This is Gregory.
Gregory used to have a human family, but they left him behind when they moved out 4 or 5 years ago. I’m pretty sure he still sleeps in the patio/garden area of that house.
I met Gregory maybe a year ago and started feeding him occasionally. Recently I started feeding him practically every day. This little asshole horked down almost a pound of tuna yesterday.
And then he ran away from me, and hissed at me when I followed him. The other day I was harassing him with a knit glove full of catnip and he lunged at my fucking leg.
Today he ran from me again, after I fed him. He hid under a neighbor’s car and hissed at me.
He only started doing this recently. Two theories:
- I know for a fact that someone got him high on meth a week ago. Meth is one hell of a psychostimulant, I tell ya hwat, and the comedown for an adult human lasts more than a week. So he’s probably a little bitchy. He started doing the cute mew mew headbutting my leg thing again, like he used to, but he still gets spooked and runs from me.
- I’ve had a problem my entire life, with going too far when I really like someone. It always results in them not wanting to be around me. Gregory isn’t a domestic cat anymore—he does his own thing, and I’ll sort of like, follow him around trying to get him to eat his fucking food. And the reason he’s never done this before is because I’ve only recently started obsessing over him.
I’d say you’re winning already with the cat coming up to you relatively close when getting food. My cats have a variety of personalities and quirks that just took a while to figure out. The one does not like to be touched or picked up unless she’s on one of her perches and even then you get like 5 strokes before she starts side eyeing you and getting ready to walk off. I’ve found that I tend to have decent success with them when I let them dictate the interactions and as I learn more of their cues I can pick up on when they’re done.
Chasing them after they start running will usually just piss them off and make them more defensive since they’re more alarmed you’re going to hurt them. Ended up having a long road to repairing my relationship with the one after I had to chase her down and corner her because she needed to be bathed which made her avoid me for months after and she’s learned every trick I’ve used to trap her.
Start out letting him sniff your finger and judge from there how he’s doing, it’s more just a greeting and if he’s not having it he’ll ignore it.