The First Week With Your Rescue Cat

Put the carrier in one small closed room, open the door, and walk away. That single room, ideally a spare bedroom or a quiet bathroom, is the whole world for the first few days. Set up a litter box, food, water, a hiding box and a scratching post within a few steps of each other. Then leave the cat alone. Almost every cat hides on day one, and the biggest early mistake is pulling one out from under the bed to say hello.

Hiding is normal and it is how cats cope with an unfamiliar space rather than a sign of an unfriendly cat. Most rescue cats hide for a few days. Some come out within hours, some take two or three weeks, and the range says more about the cat's history than about your home. The way to shorten it is to be boring and predictable: same feeding times, same quiet room, no visitors, no chasing. Confidence comes from routine, not from coaxing.

No. Feed whatever the shelter was feeding for at least the first week, then switch gradually over seven to ten days by mixing an increasing proportion of the new food. A sudden change on top of the stress of moving is a reliable way to get diarrhoea, which then makes it hard to tell whether the cat is unwell or just unsettled. Ask what the cat was eating before you leave the SPCA and buy a bag of it on the way home.

Same rule. Use the litter the cat is used to for the first week or two, then change slowly if you want to. Put the box somewhere quiet with an escape route, never beside the food, and never where the cat has to pass a dog or a washing machine to reach it. The standard advice is one box per cat plus one. Scoop daily. Most litter box problems in a new cat come down to location, cleanliness or a change nobody meant to make.

When it is confidently using the safe room, eating in front of you and coming to greet you rather than hiding. That is usually somewhere in week two, though it varies. Open the door to one adjoining room first, leave the safe room set up as a retreat, and expand from there over several days. Opening the whole house at once often sends a cat straight under a basement staircase for a fortnight, which sets everything back.

Slowly, and through a closed door. Keep them fully separated at first, swap bedding or a towel between them so each learns the other's smell, and feed them on opposite sides of the door so proximity becomes associated with dinner. After several days try a brief supervised look through a cracked door or a baby gate. Hissing at first sight is normal. Sustained stalking or fighting means back up a step. Rushing introductions is what creates permanent tension.

The cat needs an escape route the dog cannot follow, and the dog needs to be on a lead for the first several meetings. Baby gates and cat trees give the cat height and exit options, which matters more than anything else you do. Keep sessions short and end them before either animal gets wound up. A dog that has lived with cats before is much easier than one that has not, so ask about that history before you adopt.

Not immediately for a healthy cat, but register with a Prince Albert clinic in the first week or two and book a wellness check. South Hill Animal Clinic and Park Range Veterinary Services both serve the city. The visit does two things: it establishes you as a client so you are not a stranger in an emergency, and it gives the vet a baseline for the cat while it is well. Take any paperwork the SPCA gave you, and remember the cat also needs its City licence.

A male cat straining in the litter box and producing nothing is the emergency to know. That is a possible urinary blockage, it is life-threatening within hours rather than days, and it needs a vet immediately. Also go now for laboured or open-mouth breathing, repeated vomiting, complete refusal of food for more than 24 hours, sudden collapse, or a suspected poisoning. Never give a cat human medication while you decide. Many are toxic to cats at ordinary doses.

Sort it out before you need it, because Prince Albert has no dedicated overnight animal hospital. The local clinics run daytime hours with after-hours instructions on their recorded messages, so know which clinic you use and what its message says. The nearest 24-hour facility is the WCVM Veterinary Medical Centre in Saskatoon, roughly 140 km south on Highway 2, which asks people to call first. Phone before driving, and factor winter road conditions into the decision rather than assuming a clear run.

A day of picky eating in a brand new home is common, especially if the cat is hiding and only eats overnight. Check whether the food is actually going down before assuming it is not. What is not normal is a cat that eats nothing at all for more than 24 hours, because cats can develop serious liver problems from going without food. If a full day passes with no intake, or the cat also seems lethargic or is hiding more than it was, phone a vet.

The rough pattern people use is three days to stop panicking, three weeks to settle into the routine, and three months to fully relax and show its real personality. It is a guideline rather than a rule, and shy cats or ones with a rough history take longer. The cat you meet in month three is usually the actual cat. Plenty of adopters are surprised at how different that is from the quiet animal they picked up at the shelter.