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Hi again, PI. I'm the crazy cat lady who built a cat room in her house about a month ago. Initially, I made it so the rear end in a top hat below could find solace in it away from the kitten. Prepare for a wall o' text for the background. rear end in a top hat in question:  This is Minerva. She is approximately 5 years old, spayed, and is up to date on all of her shots. As of October, she also had a clean bill of health. We've had her since she was 9 weeks old, and she reacts poorly to change. We've been able to deal with that until this point. She hates being picked up for any length of time, does not particularly enjoying snuggling, and eats only one type of dry cat food (Blue, chicken flavored). She refuses all wet food, even Fancy Feast. We've had to re-teach her how to eat out of her bowl three times in her short life, so she's not overly smart either. But she is friendly toward humans and loves her cat trees (there are three and a scratcher/hammock in the house). She permits head scratches and pets on her time and will occasionally grace you with her presence by perching on you for a couple of minutes at a time. Generally, she can be found at the top of her 7' tall cat tree, on the back of the couch lurking near you, or rolling around on the ground like a weirdo. We got a new kitten, Conan, at the very end of August.  He's a stupidly handsome, 7-month old possibly Maine Coon mix. He's neutered, up to date on all of his shots, and is healthy also as of October. We have two other cats as well, O'Malley: 9-10 years old, neutered, shots updated, mostly clean-ish bill of health (we're working through what we and our vet think is a pulled muscle or ligament in his back leg) also as of October; and Ahab: 2 years old, neutered, shots updated, tripod cat, and clean bill of health since October. Pictures below for your trouble. Ahab:  O'Malley:  So we got Conan at the end of August, but it took Minerva about three weeks to realize he was, in fact, a cat. We also moved into our new house at the beginning of September, which is another reason why she probably wasn't so concerned with Conan. After we moved and she'd settled into the new place, she noticed him and did the typical posturing, but nothing unusual. We'd introduced her to Ahab previously with no issue, and she's always been chill with O'Malley because she was a kitten when she met him, a fully grown cat, and they were insta-bros. Not really sure what happened, but it probably does not help that Conan is true to his name and fears absolutely nothing. So whereas Minerva was able to smack her way into getting Ahab to leave her the hell alone, Conan would take a smack to the face and come back for more. It's progressed to the point that she hisses and growls at all of the cats when they come anywhere near her. But she will also be fine with all of them within the same day, sometimes within the same hour. All four of them were on the couch with us (my husband and I) on Sunday just after she'd been growling and hissing at them earlier that day. Things We've Done to Alleviate Minerva's Stress: Made the cat room Put Minerva in said cat room to let her chill out. She doesn't want to stay in the cat room, or in any room for that matter, and will run out at the first chance she gets. As mentioned earlier, holding her is quite a challenge, so moving her places she doesn't want to be tends to be more stressful for her than it's worth. Feliway (6 diffusers throughout the house) Behavior modification (treats when they're all together and not growling/hissing/annoying each other) Separate and together play times Putting the other cats away for a while and letting her roam the house/getting undivided attention Taking a door off the cabinet above the fridge so she can perch up there away from the other cats These have all been generally at the same time or interchangeably over the last three weeks to a month, but there has been very little change in behavior. Conan seems to be the main perpetrator, even starting to climb my curtains to attempt to get at her while she's sitting on the windowsill. He also likes to get into staring contests with her. We play with him in varying intervals and try to re-direct his energy to the billions of toys in the house (or the other cats, who like playing with him), but bothering her seems to be a lot more fun, especially when she makes the screamy "oh my god there's a cat being skinned" noises the humans hate so much. As a note, they've only gotten into one fight where blood was drawn, and Conan was on the receiving end of that. He avoided her for about two days and went right back to things. Generally, he doesn't even get a chance to touch her before she starts hissing/growling/screaming, and he or the other cats can sometimes just look in her direction and it freaks her out. She recently started going outside the litter box, something she's never done previously. She was using vaguely litter box-shaped items in the living room. I put a spare emergency box in the living room, thinking maybe she didn't want to go upstairs where the other cats generally hang out. She immediately used it, so I'm going to get a permanent one tomorrow and set it in the same spot as the current one. There are neighborhood cats that may come into our yard, so I'm going to get some plants that the Internet suggested would keep them out. Any suggestions for other known products that keep cats out of the yard would be helpful. I imagine the potential smell of strange cats is not helping the situation. I'm also calling our vet tomorrow (I've reached out to him previously on this topic as well) to see if we can get Minerva on some kitty Xanex and/or herbal medicine--whichever he thinks would be better at this point. I'm reaching out to y'all to see if there's any other suggestions you have for anything I may be missing or have forgotten. I'm doing my best to create as stress-free an environment for all the cats as I can, and I'm attempting not to have to re-home anyone since I love them all. Any and all suggestions are welcome. Thanks for reading so much!
