Kiki’s First Heat Cycle

Kittens grow up much faster than we anticipate, and this is exactly what happened with our little furry angel, Kiki.

Much to our disbelief, and sooner that we hoped for, Kiki reached another milestone – her puberty!

At about 6 months old, she started showing signs she was entering her first heat cycle, and we were not prepared for it. At all.

Looking back now, it was surprising, confusing, and honestly, pretty funny too. Here’s the story of Kiki’s first time showing mating signals and what we did about them.

Kiki Exhibits Strange Signs

It all started with little changes in Kiki’s behavior that caught us completely off guard. She became much more vocal than usual and started rubbing her head against everything in the apartment including our legs. She also genuinely started showing a lot more affection out of the blue.

At first, we were overjoyed by her attention towards us, but when she started meowing more often and much louder, that’s when we got a bit concerned.

Thinking she was too young for her first heat cycle, we worried that something is wrong with her, did she become sick, or is something hurting her? And then all of the sudden, she started to meow as if calling for her partner, lowering her body to the ground, and lifting her little tushy, making biscuits with her back legs in the process.

Neither of us had experienced such a thing with a young indoor kitten, so we didn’t know what to do or how to help her. We also genuinely felt awkward, like parents realizing their kid had become a teenager over night.

But, given she looked like she was really struggling, we wanted to do something about it so we immediately called our veterinarian and asked for help.

First Meows

The very first thing we noticed was Kik’s meows, as they started to sound completely different from the playful little meows we were used to. She started making long, drawn-out noises that sounded like a call to someone.

We looked at each other wondering what had gotten into her. Kiki continued to walk around the apartment, literally screaming for no reason, and no matter the attention we gave her, she would continue to do so.

With all of this happening, we had to take action and try to occupy her by playing with her favorite toys, especially the feather wands.

We hope this would calm her down a bit before our visit to the vet.

First Unexpected Situations

The next thing we noticed was a change in behavior. Kiki kept following us around, rubbing her head against our legs, and then suddenly gently bumping her backside as if she was asking us to help her with something.

She would then lower her body to the ground and make biscuits with her back legs, an obvious mating call and sign. We called our vet, asked for help, and read a lot of stuff in the meantime.

Our veterinarian asked us to bring her in for a quick check up. He confirmed that she is in heat and that this process, without having an actual partner does feel like a struggle for her.

We continued to play with her all the time in an effort to calm her down by having her spend as much energy on running around as possible.

Given we weren’t able to provide her with a mate, nor did we want her to struggle with pregnancy while being still so little, we had to come up with another, at least temporary solution.

After a long conversation about the pros and cons, we agreed that only this time, he would give her a hormonal injection to calm her down and help her pass her first heat cycle.

Looking back on those days she was in heat for the first time now, it is a funny memory, but at the time we were completely confused by our little girl’s unexpected behavior.

Kiki Doing Unexpected Things

The next day after the injection, Kiki’s behavior returned to normal, though we paid close attention to her.

However, after a few days, she got another heat cycle and exhibited the exact same behaviour. Watching her like this was both funny and heartbreaking, because we couldn’t help her. Our vet reassured us that this is normal and either we need to find her a partner or sterilize her.

So, we opted for the latter, took Kiki to the vet again for the same injection, and after a few days, we went back and had her sterilized.

These hormonal injections are extremely risky if Kiki takes them multiple times. Our decision was to do this immediately so the symptoms would pass and we would take her to be spayed.

Kiki’s Story Continues

Kiki’s first heat cycle was a whole new experience for us. We had plenty to learn as purr-ents and it reminded us of just how important it is to pay attention to your cat’s behavior and never hesitate to call your vet for help.

Heat cycles are completely normal and they actually show you have a healthy cat that’s just going through something that’s totally natural for her nature. The thing is, when i’s an indoor cat and there aren’t many male cats around to help with her needs, it’s on us as cat parents to hel;p as much as we can.

Luckily for us, Kiki was soon back to her happy, usual, playful self, and ready for her next chapter in life.