fourcatmom
Member Since 2018
Sorry in advance for the long post, but we're not sure where to turn. Here's what's happening...we adopted Sophie in 2010 when she was 8 weeks old. At the time, we had two male littermates who were 3 years old. We integrated Sophie very slowly and gradually and it went very well. Both male cats accepted her and there was harmony in the house. In 2015 we moved into a rental for a year while we built a house, then moved into the current house in 2016. Again, no issues among the three cats, and they all adapted well to the move. In December 2017, I happened upon a small male cat (kitten actually) along the side of a dark road and after looking for his owner for a few days, we decided to adopt him. His name is Wilbur and at the time he was approximately 6-7 months old. Again, we went through the slow and painstaking process of integrating him into our home.
The two older males accepted him fairly quickly and the three get along well. However, Sophie has hated Wilbur from the start. Initially, she hissed at him and chased him to the point where he would hide or run to me for protection. As he has grown in size (he's her weight now and may be a little longer/taller too) he has learned to defend himself to some extent, smacking her on the behind and even on the head when they are waiting for food (which, in fact, is one of the only times that they can be together in the same space and she's not attacking him). However he has not chased her back. She often chases and attacks him unprovoked, and yesterday afternoon, she jumped him on a chair while he was asleep and attacked him to the point that my husband had to pull her off and she tried to go back to resume the attack. It got to the point where we could not get Wilbur to visit the litter pans in the basement of the house (always lights on, in an open area) for fear of being attacked, so we put a litter box "cabinet" thing in one of our upstairs rooms for him and he uses that exclusively.
We found out that Sophie was diabetic in August 2018 when she started peeing on the floor in our basement, where the litter pans are. She also peed on the kitchen counter. We figured that was her way of telling us that she was not well, because we've noticed when her glucose spikes (after the random "fur shot" or while we were finding the right food for her) she will pee on the floor in the basement. Vet did a thorough work-up at the diagnosis point and she didn't have anything else wrong with her physically. We explained the behavior issues and the vet said that the peeing could be related to that, but was most likely because of the diabetes. Once we regulated her glucose, the peeing became less frequent - but it was still happening about once a week and was not confined to the basement where 4 of our 5 boxes are. I spoke to the vet about medication and one of the doctors recommended the Prozac, but the other said he didn't think we'd have much success with it (this was two different visits to the vet during Fructosamine checks and wellness checks). We decided to give it a try and put her on it on March 25th - .5 ml once a day.
The first thing we noticed was that she seemed to have occasional runny stools, and with that, she started pooping outside of the box, not just in the basement but in other rooms of the house. However, she seemed to 'chilll out' a bit behaviorally - for a few weeks. Then over the past week or so, she has become more aggressive with more attacks against Wilbur. I plan to call the vet today and am thinking that we should wean off the Prozac, that perhaps that is making the problem worse and not better, but I wanted to check with folks here as well.
When she's not being a "witch with a b," Sophie is very sweet. She does tricks, comes when I call her to check her blood, tolerates that well, and takes her injections well. I have a feeling that she is suffering from "new baby syndrome" meaning that she used to be the baby of our cat family and demanded attention (and got it - like a bratty little sister does). I know she probably feels put out by Wilbur but we recognized this early on and have really tried to give her extra attention because of it. Although, she used to sleep on our bed with us, and now Wilbur does (because he fears her) and she sleeps elsewhere. And she has tried to attack him while he's on our bed (one attack resulted in a bad scratch of my ear during Wilbur's escape).
Any suggestions or advice would be helpful. I know her spreadsheet is not up-to-date and I apologize for that, but her glucose has been regular (unless we mis-shoot) and her Fructosamine levels have been in excellent range according to the vet.
Thanks, folks. We're at our wit's end.
The two older males accepted him fairly quickly and the three get along well. However, Sophie has hated Wilbur from the start. Initially, she hissed at him and chased him to the point where he would hide or run to me for protection. As he has grown in size (he's her weight now and may be a little longer/taller too) he has learned to defend himself to some extent, smacking her on the behind and even on the head when they are waiting for food (which, in fact, is one of the only times that they can be together in the same space and she's not attacking him). However he has not chased her back. She often chases and attacks him unprovoked, and yesterday afternoon, she jumped him on a chair while he was asleep and attacked him to the point that my husband had to pull her off and she tried to go back to resume the attack. It got to the point where we could not get Wilbur to visit the litter pans in the basement of the house (always lights on, in an open area) for fear of being attacked, so we put a litter box "cabinet" thing in one of our upstairs rooms for him and he uses that exclusively.
We found out that Sophie was diabetic in August 2018 when she started peeing on the floor in our basement, where the litter pans are. She also peed on the kitchen counter. We figured that was her way of telling us that she was not well, because we've noticed when her glucose spikes (after the random "fur shot" or while we were finding the right food for her) she will pee on the floor in the basement. Vet did a thorough work-up at the diagnosis point and she didn't have anything else wrong with her physically. We explained the behavior issues and the vet said that the peeing could be related to that, but was most likely because of the diabetes. Once we regulated her glucose, the peeing became less frequent - but it was still happening about once a week and was not confined to the basement where 4 of our 5 boxes are. I spoke to the vet about medication and one of the doctors recommended the Prozac, but the other said he didn't think we'd have much success with it (this was two different visits to the vet during Fructosamine checks and wellness checks). We decided to give it a try and put her on it on March 25th - .5 ml once a day.
The first thing we noticed was that she seemed to have occasional runny stools, and with that, she started pooping outside of the box, not just in the basement but in other rooms of the house. However, she seemed to 'chilll out' a bit behaviorally - for a few weeks. Then over the past week or so, she has become more aggressive with more attacks against Wilbur. I plan to call the vet today and am thinking that we should wean off the Prozac, that perhaps that is making the problem worse and not better, but I wanted to check with folks here as well.
When she's not being a "witch with a b," Sophie is very sweet. She does tricks, comes when I call her to check her blood, tolerates that well, and takes her injections well. I have a feeling that she is suffering from "new baby syndrome" meaning that she used to be the baby of our cat family and demanded attention (and got it - like a bratty little sister does). I know she probably feels put out by Wilbur but we recognized this early on and have really tried to give her extra attention because of it. Although, she used to sleep on our bed with us, and now Wilbur does (because he fears her) and she sleeps elsewhere. And she has tried to attack him while he's on our bed (one attack resulted in a bad scratch of my ear during Wilbur's escape).
Any suggestions or advice would be helpful. I know her spreadsheet is not up-to-date and I apologize for that, but her glucose has been regular (unless we mis-shoot) and her Fructosamine levels have been in excellent range according to the vet.
Thanks, folks. We're at our wit's end.
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