all for me to pet on or rub those same body parts], and will draw back like you would react to a painful stimulus.

Could this just be due to the kitten's young age -- not knowing it's exact age or how it was socialized -- maybe it's younger than I'm estimating. Or could there be something wrong with the baby causing it to act this way?

We have 3 other[indoor] cats, so I'm keeping this baby isolated from them.

Replies (1)

thetwins Mar 25, 2012 09:23 PM

Hello,

I have a kitten who is about 4 weeks old now, and he doesn't really play much either. He is the only one who lived out of a litter of 5, so he doesn't have his brothers and sisters to play with. Every time we put a toy in front of him, he just looks at us with that confused little face. However, he does play with his mother. He will lay with her and jump all over her and nibble her arms and smack her with his paws. She just lays there and lets him do it. I think that when they are that young, they like to play with other cats and not toys, but as they grow up, they begin to play with other stuff.

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