Your First Week With a Rescue Cat in London

Because it just lost everything it knew, and hiding is what a cat does about that. Your new cat has been moved between a foster home or a shelter and a house full of unfamiliar smells, sounds and people, all in a single afternoon. Hiding under a bed or behind a sofa for the first few days is the normal, healthy response, not a sign that the cat dislikes you or that the adoption was a mistake. The mistake would be pulling the cat out to reassure it. Let it come out on its own timeline and it almost always does.

It is a rough guide to how a rescue animal settles: three days to decompress, three weeks to learn the routine, three months to feel genuinely at home. In the first three days expect hiding, eating overnight and using the litter box when nobody is watching. By three weeks most cats have a routine, a favourite spot and opinions about your schedule. By three months the real personality is out. Treat it as a shape rather than a schedule, because plenty of London rescue cats move faster and some take longer.

Pick one quiet room with a door, ideally a spare bedroom or a bathroom, and put everything the cat needs inside it before pickup. That means food and water on one side, the litter box well away from the food, a bed or a covered hiding spot, a scratching post and a couple of toys. Add somewhere the cat can hide that you can still reach, such as a box on its side or a carrier with the door removed. When you get home, put the carrier down, open the door and leave the room. Do not lift the cat out.

No, and this is one of the most common first-week mistakes. Ask the rescue what the cat has been eating and buy that food before pickup, even if you plan to switch later. A cat that is already stressed by a move and then given unfamiliar food frequently gets diarrhoea, which turns a settling-in week into a vet visit. If you want to change food, wait until the cat is eating reliably and settled, then transition over seven to ten days by mixing an increasing proportion of the new food into the old.

Start with whatever the cat used at the shelter or foster home, then transition gradually if you want something different. Cats are particular about litter texture and depth, and a cat that dislikes the box may go elsewhere, which is much harder to undo than it was to prevent. Use an unscented clumping litter as a default if you cannot find out what the cat had. Put the box somewhere quiet and away from food, and keep at least one box per cat plus one spare once the cat has the run of the house.

Within the first week or two, even though your adopted cat arrives already vaccinated and fixed. The point of that first visit is establishing a relationship with a London clinic before you need one urgently. Bring the adoption paperwork so the clinic has the vaccination dates, microchip number and spay or neuter record. Ask about the follow-up vaccine schedule, parasite prevention for an indoor cat, and what the clinic wants you to do after hours. Knowing who to phone at 11 p.m. is worth the appointment on its own.

Straining in the litter box without producing urine is an emergency in a male cat and needs a vet within hours, not the next morning. A urinary blockage is life-threatening fast, and it is easy to mistake for constipation or a litter box protest. Go to a vet first and sort out the behavioural explanation afterwards. The same urgency applies to laboured breathing, repeated vomiting, collapse, or refusing all food and water for more than about 24 hours. London has 24-hour emergency coverage and no clinic minds a false alarm.

Slowly, and through a closed door first. The safe room does this work for you: your resident cat smells the newcomer under the door for several days without any confrontation. Swap bedding between them so each learns the other's scent as something ordinary. Then feed them on opposite sides of the closed door so the smell arrives with something good. Only after that do you allow brief supervised visual contact. Rushing this is the single most common cause of a cat introduction going badly, and a bad first meeting takes weeks to undo.

Give it a day or so of grace, then take it seriously. A newly adopted cat often will not eat while you are in the room and then clears the bowl overnight, so check whether food is actually disappearing before concluding the cat is not eating. Warming wet food slightly makes it smell stronger and often tempts a nervous cat. If a cat genuinely eats nothing for more than about 24 hours, phone your vet. Cats should not go without food for long, and a prolonged fast causes real problems rather than just weight loss.

Yes, and put it on the first-week list. London runs an annual Cat Identification program through the London Animal Care Centre and it applies to indoor cats too. An adopted cat is already spayed or neutered and microchipped, which qualifies it for the lowest fee tier at $23 rather than $53 for an intact cat. You bring proof of rabies vaccination and documentation of the spay, neuter and microchip, all of which come with your adoption paperwork. Licences expire December 31 each year regardless of when you register.

It is normal, not a setback. Settling is not a straight line, and a cat that spent the evening on the sofa may retreat under the bed the next morning because a delivery arrived or the furnace kicked on. What matters is the trend across weeks rather than the shape of any given day. Keep the routine steady, keep the safe room accessible as a retreat, and resist the urge to change the environment to fix it. Predictability is the thing that builds confidence, and it works slowly.

Longer than you want and less time than it feels like in week one. Most London rescue cats are visibly comfortable by the three-week mark and genuinely themselves by three months. The fastest way to get there is counterintuitive: stop trying. Sit in the room reading or working, let the cat approach on its own terms, and let it walk away without being followed. Cats bond to people who are predictable and who do not corner them. A wand toy helps more than a lap does at this stage.