I saw this video on YouTube and clicked it because I didn't really know what it was talking about.
I've raised quite a few kittens in my life...but I still don't really know what "socializing" is necessarily. I guess I actually do these sorts of things naturally...but I have never had the sort of trouble he had...that I can remember.
I remember with a few kittens that I rescued, it did take a bit to get them to sort of trust me...but they sorta just hid. I never tried to force them. If they hid for a long time, I guess I sort of would have to maybe, but they usually come out to eat after a while if you leave some really good food for them and walk away. At the beginning, it's about getting them to calm down more than to trust you.
I often let them hide, and occasionally lay down next to where they're hiding and talk to them a bit...but don't try to force them out or touch them or anything. If they're in a bad state I'll try to push a saucer near them with whatever I think is best for whatever age they are.
I don't think I've ever had a kitten hiss like that at me beyond the initial meeting. Part of that might be how he grabbed them. I dunno if that was necessarily the wisest way. Maybe he was too worried about them to try to get them out safer.
Or maybe he's just an idiot...I dunno.
Even putting a blanket in the cage would have put the situation up a few notches. Cats like small confined spaces though, so a box is way better. A cage is like horrible...because it might be confined, but it's just restricted. There's not that feeling of security with a cage.
The way he forced her to eat...while incredibly cute...may or may not have been the best idea.
I'm not sure about bathing the cats when they don't really trust you yet. They already are kinda afraid of you...and they really don't like water. You're not really helping that situation. I would possibly try to wait a day or two unless they are covered with fleas.
He started out the relationship with scaring the shit out of her, and grabbing her and putting her in a cage. I feel like the majority of his time "socializing" the cats was actually just undoing the damage to their trust that he did when he first grabbed them.
I was really lucky with my last cat. Despite being "feral" and actually losing all of his siblings, he was a very well behaved and lovable cat from the very first minute. He didn't even need to be potty trained. It was so weird! I put him in the litter box once and he went, and from then on he almost always went in there. He only didn't a few times, and most of those times were when he was sick.
Maybe these cats were just way more skittish than normal...or he just really sucks at "socializing" cats, despite knowing all the lingo and supposedly knowing the psychology of cats. Some cats take a long time to get to trust you, so it could just be that cat...but the way it was acting to hands...either someone hit him or tried to grab them before him...or it REALLY didn't like when he grabbed them all so suddenly from that corner. I think he would have been aided a lot by a cat carrier or a plastic carrier or even just a fucking box. Or maybe just have a little more fucking patience, and be a bit more caring when grabbing them.
Still, that cat is super fucking cute and it almost made me cry.
That's an awesome video! We've had a couple of "sort of feral" kittens that grew up into very loving and sweet adult cats... but we started caring for them when they were quite young; Brady was probably just six weeks when we found him abandoned (that was a long time ago); BeBe who's still with us... she's very sweet, too; she had to be had fed/hand reared because she was really little when we found her abandoned.
=^..^=
I think I've had more older cats that were "feral" like the main one in the video. Usually they develop that distrust of humans over time. I remember one cat I had that would hiss at you if you came even close to him. Of course he was an outside cat, because there was literally no way to get near him, but he would sit on my porch every day, and I'd feed him, and occasionally, rarely, he'd even let me pet him. He kinda also looked like he had visited the pet cemetery 7 or 8 times before. But, having a hard life and distrusting humans doesn't mean you don't deserve to be fed.
This is a very good video. I have heard a lot about the importance of socialization but have never seen how to do it.
It's alright. I've sort of learned how to do a lot of this stuff...and some of the things he says are helpful...and it effeminately worked in the end...but some of the stuff he did probably set him back a little.