I needed to spend a lot of time sat on my bathroom floor lately, ideally while talking, so I talked about why that is, and peered in at some shy creatures behind a drawer. Excuse jittery frame, it's better than jittery face.
When my cats were decompressing in a room I just left them alone for an hour or so while they hid, then I sat silently in the room reading for a bit. I think within a half hour or so they figured out I wouldn't hurt them and came out of hiding and let me pet them. It was pretty quick in the end. Cats are great.
Lovely video! For future videos with the stabilization affecting the frame, you could crop a bit (like 10% of so) and it would cut off a lot of the visual disruption. Hopefully everything goes well with the new friends!
I cannot quite express fully why or how this video makes me so happy. It's really heartwarming to see you caring for them and putting so much effort into making them feel safe and happy.
You’ve conceded the bathroom and, I suggest total surrender now to save trouble later 😄 Cats will build up a scent map of their new home over a few weeks. Totally normal. We got a brother and sister and it took them a few weeks to map out our kitchen and feel comfortable. They rarely hang out together. Oh yes and welcome to the world of cat fans. Once you start is talking about them we’ll go on and on all day! Enjoy this time!
I did not get the memo about not using the bedroom for cat staging area, so Artemis definitely hid under my bed for the first 48 hours, but she warmed up quickly enough. Glad these two seem to be getting on!
Congratulations! Some hopefully appropriate random recommendations: Since you're now game designing for cats, a particular toy has been doing sterling service in my family since the 1980s for four generations of cat teams. I can't find it manufactured of course, so it's a question of whether it's worthwhile to piece it together. The two elements of this otherwise-routine teaser toy are an end that's substantial enough to be held and mauled - so not a tuft of feathers - and a particular type of cord that's not often used. The cord should be thick enough to have significant weight, non-elastic, bite-tolerant, and reasonably smooth, so braided synthetic rather than twine or cotton. Our example has about a meter of 3mm diameter braided cord - maybe paracord, probably not. Attaching the end to the cord may involve sewing. The big benefit this unlocks is a satisfying catch-and-bite portion of the hunting game, **with** a graceful exit back to the chase phase. When you let a cat catch most of these toys, the only way to reset to the chase is either to brute force pull it away or wait until the cat's bored enough to let go, at which point the cat is by definition done with the game or nearly so. With this toy, when the cat is mauling the end, you're able to drop the bight of the cord into touches somewhere else - tail, ear, paw - and give the cat a new target to fight. They'll almost always release the end to go after the cord, which they can't grab especially well, enabling the whole thing to escape. Surprisingly, they don't seem to find this gameplay loop frustrating; it's always something new to destroy! Possible parts at world'sbiggestriver dot Canada: End: /dp/B08BYMKWGR/ /dp/B07Z8X925K/ Rod: 29in /dp/B0CMQXNT9T/ 38in /dp/B0CR1KP9V9/ 38in fancy handle /dp/B07FNCY3PS/ 41in /dp/B085HDMC6D 55in /dp/B0B9LVPSFC Cord: /dp/B0C3M1GRXT /dp/B07CZPRZWT ----- Much more simply, for closer play such as on a couch or chair, there's the "Cat Dancer" /dp/B0006N9I68 . I won't claim decades of durability for it, but ours did surprisingly last years before it was lost, I think in a fire. The weird bouncing motion of the wire and the sound, texture, profile of the spinning paper twists is something special for aerial hunting. ----- If your girls have their front claws and you intend to train them to get clipped, scissor-type and G-type clippers are both fine but I've actually found that the most ergonomic, safe, and reliable tool for the job is a human fingernail/toenail clipper used with the cutting edges parallel to the sagittal plane of the claw. It's easy to see what you're doing, doesn't collide with neighboring toes, and you can bite in gently and controllably to an axial position and pitch angle before committing to the cut. Since only a couple months of working up, my current team have been accustomed for years to waiting through a five-count on each claw after I bite, during which I may or may not actually cut. Through the magic of cat treats, they park every day at the clipping station, asking to trade claw tips for cookies.
My cat loves climbing through a drawer to get to the space at the back. Especially keen on using kitchen drawers to access space under kitchen counters and drawers in the duvan bed to get inside the bed frame.
We don't have a bathroom we could change into a cat staging room, so the plan is to just use our office once we finish setting it up lol. But I definitely plan to give them a new space where they can comfortably hide in there. You're doing fantastic though, they both look so cute! It seems like they're already warming up to you, and that's awesome. Earning a cat's trust is like one of the most rewarding things. Would love to see more of them throughout other videos, maybe they could show up during game design talks? :P
Tom, it is clear that you've never had cats before. Cat's will find the smallest thing which they can fit in. It makes them feel safe from other predators possibly attacking them.
It's been stabilized so that Tom stays in the middle, despite the camera wobbling around since it's handheld. The more shaky, the more the frame has to be shifted to compensate, thus the borders moving in and out.
