So our charity, Le Chat du Sor, has started our trap/neuter/release scheme for this year
Last week we trapped and sterilsed a young female who is in her huge transporter for her week's convalescence at my place
She has been the most unhappy of animals and from the moment I took her in starting howling her head off. The first night she cried so loudly I could hear from my bedroom and my own cats were really distressed. It was horrible. She was traumatised; neither Rescue Remedy nor pheromone sprays helped. The Vent d'Autan has been blowing at over 100 kph and I know the local cats get very confused during these periods so I put it down to an accumulation of the trap, trip to vets, waking up in a scary environment with a howling wind blowing etc.
But then I stumbled on a 'remedy' by accident the next day as I worked at my desk which is in the same room and I want to find out more on the subject....
She LOVES classical music and as soon as I put some on she calmed down and dozed off. And later started eating. And moved to the front of the transporter rather than cowering at the back!
I experimented by turning the music on and off and everytime it stopped she started crying.
I have now played BBC radio 3 on loop for 5 days (she is being released in 2 days)
Have any of you come across this? Is it the pitch? The rhythm?
Quite incredible. We had a power cut this morning and as soon as the music stopped she once again started howling. Power and BBC 3 came back and allez hop madamoiselle dozed off :-)
ours like the "gold" show on the radio, all the 60's and 70's records.
You are doing so well Sarah, congratulations to all of you involved.
Good for you Sarah and Le Chat du Sor. We're big fans of anything by Merlin's Magic on Youtube. It helps me stay calm, anyway.
Okay so have now figured that anything involving pianos and violins are her favourites
Interesting to hear you play music Lynn
I think I will make it a regular feature!
We often play music to the cats in our Rescue Centre, for most it has a calming effect, especially classical music. It is a bit of a mystery why, but it perhaps reminds them of being in a family, but then this perhaps wouldn't apply to ferals and kittens?
We did have one cat that playing the music drove to distraction and he wouldn't stop miaowing (quite the opposite to yours Sarah) in the end we had to keep the music turned off during his stay. My theory was that he was such a personable cat, as soon as he heard a human voice he wanted attention, and maybe he thought the radio was a real person.
That's brilliant!
I have a local kitten that since we took her in (at 4 weeks) goes to sleep listening to heavy metal. As soon as you put any metal music on she will start to purr. But then she's a local rough neck ;)