Good Morning, Everyone ~
Mel, I know I've read postings by a couple of other members here saying that their cats became calmer when switched to Levemir. Can't remember who though. I definitely think trying Levemir for Butters is our next step.
BJ, I didn't know Prozac was available as a transdermal gel/cream. Thanks for that info. Since Butters is used to us messing with his ears, that might work for him.
I think we might try switching to Levemir first to see how that works for Butters before adding the Prozac. That way, we can figure out what helps or doesn't help him. Thanks, Mel and BJ!
Our story about how Butters came to live with us:
Four of our current six cats were unneutered male strays that appeared in our back yard over the past seven years. From our experience, unneutered male cats can revert fairly quickly to a semi-feral state when abandoned outdoors as three of our four had. It takes time and patience to gain their trust and to re-socialize them to bring them indoors as many of you know.
Butters, our sweet diabetic cat, is one of our former semi-ferals. He appeared in our yard during the summer of 2006 as a very wild boy who would run when we opened the door. Gradually over the months, he came to know my husband and me better, but he was still wary and couldn't be touched or petted. One day when I was feeding him, my hand brushed against his side and, instead of hissing at me as he usually did, he rolled over and let me pet him. A couple of times, Butters became very frightened of noises and neighbors and attacked me, slashing my arm pretty badly one of those times. But I knew Butters wasn't really attacking me. He was acting out of fear. Poor baby.
We moved him indoors on Christmas Eve of 2006, a Christmas gift to ourselves, my husband and I always say :smile: . We would not have moved him in so quickly, but my husband noticed that Butters had an injured foot when he came inside to eat. My husband said we couldn't let Butters out again in the freezing, snowy weather. We took Butters to our vet for treatment of his injured foot and to discuss neutering. Our vet told us that Butters had been attacked by some animal, maybe a raccoon, and that he had a bad abscess that went all the way through one of his paws. But what made it even worse is that our vet wouldn't neuter Butters until the abscess had healed. Talk about a very stressful, yowly three weeks...Butters panicked indoors. He would throw himself against the back door trying to get out. We kept him in a room in our basement at night, and Butters would throw himself against the basement window trying to get out. My husband put a towel over the window so Butters wouldn't hurt himself trying to get out. If Butters hadn't had an injured foot, we would have released him and let him spend some time outdoors.
Butters has become one of the gentlest, dearest of cats since he's found us. He's the mediator of disputes among the other cats. He loves my husband and me, and he even grooms my husband's beard
. Two days after our beloved Willie cat died, Butters brought me the gift of a dead mouse in bed. Sweet and creepy at the same time.
WOW...I've gone on and on. Can you tell we love this cat?
Eva
