Sudden Fear?

[calicowhirlwind]

(Photo for tax!) Hello all. I'd like to preface this post with a few things:

• Jane is actively seeing a vet. Her last appointment was May 17th. She got two vaccines and was prescribed a diet food and we were given a kit to collect urine (unsuccessful thus far) for a urinalysis. She is 17.8lb even with two ¼ cups a day for the last ~5 months.
• She has been peeing irregularly for a while now, but she has no other symptoms of a UTI. Again, she is seeing a vet, and as soon as we can get a urine sample (the vet closes at 6, she pees almost exclusively at night; may need to schedule an extraction) I will update with results.
• She is 6 years old on June 26th.

With that out of the way: what could potentially be causing a sudden "fear" of random objects around our room that she sees absolutely every day? She will walk around the room and randomly get frightened by a basket, or a nonexistent bug under my reptile enclosures (believe me, we've checked every time it's a potential bug or spider). Last night, she was investigating my girlfriend's slippers, and suddenly jolted and hissed at one as if it bit her. She did this on a smaller scale for a while, but every day now it seems like she's getting freaked out more often.

She is in a VERY low stress environment. We live in a king-sized bedroom unit attached to our landlord's house in a sort of mother-in-law style. She has a large window to look out of, plenty of toys, and my lizards as entertainment. She has never shown signs of boredom or distress, it's only her, myself, and my girlfriend in our unit. No children, dogs, other cats, loud noises, nothing. What is the possibility that this behavior could be caused by discomfort related to her urinary problems? Could this also possibly be a sign of cataracts / vision loss, or kitty dementia? As soon as I get her urine sample, I'm going to ask the vet, but I wanted to check in here in the meantime while I wait around for her to decide to pee BEFORE 6 PM.

 

[Furballsmom]

I know you said there are no other animals. However, I believe that there are, either outside, or possibly in your landlord's house. Even temporarily can be enough to disturb your cat. I'm guessing if you were to put up cameras you'll spot an animal walking past.

She's only six, so I'm not sure about dementia. The vet should already be doing this during regular wellness checks, but make sure s/he examines her eyes and ears. You might try a calming product. She's already a bit compromised with the urinary situation, she needs help with the stress she's feeling.

By the way, can you get her to exercise more? Take her outside for walks, or hold her food dish in your hand and have her follow you around the room initially, then further. You're running the risk of feeding her too few calories in the food, so I'd suggest rather than using the vet food which I'm assuming is just another dry food, provide her with canned.

Also, this will help;
Tips To Increase Your Cat’s Water Intake - TheCatSite

 

[calicowhirlwind]

I know you said there are no other animals. However, I believe that there are, either outside, or possibly in your landlord's house. Even temporarily can be enough to disturb your cat. I'm guessing if you were to put up cameras you'll spot an animal walking past.

She's only six, so I'm not sure about dementia. The vet should already be doing this during regular wellness checks, but make sure s/he examines her eyes and ears.

We have zero access to the landlord's house, we're an individual unit. The fenceline is directly parallel to our window, but there's about a three-foot gap, so I guess it's possible other cats could climb our fence and wander. It definitely doesn't happen often though, we have quite a few deterrents. She's never outside so what she would be able to see we're none the wiser to. I'll count it as a possibility! Honestly, she's always been weird, but it's something I'll bring up to our vet nonetheless.

 

[Furballsmom]

I added a couple things to my post above that you might not have seen, sorry about that

We have zero access to the landlord's house, we're an individual unit.

Can you ask them if they have a new animal lately?
She can hear and smell a lot more than we/you can, she doesn't have to actually be outside to know.

 

[calicowhirlwind]

I added a couple things to my post above that you might not have seen, sorry about that


Can you ask them if they have a new animal lately?
She can hear and smell a lot more than we/you can, she doesn't have to actually be outside to know.

We actually think they have a small dog, that could be it! She never barks but we hear her running around on occasion. With her food, we've had to up to three ¼ cups of the vet prescribed food, which she barely finishes. Water is added to every meal she eats, she never has just dry. We've considered moving over to wet but the only wet food I like to feed is Tiki Cat that would need to be ordered online since it isn't available at our Tractor Supply (I'll take any other recommendations!). We've tried a harness and leash but she absolutely hates being outside, she doesn't tolerate it whatsoever. Though she does chase balls, toy mice, and play with her ribbon toy pretty frequently; we do whatever we can to keep her on her feet and moving around when she'll tolerate it.

 

[Furballsmom]

If you scroll down on this page there are some other options as well - the nutritional analysis, and ingredient list isn't a very easy comparison to Tiki Cat at first glance but you know more about what you're looking for
https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/p...duck-and-salmon-cat-food-35-oz-can-pack-of-12

 

[susanm9006]

I wonder whether she has something going on with her vision? It could be related to a medical issue such as diabetes but it could also be an independent decrease in her vision. If your vet did not do a full blood panel including a glucose test I would ask them to do that and also let them know about her changed behavior,

 

[Alldara]

While you're waiting on vet stuff, I'd recommend some cat calming music, some feliway if you're partial to it.

If she's not feeling well for whatever reason, that could cause jumpiness. It could even be a combination of events, which would make it harder to determine the 'cause'. Ex. She's not feeling well, plus new animal nearby plus she heard a loud sound the first time she heard that new animal.

It really could be much further than you think. My cat had a scare with the neighbour's dog (sniffed him under the fence, Magnus hissed so the dog gave two barks). And then got really nervous for weeks when he would hear him. Just him. Not the other dogs in the neighborhood. He could hear him walking before we could see him, sometimes on the other side of the other row of homes (we could see them pass through the gap). Mind-blowing. Now he's much better again.