Stress

[tiggerwillow]

Question about this article from here, Willow gets very anxious and stressed when stuff is happening outside that disturbs her routine - it can even be something like a smell getting in through the door

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For example, today, a stupid neighbour across the road managed to block their drain and had to have a repair man out with a scary machine to unblock their drain, a load of black gunk had to get removed from their drain (I have no idea what exactly was being got out of the drain)

My question is, stuff like this (unplanned and impossible to know when or even if something like that will happen again), how can I tackle the stress of that sort of thing happening? She keeps trying to find places to hide tonight, she's very on edge, even to the point when Tigger took her a toy mousie, she decided the toy mousie itself was coming to get her, simply cause the drain man scared her just by using a scary sounding machine across the road

I'm currently sat with her, after she changed hiding places from behind the freezer and decided "hiding" on a towel that smells of me cause I used it when I had a bath, the towel is a safe spot that apparently the long-since-left-for-other-jobs drain unblocking man cannot find her on, I'm letting her comfort herself on the towel, allowing her to keep the towel seems to be helping her to relax a bit, but she's still on alert and watching in case the scary noisy machine comes back just to frighten her, she thinks anything that scares her its only reason for doing a scary thing is to scare her (anything that she gets scared by is plotting to get her, she seems to believe)

To the point she will get defensive towards the vet when the vet touches her blankie, she will allow the vet to touch her without biting, but she will nip if the vet touches blankie, so I get her and blankie in and out of the carrier at the vet cause she won't bite me for touching her blankie, she knows I won't steal blankie from her

She's never liked her routine getting changed at all, she's always been this sensitive, she can't deal with workmen coming here, she can't even handle workmen going to neighbour's houses for work being done (and I cannot say to neighbours can they never have anything done in their house in Willow's lifetime cause sometimes they literally need to have stuff done, like the stupid neighbour messing their drain up, or the fire brigade having to visit the flats on the corner cause someone had managed to do something stupid, there's a few things in this house I would need to get done in Willow's lifetime (for example: having a new boiler put in as mine will get to the end of its life before Willow), and historically I had to have the electricity man out cause the fuse box had gone bang, Willow could not cope with him fixing whatever had gone bang in the fuse box

She can cope with normal household sounds (like the washing machine, for example), she just can't cope when something happens outside of her "normal" and I'm unsure how I can move forward with this, its literally only when something happens that she gets this scared and anxious, its not medical related.

 

[Mamanyt1953]

OOOOH, tough one. And actually pretty common. It sounds like she may need a "safe space" in your home. Cats being cats, they like small, dark, and enclosed.

Hekitty had a bed very like this one, that she would actually roll around the house to find the best spot for, depending on what had spooked her:

 

[game misconduct]

try just telling her its ok i always do that with graycie anytime we have stuff going around our apartment complex. i know it seemed to calm her when they had a jack hammer running most of the day in the apartment across from mine. she alerted me to it ran a check around our place maybe it helped that i went with her to peep out the windows when she did

 

[vansX2]

try just telling her its ok i always do that with graycie anytime we have stuff going around our apartment complex. i know it seemed to calm her when they had a jack hammer running most of the day in the apartment across from mine. she alerted me to it ran a check around our place maybe it helped that i went with her to peep out the windows when she did

I often do the same with Jackpot when he gets startled at the sound of a helicopter hovering overhead . I live behind a hospital that has the helio pad close by. Being next to Jackpot and speaking that everything is ok as we both watch the helicopter Land or Take off.

 

[Tik cat's mum]

My patches is the same anything new can throw him for a couple of day's. When I had to get work done, I took both boy's into the bedroom and stayed with them. I found just letting him hide under the bed and talking to him helped. Because the work was ongoing I put all the boy's stuff in there litter, food, cat tree so my son's room that I was using smelt as much like theirs as possible. I've found unexpected noise like you had to deal with is harder because you can't get the cat away before the noise starts. In those situations I just let him hide were he wants normally underneath the bed covers or landing carpet. Then when it's quiet I go to his spot and tell him it's OK all finished now. I do that when the vacuum has been out so it's become routine and he knows once I say that the noise has stopped. But if you can make a safe space maybe sleep on or use a blanket when your cuddling and put it inside a box it might help because she wouldn't feel the need to look for new spots. Poor girl you feel so bad for them don't you.

 

[Alldara]

Talking and narrating to your cat does wonders. I'm always talking to Magnus (and the other boys, but he responds best so he's my example).

He was super scared of planes, but we live by a plane route. At least one per day and they can be low/loud. So we said, "Oh loud sound. Loud plane outside. Oh nervous. It's okay. Magnus safe in Magnus home." and as he learned the language we used with him, things changed. "Wow Magnus. Loud plane outside. Mom look." and he began to look with us. Now, after a couple years he runs to see the planes. Sometimes he presses his buttons to say, "look, look."

You can also turn on some cat calming music when things are happening. The purpose of cat-calming music is to use pleasing-to-cat sounds to "dull out" other noises and help build confidence. Think of it like a different way of providing exposure therapy for when we can't control the sound (Jackson Galaxy recommends recording the sounds and playing them at a lower volume and slowing increasing as you build confidence with your cat. But this is not always possible. We use music during happy times and the same music during stressful times instead.)

 

[tiggerwillow]

Willow's come to me to tell me she needs the lap, all laps must immediately stop what they are doing and offer the[mself

 

[Mamanyt1953]

Sometimes he presses his buttons to say, "look, look."

HOW COOL! Magnus is a "button cat!" I'm thinking of trying to teach my next cat to use them. Apparently, even seniors have no real issues with learning them, although they may (or may not) take longer than a younger cat.

 

[Alldara]

HOW COOL! Magnus is a "button cat!" I'm thinking of trying to teach my next cat to use them. Apparently, even seniors have no real issues with learning them, although they may (or may not) take longer than a younger cat.

Nobel never cared to use them. But all my younger boys took to them easily. Cal and Ghost picked it up quiccker by observing Magnus. For Mags, it took a year to learn. Now he picks up new buttons quickly.