Question: I have a female cat, general good health, about 4 years old. After I had
her spayed at 6 months, she has never been the same. Most of the time, her
behavior is semi-tolerable, but it is starting to get out of control. She
has always been very skittish and anxious of other people, sounds, and does
not take well to change of any type, whether it is her schedule, my
schedule, moving of things, anything except her food. Very esily stressed.
She has a room right now that we don’t go into much, full of furniture and
boxes, that she can retreat to whenever she feels threatened and most of the
time she stays there. We have another cat and two dogs. She plays with the
other cat, doesn’t mind one of the dogs and tolerates relatively well the
other one. That isn’t a problem. My other cat is a talker, and you can
tell what she wants. This cat just wanders around and meows a lot, but only
at certain times. Not quiet meows, but like she’s in pain or terrified.
Usually she would calm down when you would pet her and give her some
attention, or food, but lately that isn’t helping. She starts around 3:30
am and doesn’t let up until after I go to work. Sometimes she starts at
night when we are getting ready for bed, but that stops when I give her
special attention before I turn out the lights. If I put her outside, she
cries or gets in a fight (we have a mean tomcat in the neighborhood that is
always visiting our street.) She loves to go outside, but since we moved to
this house, it took her 4 months just to venture to the porch. I don’t know
if her background matters, but she was the kitten of an abandoned female.
The father was most likely feral, but the mom was dumped.

This constant, crazy meowing started this week, and there are a couple of
things that have happened. Our older cat got mauled by this tomcat last
weekend and is recovering from surgery, so they haven’t been playing. The
older one seems to be a calming influence on this one. Also, she liked to
sleep in the unfinished upstairs, behind the walls in the attic area, but we
finished it last Wednesday, so she isn’t happy about that. She has always
meowed a bit, but not nearly to this extent.

I have always been real conscious of what troubles her, and I don’t know if
that has actually contributed to the problem now, or not. My fiance says it
is because I coddle them, but she has never been a well adjusted cat.
Sometimes I think I have been able to help, and others it seems like I can’t
do anything to help. We have been remodeling a house for the last 6 months,
but she has seemed to do okay with it pretty much, until now, so I don’t
know if that is the problem, or just overload with everything. She has
always been real anxious and nervous, and I was wondering if pet prozac
would be good for her, and/or herbs, and would herbs work on something this
extensive? I’ve always been into more holistic ways of healing, but I
actually think this particular cat needs more.

I would really appreciate any input on this. I couldn’t adopt her out, as I
think she is pretty much unadoptable, or only to someone who likes to do
this kind of work. I’m the only person she trusts, and she has, in the last
year, comes to my voice when she is lost and I don’t have to chase her.

Thank you for your time, Karen

Answer: Karen-

You have done a good job getting as far as you have with a feral cat. It is
hard to get them to accept you, even over a long period of time. It does
seem to take a lot of empathy to get a feral cat to be part of the
household so I think you are probably doing OK with that, not overdoing it.

It might help to give her a secure hiding space similar to the space
between the walls. My cat likes to get behind a cabinet that we have that
is not as deep as the others, leaving a private cave for her. Creating a
space like this might make her more secure. Just a box with a small hole
about her size might even work.

There are lots of things that people advocate for cats that are stressed by
normal living arrangements. Of the medicines, the ones that seem to be
recommended most often by veterinary behaviorists are the selective
seritonin-reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which include fluoxetine (Prozac Rx,
1mg/kg once a day), Paxil (Rx, 0.5 to 1mg/kg once a day) and clomipramine
(Clomicalm Rx, 0.5mg/kg once a day). Amitriptyline (Elavil Rx), a tricyclic
antidepressant, is also sometimes used in this circumstance. Melatonin has
been adovocated for this in some anecdotal reports but I do not know if
anyone has studied the dosage for cats at all.

Cats can react pretty badly to changes in routine and your other cat being
hurt and not being able to play is conceivably enough of a stress to cause
some problems, especially when combined with the remodeling. Hopefully, as
these problems have resolved you have seen improvement, but if not, you
might want to talk to your vet about trying one of the medications above,
to see if they are helpful. Sometimes two or three months of use, followed
by a slow tapering off of the medication, is enough to get a cat past its
anxiety problems and further therapy is unnecessary.

Good luck with this. Your cat is lucky to have found you!

Mike Richards, DVM
6/5/2001