Help needed: should I refuse her? (Wall of Text for cat lovers only)
Help needed: should I refuse her? (Wall of Text for cat lovers only)
I have a huge dilemma, I need help.
I live in this house in the middle of nowhere with a few houses around. We all have several cats that roam freely and have enough space for them all to have their territory.
I have two males, both neutered, brothers. They mostly ignore each other as they fight a lot when they try to play.
Of course, sometimes they do fight, but nothing serious.
So, about 1 year ago, I had my office downstairs in a place that is physically separated from the rest of the house. Sometimes, especially late at night, this large neutered cat would come wandering around. She was EXTREMELY nervous and ready to snap (so we called her Crazy Eyes).
To cut a long story short, she gradually became more comfortable with me and started sleeping on or near me, letting me pet her (almost up to her belly!) and so on. However, she is still quite prone to snapping and for example, once I touched her belly without "permission" and she hissed and scratched my hand. She also usually hiss a bit when I try to push her back. She also hisses when I pet her and my cats come over. Of course I push her away in that case, because my cats have priority number 1.
Now I have been working upstairs at home for 5-6 months and she obviously cannot find me anymore. However, she still roams our garden. My cats, however, are EXTREMELY aggressive towards her (vocally). She does not usually start it, but both my cats agree that as soon as they see her they have to start growling and hissing at her.
She stands still, but several times my cats have put her in a corner and she is much stronger than both of them, so she usually attacks to get away. Yesterday, for the first time, one of my cats (the one in the picture) came back with a pretty serious cut on her head near her ear. There was blood and it was very visible, maybe 50 to 100 mm. Not too much blood. My cat is fine and does not seem to be in any pain. It has been two days and the cut seems to be healing on its own.
The problem is that when she sees me, she runs up to me and cuddles me, pressing her head and mouth against me. Sometimes she even tries to cuddle through the window (she sometimes stands outside).
I had to push her back several times, she doesn't understand. She feels very lost when she looks at me when I try to chase her away. And she still tries to cuddle. It breaks my heart to do this.
What do you think I should do?
Having had cats with different temperaments for 10+ years, I'd say keep her. Cats get used to things (slowly) and their attitudes change as they age. Be patient! Hope it works out!
31Check out the Feliway diffusers. They're kinda like those home scent things, but they instead release pheromones that can your cats down and help them get along better. You can also get collars that are infused with pheromones that do the same thing, if you don't have a good central location where the cats hang out
13My experience trying it with 4 different cats for different issues is that Feliway rarely has any effect. YMMV, but the research on the subject seems to indicate that it's mostly useless (unless the research is funded by the company that produces Feliway): https://whatyourcatwants.com/feliway
4Hm, I use the multi-cat stuff because one of my cats has anxiety and occasionally goes after the other, and I felt like it had an effect. Could have just been confirmation bias, of course
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Not sure if this will work for you but it worked better than I wanted the time I tried it.
There was a cat that would occasionally come visit at my dad's old place while I was out for a smoke. She'd come for pets and cuddles but the last time I saw her, she was trying pretty hard to follow me inside. I'd push her away and she'd just go right back to it. I was wearing a jacket or zip up sweater and on a whim, I spread it to make myself look suddenly bigger (like they say you should do if confronted by a black bear or cougar) and she immediately lost all interest in trying to get in and ran off. It worked too well because that's the last time I saw her (I mean, assuming she chose to stay away and a predator didn't take that choice from her, which I'll never know).
It sounds like you're looking for a long term solution like that, so it's worth a shot. Just make sure you have her attention and try to make the transition from closed to spread fast, like the dilophosaurus that got Nerdy on Jurassic park. Obviously make sure she isn't cornered when you do that.
Sucks that cats can't all get along, but I suppose us humans can't really criticize since we've taken that to whole new levels many times beyond how cats usually fight.
6Sucks that cats can’t all get along, but I suppose us humans can’t really criticize since we’ve taken that to whole new levels many times beyond how cats usually fight.
So very true
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