About ...Brimstone-kun and Moon-kun are brothers. They were rescued when their mother was spayed as part of a TNR project. Brimstone-kun is the grey cat.
Brimstone-kun was captured a month or so after his brother. When he came to the shelter he was a very fierce little kitten. He was frightened of new situations and new people. It took about 5 months for him to learn to trust us. But after 5 months, he could be stroked. He would even lie on his back to have his tummy tickled.
The next step for Brimstone-kun was to go to a volunteer to meet new people and polish his social skills to prepare him to go to a permanent home. A volunteer came forward with a lot of experience. We took Brimstone-kun to meet the volunteer. We thought it would probably take a week or so for Brimstone-kun to get used to the new person.
Alas - no. He kind of did a "reset" and went back to being a frightened, untrusting little boy. He hid in a cupboard and only came out at night. After a few weeks, the volunteer suggested that Brimstone-kun might benefit from having some company. Moon-kun joined Brimstone-kun at the volunteer's house.
That seemed to improve the situation. Moon-kun is a big, soft, sociable boy. Brimstone-kun got more confidence and became more trusting. Now he can be stroked. The volunteer has worked wonders with him. Have a look at the videos.
So: we are looking for a new owner who has experience of cats. We don't want Brimstone-kun to be the only cat in the house, so ideally Moon-kun and Brimstone-kun would be rehomed together.
It is possible that for the first few weeks in a new home, Brimstone-kun might go back to being a scared little cat hiding in a cupboard. So the new owner must have patience. If you want a cat who will jump out of the carrier and straight into your arms, this is probably not the cat for you.
But if you have patience and understanding, he will grow to love you, and you him. Sometimes it is the cats who one has to take the most trouble over that are the most rewarding.
Trail period: our usual trial period is 3 weeks. In this case, we would keep an "open" trial period. We would wait for the new owner to tell us when they were ready to end the trial. [The minimum trial period would be one month.]
If the new owner was an older person, we would consider doing a "supported rehoming". [If the owner is incapacitated, the cat would come back to us.]
We don't think this cat is a good fit for a house with a young child, or a house with a large family.
Moon-kun: is a nice, simple, easy, affectionate, handsome boy.
https://catnip.or.jp/en/animal/326/?r=0#m