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Feb 14, 2017 03:11
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 21:06 |
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Update: Minerva is officially on Prozac as of 3:30 this afternoon. So far, she's much calmer already. While the other cats are still annoying her, she's merely growling or hissing and not screaming. They also seem to have gotten the message (finally) that when she makes the growling noises, maybe they should just leave her alone. We'll see if this persists and if the medicine continues to seem to help. Newly installed permanent litter box in the living room and so far no more accidents outside the box today! I'm still open to advice/commiseration if you've got any! More cat pictures for your trouble: Minerva and her new princess bowl, because she is indeed a princess (this is in her cabinet above the fridge):  Conan and the attack of the yarn skein wrapper:  Ahab being cute and sleepy:  Comparison of O'Malley and Conan:  Comparison of Ahab and Conan:  Derp face:  Faceplant (he always sleeps like this and snores):  Joker smile:  Soda boxes are super fun, except when you can't escape through the obviously tiny hole:  They were all chill with each other at one point:  O'Malley investigating the packaging I'd gone through:  Bonus pic of Ahab in the shower where you can sort of seeing that he only has three legs: 
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Feb 15, 2017 02:51
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No advice here, just admiring some cute cats  Thanks for posting.
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Feb 15, 2017 09:44
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I'm no expert, but it now seems like you're doing everything you can. Now it will just take time. Reactive, not super smart cats just have a rougher time. Good luck, all your cats are cute
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Feb 15, 2017 16:25
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Thanks for the reassurance and for telling me my cats are cute! She's doing her usual thing of refusing to eat for no reason (this is like a weekly occurrence, and then she'll finally eat after a few hours), so I'm leaving her food out to see if she eats. She also just threw up, but she hasn't in a while and sometimes cats just do that, so... we'll keep an eye on her.
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Feb 15, 2017 23:46
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Another update: Minerva threw up again today and is still not eating much. Took her to the eVet (because of course it happens after normal vet hours) and she stress peed in the carrier (as usual), so she gets to hang out there until 10 o'clock or until she gets more urine. Vet is running a full blood workup, x-rays, and a urinalysis. He thinks it might be a UTIA, which is possible. Will update again once I know what's going on.
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Feb 17, 2017 01:42
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If you took her to the vet, she might have caught a bug there and need to let that work out. I swear that's what happened to by boy when he had some pooping issues that he has but got worse. 4-5 days after we went to the vet he went off his food for 3 days (some eating with lots of coaxing, but was not feeling well) We went back, did full blood work, all normal. Some appetite stim and fluids got him through it.
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Feb 18, 2017 01:43
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 21:06 |
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pandaid posted:If you took her to the vet, she might have caught a bug there and need to let that work out. I swear that's what happened to by boy when he had some pooping issues that he has but got worse. 4-5 days after we went to the vet he went off his food for 3 days (some eating with lots of coaxing, but was not feeling well) We went back, did full blood work, all normal. Some appetite stim and fluids got him through it. She hadn't been to the vet before he prescribed the Prozac since she'd been in recently and I'd been keeping him updated with her progress as far as Conan and the other cats were concerned, so it wasn't a bug or anything. She ended up having a UTI, so she's on antibiotics AND Prozac now. She's not super happy about being scruffed twice a day to ensure she gets all the antibiotic, but she'll get over it. We've gotten new flavored Prozac that's more easily hidden in her food, so she's been getting both of these regularly since Friday. She's taken up residence in the office, which is a pretty sweet place anyway. She has three litterboxes, a cat tree, windows to look out of, and my desk that I turned into a kitty cave by putting a blanket over it. And, of course, jet favorite chair that she's torn all to hell and we keep around because she and the other cats like it so much.  I mean, seriously, look at how smug she is. So far she seems to be feeling a little better and hasn't had any accidents outside the box. The Prozac also appears to be working, as she was around all three of our other cats at one point without any hissing or growling. Lots of meowing (whoever said cats don't meow at each other obviously never met my cats) on her end, but she was fine otherwise and didn't appear super uncomfortable as she normally would be. We'll continue to see how she improves. Will post more pictures as their reintroduction comes along.
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Feb 20, 2017 04:54
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