How To Know When It Is Time To Rehome Your Cat

[kttn]

Ugh I hate even typing this but I'm at my whits end..

I've posted here before about how my 5 yr old female has gotten touchier and touchier over the years. The little interaction she gives us always ends up with her hissing and clawing within a minute. She's had four medical checkups this year at two different vets as well as blood work done. She's healthy other than her anal glands getting impacted which we take care of as needed. The vets she has seen have picked up on her extreme attitude. Holding her to do basic things like grooming, cleaning her ears, or clipping her nails, results in growls and hisses. We can't pet most of her body anymore or she hisses. If she smells something odd on us or the other cat she will hiss for days after.

She has several tall (6-7 ft) cat trees, window beds, heated beds, and other private places to retreat. High quality diet. Fans running 24/7 to help block out any noise to prevent her anxiety. She's good with our other cat but that cat gets scared every time this one hisses and I'm afraid it's going to rub off on her.

We moved into our new place a year ago and thought she was going through an adjustment period, but it hasn't gotten better. We have to move again in a few months and my heart sinks because she handles it so poorly. We're going to be moving every 1-2 years for awhile for work. Feliway doesn't help.

Our house is quiet, it's just us and the two cats, no kids or dogs. For awhile I thought she just hated my boyfriend but she doesn't tolerate me either.

I hate the thought but I can't help but wonder if she'd be better off somewhere else. She seems totally displeased with life in general and it's affecting us. I know I have a duty to take care of her and it's not her fault, it just sucks.

I just had to rant, thanks to anyone who reads this

 

[Norachan]

Oh, she sounds a lot like my Susy.



Susy doesn't meow when she wants a door opened, she does growls at the door until we notice.

The thing about trying to re-home a cat like this is very few people will be willing to take her on. She'll probably stay at the shelter for ages and may never find a new home.

Have you asked your vet about mood stabilizers? Susy used to spray inside the house, pull her fur out and get stress-related UTIs, but she has been a lot better this year as we've been giving her Zylkene.

Home

She's recently started coming to me for pets and head bumps, which she hasn't done for years. Ask your vet if anything like this would be suitable for your cat. It took a few weeks before we noticed any difference in Susy, but a daily dose has really helped her.

 

[jcat]

We've had a lot of luck with Zylkene at the shelter, for both cats and dogs. It takes a couple of weeks for it to work, but the difference it makes is noticeable.

I agree that putting her in a shelter isn't a solution. People want outgoing lap cats for the most part.

 

[MeganLLB]

That's kind of like how Little Kitty is. She only likes my mom. You have to pet her a certain way and she will only tolerate one or two touches or she will bite you. You can't go at her from the front or she will strike at you like a snake, you have to pet from behind. If you move the wrong way she attacks. She hates the dogs and we all have dogs, she hates other cats, hates other people, hates all the food we give her, just hates life.

We thought that maybe she would be happier in a home with no other animals and just one person, but who would want a cat like her? If she gets any worse, we are going to ask the vet about putting her on some kind of medication. We have a dog on Prozac and Trazadone and it helps him tremendously.

I would ask the vet about some kind of mood stabilizer or anxiety medicine.

 

[kttn]

Thanks guys for the responses, they made me feel better about the situation. People have acted horrified when I talked about medicating her.

Asa has been on 10mg of amitriptyline for nearly 3 weeks now. She grooms a lot less now (which is good, she was bordering on excessive grooming), and her appetite is way down. She's fairly lethargic. She's still acting the same otherwise (in a word, she's still mean) but I know this type of med needs some time to build up.

One thing that's really bugging me is that her behavior (hissing/growling at us, anxiousness at every sound) is rubbing off on the second cat, Maris. Maris is very confident and loving toward people so it is absolutely heart breaking to see her picking up anxious traits.

Asa lived for years with a hypersensitive male. Many of her current issues are uncannily similar to that cat's behavior. It's like a cycle of anxiety passing from one cat to the next.

I find this really distressing and I'm not sure I'll be able to deal with it if Maris continues learning these behaviors.