Mika Purrs for me

Mika and Mischa (Mika is at the top of the picture and Mischa is peeking in at the bottom) are two very gentle sister and brother Russian blue mix kitties (maybe 5 months old) who I have been working on for a while. They were absolutely terrified when they came in, and have become a lot more comfortable after TTouch. Mika has been the more shy of the two, and will still hiss at first sometimes, but she is not aggressive, and once you touch her, she becomes more comfortable.

Mischa has become more playful and seems to have a funny side to his personality too. You can see that when I want to pay attention to Mika, he tries to get in on the action.

A couple of days ago, I decided to try doing zigzag touches on Mika, a type of touch I hadn't tried on her before. All of a sudden, she began to purrrrrrrrr. I could barely believe what I was hearing. She even began to look like she was smiling. Over the past couple of days, she seems to have really started to come out of her shell more.

We did many adoptions over the weekend, and so wanted to move these two to a more prominent cage so people could see them better. First we tried a cage in the front area, but that was too much for them, as these cages are open and the other cats in the row could see them etc. So I moved them to a cage which had walls all around, where they felt more comfortable, but it was in a place in the shelter that has more light so they are more visible. They were much more comfortable there. I have to say that both of them were very good sports about being moved twice! Once they got to the second cage, when I put some wet food in for them, they started chomping away right away, so I could tell they were more comfortable there. Here's to these two continuing to feel more comfortable around people and hopefully getting a forever home soon. They have such sweet little spirits.

And something I learned and reminded myself of is to continually vary the types of touches I do with an animal, as sometimes just a little different approach can help them break through to another level.