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Cat behavior problems - cat experts chime in.

The Sauce

The Sauce

Diamond Member
My wife brought home a cat from the shelter the two weeks ago. Supposedly a farm cat that was hit by a tractor. Very affectionate cat....seemed like a real winner. However he acts very strangely. Wherever you leave him, that is exactly where he stays. If you put him in a chair he will stay there indefinitely, only getting up to eat. He even stays there for bathroom activities (if you know what I mean). He knows how to use the ltter box but if you put him on the sofa he stays there and does everything there. He doesn't even explore. He has more or less stayed in the exact same room for 2 weeks now. Anyone know how to handle this problem?

I have tried moving his food to other rooms and then he will go there to eat and drink but then goes right back to wherever I left him before that. Very strange. Several chairs, numerous sheets and a futon ruined thus far. It's starting to get very aggravating.
 
Sounds like a severly traumatized kitty. Since he stays pretty much where you put him I would put him on something old that you can clean until you get the behavior resolved. If you have not been to a vet then I would definitely put that at the top of the list of things to do.
 
Originally posted by: Snatchface
Actually we got him from the vet.
Click to expand...

But is the vet aware of this behavior now that you have him in your house? A cat that is soiling the place it is laying is not a healthy cat.
 
I assume you've taken him to the vet? It could be that he is in a lot of pain when he walks, or gets dizzy, or anything like that. He may get up to eat because he basically has to.
 
Originally posted by: Linflas
Originally posted by: Snatchface
Actually we got him from the vet.
Click to expand...

But is the vet aware of this behavior now that you have him in your house? A cat that is soiling the place it is laying is not a healthy cat.
Click to expand...

Hm... does it matter? In this case I would take him to a different vet, because I wouldn't trust a vet who would offer up a cat in this condition without knowing about it.

Two weeks is too long for it just to be that he's scared of the new place.
 
Originally posted by: torpid
I assume you've taken him to the vet? It could be that he is in a lot of pain when he walks, or gets dizzy, or anything like that. He may get up to eat because he basically has to.
Click to expand...

He seems completely OK otherwise. If you come into the room he meows, runs over to get pet...he's a total attention whore but won't follow you anywhere to get it unless you pick him up to move him.
 
sounds like he was abused for a long time, beaten or maybe forced to live in a little box. try hand feeding him some chicken/tuna to earn his trust. also maybe borrow a friends kitty for to play/fight with.
 
In the meantime you need to get some simple solution or a similar product to clean the areas the cat has soiled. There is no reason to discard the stuff. While you are determining what the problem is put some plastic underneath some foam covered by an old blanket that you can just wash and reuse when he soils it. Since he stays where you put him and does his business there you pretty much have control over where he will end up doing it.
 
Are you certain that he is physically ok? I have seen this before, a cat of mine was hit by a car, taken to the vet and she was "ok" she acted just like that, a few weeks later an abscess broke her skin and a LOT of pus came out of it, next day she was up and around again.
 
Have your vet give the kitty a once over. It's not normal for cats to soil a place they sleep.

If illness is ruled out, then you have something behavioral, whether from trauma or something else. Make sure you clean the soiled areas thoroughly, and there is a spray called Feliway that can calm a troubled kitty.
 
smart ass answer, put him in the litter box.

non-smart ass answer, it was run over by a tractor? It's possible he's still bruised, has ligament problems, arthritis, etc...might hurt him to move around too much.
 
Originally posted by: torpid
Originally posted by: Linflas
Originally posted by: Snatchface
Actually we got him from the vet.
Click to expand...

But is the vet aware of this behavior now that you have him in your house? A cat that is soiling the place it is laying is not a healthy cat.
Click to expand...

Hm... does it matter? In this case I would take him to a different vet, because I wouldn't trust a vet who would offer up a cat in this condition without knowing about it.

Two weeks is too long for it just to be that he's scared of the new place.
Click to expand...

I would hesitate to fault the vet at this stage. Animals act much differently in a cage farm surrounded by other animals like you commonly find at a shelter than in a house.
 
i think for now you need to be leaving the kitty in the bathroom with his litter box when you go out. and you also need to take the kitty to a different vet and explain that he's soiling the places he lies down, cause that's really disturbed behavior for a cat.
 
Originally posted by: Linflas
Originally posted by: torpid
Originally posted by: Linflas
Originally posted by: Snatchface
Actually we got him from the vet.
Click to expand...

But is the vet aware of this behavior now that you have him in your house? A cat that is soiling the place it is laying is not a healthy cat.
Click to expand...

Hm... does it matter? In this case I would take him to a different vet, because I wouldn't trust a vet who would offer up a cat in this condition without knowing about it.

Two weeks is too long for it just to be that he's scared of the new place.
Click to expand...

I would hesitate to fault the vet at this stage. Animals act much differently in a cage farm surrounded by other animals like you commonly find at a shelter than in a house.
Click to expand...

OK, but animals that are run over by tractors ought to be examined thoroughly. That is why I fault the vet - because I assume it is not a behavioral problem. I guess it could be one... something like for a while he was in so much pain that he couldn't move and now he doesn't stop acting that way.
 
I think it was just his tail that was run over. The cat eats like a madman, so I don't think it's sick. We had just gotten him from the vet where he had been for 2 months before and was abandoned by the previous owner. He clearly knows how to use the litter box, and where it is...it just seems to be selective. If he is afraid to go to it then he just goes wherever he is.
 


Silly question, but have you tried playing w/ kitty? I saw someone else mention catnip. Will he engage in any play, either w/ yarn, nip, balls, pens? If you can get him playing and teach him that people are fun, and that it's ok to play and/or run around a bit - he might just get to exploring the house. He may be tramautized though as someone else mentioned. Just take the best possible care of him, and get him looked at again if there are no changes. You don't necessarily know what happened to him. It may take him awhile to trust people again. Nice thing you're doing though. :thumbsup:

Oliver
 
We took in 3 feral kittens we rescued from a storm drain a couple years back. 2 of the 3 have almost fully adjusted to normal indoor cat life, the 3rd is still extremely timid and basically lives in 1 room. She will come out into the hallway but refuses to explore the rest of the house. My wife reminded me when I mentioned the original post to her that another one of these ferals did pretty much that same behavior as your cat is doing now early on. It was only urine though, he would use the box for the other. She suggested that you may want to isolate the cat for now with a litter box close by where he sleeps to see if he can get into the habit.
 
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