What Nobody Tells You About

The First Two Weeks with a New Cat

Last week, my husband and I went to a blacksmithing class with a couple of our friends. Actual blacksmithing. Hammering hot metal, sparks everywhere, very much outside our usual hiking-and-camping comfort zone. Somewhere between my second and third lopsided attempts at carving my handle, they mentioned that they'd applied to adopt two kittens.

By the following week, they had them.

And now my phone is a constant stream of updates. Photos of tiny cats wedged behind the couch. Videos of one kitten stalking the other's tail. Texts at 11pm asking if it's normal that the tabby one won't come out from under the bed. The whole beautiful, chaotic, slightly panicky reality of bringing new animals home.

It's making me think about all the stuff I wish someone had told me before my first pet adoption, and all the stuff I've learned since then working with new pet parents. Because there's this gap between "congratulations, here's your new family member\!" and actually knowing what to do with them once you're home. Especially with cats, who have a whole different playbook than dogs.

Decompression Is Not Optional

I know. You just adopted the cutest creature alive and you want to hold it, introduce it to your mom, post seventeen Instagram stories. I get it.

But here's what's actually happening in your new cat's brain: everything they knew just disappeared. Their foster home, their littermates who didn't come with them, the sounds and smells they'd mapped out, gone. They're now in a completely unfamiliar space with completely unfamiliar humans, and their nervous system is running a full threat assessment.

Decompression means giving them a single room. One room. Door closed. With their litter box, food, water, a hiding spot, and not much else. This is not punishment and it's not ignoring them. It's giving their brain a manageable amount of new information to process instead of an entire house worth.

Most cats need at least a few days in their decompression room. Some need a week or more. You'll know they're ready to explore further when they're eating consistently, using the litter box normally, and showing curiosity about the door rather than hiding from it.

Let Them Tell You Who They Are

This is the part that's hardest for excited new pet parents, and I say this with so much love: your cat does not owe you snuggles on day three.

My friends texted me the other night worried because one of their kittens was super social and playful while the other one was still hiding behind the washing machine. They wanted to know what was wrong with the shy one. Nothing. Nothing is wrong. That kitten is just taking longer to feel safe, and trying to force the timeline will make it take even longer.

Every animal comes pre-loaded with their own personality, their own history, their own weird quirks. One of their kittens has apparently decided that the toilet is the most fascinating object in the house and keeps trying to jump in. That's just who he is right now.

The temptation is to project what you WANT onto your new pet. You want the lap cat, the playful cat, the cat who greets you at the door. And maybe you'll get that. But you have to let the actual cat emerge first. My cat Coco never became a social butterfly. She was always a one-person cat who spooked at loud noises and preferred watching the action from a high shelf. Once I stopped trying to make her into something she wasn't and started building her environment around who she actually was, she thrived.

Catification: Building a World That Works for Them

Speaking of environment. Cats need vertical space. This is one of those things that sounds like a nice bonus but is actually fundamental to how they experience safety and confidence.

A cat who feels insecure will hide. A cat who has high perches, shelves, cat trees, window seats, places where they can survey their territory from above, will often choose height over hiding. Height often equals confidence for cats. It gives them control over their environment without having to engage directly with whatever is stressing them out.

You don't need to spend a fortune on this. A cleared bookshelf, a sturdy wall shelf with a piece of fleece on it, a window perch. The goal is giving your cat OPTIONS for how to exist in the space, not just the floor and whatever furniture you already have.

Enrichment While They Settle In

New cats, especially kittens, need something to DO with all that nervous energy. But the first week isn't the time for free-roaming chaos.

Puzzle feeders are my go-to recommendation for the decompression phase. Scatter their treats in a snuffle mat or put it in a simple puzzle toy and smear their wet food on a lickmat instead of a bowl. This does a couple things at once: it slows down eating (helpful if stress is causing them to inhale food), it gives their brain a problem to solve, and it mimics the kind of foraging behavior cats are wired for.

Wand toys are great once they're a little more settled and you want to start building the bond. Play is one of the fastest trust-builders with cats because it lets them engage with you at a distance they control. They're not being held or cornered. They're choosing to interact because the feather thing is just too good to resist.

Even something as simple as crinkle balls, paper bags with the handles removed, or cardboard boxes with holes cut in them can give a new cat something positive to focus on during those first weird days.

The Tummy Thing

My friends asked me about this too, and I hear it from almost every new pet parent: "Is it normal that their stomach is a mess?"

Yes. Probably.

A new environment, new food, the stress of transition, it all hits the gut. Cats and dogs both tend to show stress through their digestion first. A few days of soft stool or a missed meal or two is pretty standard during the adjustment period.

Keep them on whatever food their foster or shelter was feeding for at least the first week or two. Switching food on top of switching everything else is asking a lot of their system. If you want to transition to a different food, do it slowly after they've settled in. Mix a little of the new food in with the old, increasing the ratio over a week or so.

If the digestive stuff persists past the first week or gets worse instead of better, that's worth a vet check. But a couple days of weird poops when they first come home? That's usually just the stress talking.

Patience Is the Whole Strategy

I know this sounds like non-advice. "Just be patient" feels like what people say when they don't have a real answer. But with cats especially, patience IS the answer. Cats operate on their own timeline and they do not care about yours.

The things that often made the biggest difference for nervous cats aren’t supplements or complicated behavior protocols. They’re time and consistency. Daily routine. Same feeding times. Same play sessions. Same quiet presence in the room while they decide whether they felt like coming out.

For my friends and their new kittens, I keep saying the same thing: two weeks. Give it two weeks before you start worrying about whether your cats are "normal" or bonding with you or doing what the internet says they should be doing. Most cats start showing you their real personality somewhere around the two-week mark, once the stress hormones have come down and they've mapped out their new territory.

Some cats take longer. That's fine too.

The Part Nobody Warns You About

Nobody tells you that the first week with a new pet can feel like a mistake. You might be a bit sleep-deprived, anxious, Googling things at 2am, and your new cat is hiding behind the dryer looking at you like you're a threat. It's a real thing. Some people call it the "adoption blues" and it's way more common than anyone talks about.

It passes. The 2am Googling slows down. The cat comes out from behind the dryer. One morning you wake up and they're sleeping at the foot of your bed and you can't remember what life was like before them.

- Lilly

Hey there, I'm Lilly!

Lilly is the Director of Education and a member of the innovation team at Austin & Kat. With a background in biology and a decade spent formulating supplements and raw diets for the dogs in her life, she's on a mission to make natural pet care less confusing for everyone. Lilly shares her Gig Harbor home with Arya, a 10-year-old pit bull mix and three-time cancer survivor, and Floki, a 120-lb Anatolian Shepherd who thinks he's a lap dog.

Explore A&K College

What truly
makes us different?

When you give your pet Austin and Kat, you're not just giving them any supplement — you're giving them something I've personally obsessed over. As a former ironman athlete and race director - the source, quality, and ratio of ingredients in my supplements had a huge impact on my quality of life. I've brought that same mindset to everything we make today at our Seattle Makery™, and the results speak for themselves.

The Story of Austin and Kat Frequently Asked Questions