Kitten Socialization – Pt 1
July 22, 2025
Socialization by Breeders
Lucy Drury
Searching for that next new furry family member can be a daunting task, particularly for those searching for their first pedigreed kitten. There are so many things to consider. What breed would suit us best? Is the breeder reputable? Are the kittens healthy? Are the parents healthy?
With a little homework, most of these considerations are knowable. There are many resources describing the general characteristics of the various breeds, including this website, which has extensive resources to help with that decision. A call to check references with a breeder’s veterinarian can also give you insights into a kitten’s health and heredity, although some practices will not provide such references.
A kitten’s temperament is a lot harder to assess. What one sees in the cattery is not a good indication of how the kitten will respond to new people and environments.
How Do I Know?
How does one know if a kitten is well-socialized? This is perhaps the most crucial determination and the most difficult. If the kitten comes home with a little diarrhea or a stuffy nose, while not ideal, it’s usually easily resolved by your veterinarian. However, behavioral problems can last a lifetime if not dealt with effectively.
Unfortunately, watching that kitten happily play with its littermates in the cattery tells you very little about their socialization to humans or new environments. The breeder may be willing to allow you to visit the cattery, but please don’t expect this because there are many safety concerns for both breeder and kittens in allowing strangers into the home. You cannot tell much about how that kitten will react to you and your environment from such a visit. Comparing kittens to their littermates doesn’t offer much of an advantage, either, because every litter has dominant and submissive kittens, and a well-defined social order often in place as early as four weeks old. The personalities of submissive kittens can change dramatically when out from under the paw of their mother and more dominant siblings.
So if an in-person visit or a Zoom call is not going to yield much information on breeders’ socialization practices, how can you assess them?
Ask. Ask an open-ended question: How do you socialize your kittens? How do you ensure your kittens are receptive to human interaction and are not generally fearful? Then listen carefully for some key practices. Avoid asking about specifics until breeders have an opportunity to tell you what they do. Every breeder will have a different method of socializing their kittens; however, there are commonalities among breeders who consistently send home happy, well-adjusted, and fear-free kittens.
What to Look For
The most critical time for developing the human-feline bond is between two and seven weeks of age. Feral kittens trapped younger than seven weeks old are usually easily socialized to humans after rescue; for those older than that the task is more difficult. Try to determine how much handling the kittens received during this critical period. Some things to look for: How many litters is a breeder caring for at one time? Are there other family members living in the home? Do they have helpers who come and play with kittens? Raising kittens “underfoot” is only an advantage if they are interacting with humans, and the more different types of humans, the better. Just because they are confined to a pen or a room for their physical safety does not mean kittens are poorly socialized if that pen is in a high traffic area of the home, or there is frequent human interaction in a nursery. We argue that a kitten can never have too much socialization, though there are some breeders who believe a kitten should not be flooded with too much interaction the first few weeks. This may be breed-dependent, and very dependent on the queen’s tolerance of strangers handling her kittens. Regardless, there should be a pattern of regular exposure to positive human interactions starting at two weeks of age and continuing until the kitten goes to a new home.
The prospective buyer should also assess how much the kitten has been introduced to new sensory stimuli. Most breeders will not take the kittens out of the cattery until they have had at least their first set of vaccinations, and maybe not then. An unwillingness to take them out of the cattery does not mean the kittens are poorly socialized, though. There are many creative ways to provide sensory stimuli without leaving the cattery. We begin sensory stimulation immediately after birth if the queen is tolerant. While kittens are deaf and blind at birth, their sense of smell and touch are functional then. All our kittens are handled daily for at least a few minutes and held close to our faces so they can pick up our scent. We wear gloves handling the newborns for the first week or so. Newborn kittens have surprising ability to distinguish between humans and will often greet a new person with a barely audible hiss. This is not personal. They will often hiss when any new scent is introduced. We use puppy early scent introduction (ESI) kits starting the day after they are born to desensitize kittens to new smells and to stimulate brain activity.
Once the kittens’ eyes open, they should be greeted with visual stimuli. Even before they can crawl around, we place small, kitten-safe toys in the nest that they can see and target as they are learning to crawl. We also have built PVC-pipe kitten mobiles they can look at from the nest. Again, any dangling objects should be kitten-safe so paws do not get caught in them.
When our kittens begin to crawl, they are greeted with a variety of textures on the floor to navigate over, around, and through: rugs, beds, tunnels, vertical and horizontal scratchers, along with small cat trees they can easily climb on. Tactile desensitization is sometimes overlooked by breeders. Most catteries have hard surface floors for easy cleaning, and the kitten never sees a carpeted floor or walks over one. This can be a scary experience for kittens if the first time they encounter a carpet is when they go to their new homes, and potentially confuse the texture with that of cat litter. The strange texture can also initiate litter-box confusion, when something as simple as a rough towel on the floor can ameliorate this potential problem.
