Light as a Feather with a Feral Kitten

I have been working with two feral kittens at BARC Shelter to help them to feel more at ease. Little by little they are becoming more comfortable. In this post I am writing about the more scared of the two. The other kitten not shown here is still quite shy but is becoming more comfortable being TTouched every day.
I have found that this kitten is quite comfortable being touched with a very long feather. Sometimes I stroke her whiskers or stroke the air slightly in front of her whiskers, and this helps her to start to relax. In my last post about her, I had found that she responded to having her front legs stroked, and she was starting to become playful as well. In the pictures above and below, you can see she still starts out with a rather startled face, but then will pretty quickly relax into having her front legs stroked with the feather.

Yesterday when I was at the shelter, I started out doing TTouches with her with the feather again, and as I felt her relax, I worked my hand down the feather and began to do some little circular raccoon TTouches on the top of her head.

I kept the feather in my hand, in case she got scared and I needed to take a step back and TTouch her with the feather again, but she began to relax with the TTouches with my hand after a bit. Today I didn't hear any hissing from her when I opened her cage or approached her, which is really great progress for her. I didn't TTouch her for too long as I didn't want to overwhelm her, but I did repeat TTouching her with the feather and then progressing to my hand. Particularly when I am working with a very frightened cat, I remind myself often to breeeeattthe, and to keep my mind and thoughts very very quiet. It makes such a huge difference to do this. These animals really feel your vibration and respond to it.

Love you, little one!