>One of them (Whiskers) is very (very) friendly, the black one (unnamed as of yet) is very cautious, and the third (Collie) is like a phantom; disappears as soon as I look at him. I can ocassionally touch the black one, but not Collie, unless I corner him. I have noticed that he will come out of hiding more when I'm in the room, but will run away as soon as he thinks I'm heading his way. I do try to pick all of them up and pet them once a day, whether they like it or not. Do you think that Collie will become less afraid with time?

Absolutely. Give him time. He'll come around once he begins to realise that nothing bad ever happens to him when your around.

When I brought Gypsy in, it was clear that he had been a cat poorly used. He was very strange. He could be eating or whatever, but as soon as he saw me, he would head for the basement steps. He'd go to the 1st step down from the main floor and hunch there. He seemed to feel better as long as he was not on the main floor when I was around. Clearly whoever kicked him out had let him know in no uncertain terms that he was not welcome out of the basement.

Anyway, once he was hunched on the step, he'd let me pet him. I kept bringing him up onto the main floor and petting him, and eventually he got it. It took another 3 weeks or so for him to achieve the 2nd floor upstairs. Finally, I picked him up and put him on the bed and he was gone like a shot - all the way back down to the basement steps.

I brought him back up and put him on the bed and petted him there a couple more times, and on the third try, he stayed. After that, I couldn't get rid of him. If it looked like I might be headed to bed, he'd blast past me, jump up on the bed and wait.

>>I do the same. The only problem with that is that if any one of them is an ex-stray (or an ex-feral), he/she can gain considerable weight.
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>>If the cats are used to always having food around, you shouldn't have a problem.
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>>>I just leave food out all the time for the 3 of them. Should I be feeding them at set times?
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>>>>I've witnessed the bad attitude first hand. Luckily it wasn't expressed vocally. Once I got the cats I stopped going to the gym at nite. So I was typically home by 7pm at the latest.
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>>>>One nite I went to a user group meeting. Had to leave straight from work. I didn't get home till 10pm that day. Wilshire was meowing like crazy, but once I fed him, all was normal as far as he was concerned. But Korkie, on the other hand.....After eating his late dinner he ignored me completely. I sat down on a chair close to where he was sitting on the floor. He kept on attacking my ankles, teeth and claws extended. He didn't sleep on the bed that nite and didn't come into the bedroom at all, even after he woke up. It took till the next nite for him to calm down.