Socialization With Other Cats and Pets
Learning good cat manners is critical for a kitten destined for a home with other pets or possibly as a show cat. This is one argument for keeping kittens as long as 14-16 weeks before they go to a new home. While many kittens have no physical need to remain with their mother past the age of eight weeks, the interaction and play with their siblings is critical to learning good “cat manners.” A kitten that knows how to appropriately approach, greet and respond to a strange cat will integrate into its new home and bond with any other cats in the home much more quickly. A kitten with good manners will walk confidently up to an adult cat during the introduction period, sometimes rubbing up against them, then stand still with tail held high so the new cat can sniff them over. The adult cat may hiss quietly and walk away, but the well-socialized kitten understands what the adult is communicating – “I’m in charge, kid” – and goes about its business. While YouTube videos abound on how to socialize new cats step by step, we find the length of time and steps involved are often unnecessary when introducing a kitten into another home with cats. While interactions should be closely monitored for the first week or so, and the kitten not left alone with the adult until the owner is confident they can do so safely, we find that supervised, positive interactions often occur on the first day. This will not happen, though, if the kitten has not been socialized by the breeder. Our kittens begin to interact with other adult cats after their first vaccination. We have a few neuters who adore kittens and treat them very kindly, allowing the kitten to experience positive interactions with strange cats. This sets the stage for a rapid integration into their new home.
Dogs and other pets can be more of a challenge. Certainly, a breeder with dogs has an advantage in that area of socialization, but it doesn’t mean a breeder without one can’t socialize kittens to dogs. We do not have a dog, but we have friends and family with dogs, and we take kittens to visit so they become used to the smell, sight and sound of a dog. However, socializing a cat to not be afraid of a dog has its risks. While many dogs are extremely cat friendly, not all are. Even a friendly dog can hurt a kitten if it is startled or annoyed by the kitten. Dogs will nip their puppies or other dogs to discipline each other; if directed at a kitten, this behavior can seriously harm or kill it, even if the dog did not intend to do so. If a dog owner wishes to acquire a kitten and doesn’t know how the dog will react, it’s useful to have the dog evaluated by a dog trainer or behaviorist. Kittens raised in homes with friendly dogs are particularly vulnerable because they are not afraid. In socializing kittens to dogs, the breeder should NEVER permit a kitten to play roughly or boss a dog around even if the dog is very tolerant. The next dog may not be so kind.
Travel Desensitization
Travel is an area of socialization that varies greatly among breeders. For some kittens, the first time they leave the cattery is their trip to their new home. Many breeders have legitimate concerns about exposing young kittens to potential hazards outside the home, even a trip to the local veterinarian. They simply don’t want to expose them to any infectious diseases, particularly at the veterinarian, so they do their own vaccinations and wellness checks unless the kittens exhibit some health issues.
We respect this point of view, but if you are looking for an “adventure cat,” you need to pay careful attention to how that kitten has been socialized to travel. Though there is an increased likelihood of a kitten contracting an infectious disease if it leaves the cattery, we believe that the benefits from the experience of getting out of the house outweigh the risks of contracting an illness. Of course, vaccinations should be current.
We begin the process of socializing our kittens to travel by placing a travel crate in the nursery. It becomes part of their environment, and they enter and exit freely. When it’s time for their first veterinary visit) usually their first trip outside the home), the crate is already a safe place. We take them on their first visit between six and seven weeks for two reasons: One, at this age, they are usually still open to new experiences without fearing them; and two, we recognize the dangers of taking unvaccinated cats outside the home. We want the first vaccinations in place and their immunity boosted by the time they are eight weeks old so we can further socialize them outside the home. At that age, although the kittens likely have sufficient immunity from their mother, the mother can’t pass on immunity she doesn’t have, and without an antibody titer blood test, we don’t know for sure how high her own immunity might be. We don’t give our own vaccinations because we find value in exposing cats to a veterinarian at an early age before fear of new places can occur. This makes it as positive an experience as we can provide, plus they get a very thorough checkup in the process. It should be noted that many highly competent breeders do their own vaccinations. We are blessed with a very competent, breeder-friendly veterinarian close to home in a part of the U.S. where veterinary costs have not become breathtakingly high, so we are able to take our kittens to their veterinarian at least twice without breaking the budget.
After they are vaccinated, we begin to expose them to the outside world. The first step is acclimating them to harness and leash. We avoid vest style harnesses and use a very lightweight, quality harness designed to minimize a cat’s ability to twist its way loose. Unlike humans and dogs, cats learn to tolerate things touching their bodies but never become completely desensitized. They feel things touching their bodies 100% of the time. It usually takes only one time for us to acclimate a young kitten to a harness and leash. We get out the toys and treats as soon as we harness them, and they forget all about it, though a few will initially fall over and play dead the first time. Accepting a harness and leash is critical to successful travel with a cat. Once kittens are leash-trained, we take them to big box stores, restaurants with pet-friendly patios in a stroller, and to friends and relatives’ homes, particularly where children who know how to handle kittens properly are available. Some of our litters have also had the opportunity to participate in print and video commercial work, a hugely valuable opportunity to build a bomb-proof kitten. When in public places, we usually do not allow strangers to handle them until after the second vaccination at 9-11 weeks. After that we are happy to allow people with properly sanitized hands to pet and hold them.
While not everyone may have the opportunities we list here, with a little creativity, breeders can find ways to get their kittens into new environments if they are comfortable doing so. Many workplaces now allow pets, so put a playpen in your office if you have one, and take your pets to work those last few weeks before they go to a new home. More places are pet-friendly now and welcome well-behaved pets. My banker specifically requested a visit from our cats!
Next Steps – It’s up to You!
Even if you’ve done your homework and found an awesome breeder who has amazing kittens, a kitten’s temperament can be ruined in a heartbeat if it is not introduced properly to your new home. Stay tuned for the next part of our series, “New Home Socialization.”