mamaducky
07-28-2008, 11:00 PM
Hi all,
At this point, I'm probably not looking for advice -- you've all been so kind and helpful already -- but I'm just at wit's end and needed to vent to a bunch of people who I know would understand how I feel.
As some of you will recall, I've been having trouble between two of my three -- Zorro and Meg -- since April/May. When we first got Meg (after her human Dad died and his widow didn't want her) back at the end of November, she and Zorro managed to tolerate one another without any big problems -- they'd even both lie on top of me on the couch in cold weather.
Well, don't know how, don't know why, but that sure changed as the time passed, and Zorro started being "passive aggressive" toward Meg -- blocking access to the room with food & litter, etc. (I didn't realize that was taking place at the time -- but in hindsight, I see that's what he was doing.)
I'd never had cats not get along, so I mistakenly thought they'd work it out. Wrong. Two vet visits later for abscessed bites for Meg (Zorro is twice her size), and I still didn't know what to do. I asked him if I could try putting the cats on Clomicalm, and he agreed to let us give it a try. However, neither animal would take the pill, no matter what I tried; they'd wait for me to finally let go of them after I thought they would have to have swallowed it, and then spit the darn pill out.
So I figured I'd just keep them apart, rotating them in and out of our office (a prime territory with two windows and lots of cool places to hang out) so that one of them was in the room while the other got the run of the house. (I usually tried to make sure they each had two "shifts" in and two out during the day so they wouldn't get bored -- and there's almost always someone in our family doing something in the office so that they don't get lonesome, either.) It certainly wasn't an ideal solution, and hubby was certainly not crazy about having cat food, water & litter in his nice office -- but it was working...or so I thought.
Very early Saturday morning, just as I was leaving to catch a plane to a meeting, I was in the office printing off my boarding pass -- and left the room very carefully as always to make sure that Zorro (the current "room prisoner") didn't get out. However, he shot right past me, made a beeline for Meg and tackled her. She ran under our bed -- he followed her -- and there we were trying to break up a cat fight with a queen-sized bed in the way. It was so, so awful.
We did manage to break them up, and cleaned up the various bites with peroxide (but will probably end up taking Meg to the vet all the same, as Zorro took a dime-sized bite out of her side and I don't want to take any chances). I've managed to successfully keep them apart since then by making sure that if Meg is in the office, Zorro is behind another closed door before I go into the office, and vice versa.
As I said, I am really at my wits' end. Though my vet's office supposedly has a behaviorist on staff, she has ignored my repeated requests to discuss this problem -- and my vet himself has very little in the way of ideas, except for finding a new home for one of them. The idea of that just makes me sick; I can't possibly move Zorro, even though I'm really frustrated with his behavior, just out of fairness; he was here first. He has been my guy since I adopted him as a 1-year-old back in 2002, and I know that with his personality, he would have a VERY hard time transitioning into a new home, even if there were someone out there who wanted a neurotic 7-year-old cat.
But Meg reminds me so much of my first and dearest cat Murphy (who died at 19 in 2002) in terms of her behavior and personality that it would be like losing him all over again to have to let her go. It took her months to finally get used to me (though she adored my husband and daughter), and in this past month or so when she finally began playing and cuddling with me as well, it has just made me so happy. Yet again, I'm not sure there are many places out there for an 8-year-old cat -- and she's already lost one home through no fault of her own.
I get so upset thinking about this -- presently bawling my head off -- but I really do not know what I'm going to do. My husband has given me until I go back to school (I'm a teacher) to get the situation resolved -- and that gives me 2 weeks.
I know you all are really good about sending prayers & positive energy -- well, we could use some around here!
Hugs,
Diana
At this point, I'm probably not looking for advice -- you've all been so kind and helpful already -- but I'm just at wit's end and needed to vent to a bunch of people who I know would understand how I feel.
As some of you will recall, I've been having trouble between two of my three -- Zorro and Meg -- since April/May. When we first got Meg (after her human Dad died and his widow didn't want her) back at the end of November, she and Zorro managed to tolerate one another without any big problems -- they'd even both lie on top of me on the couch in cold weather.
Well, don't know how, don't know why, but that sure changed as the time passed, and Zorro started being "passive aggressive" toward Meg -- blocking access to the room with food & litter, etc. (I didn't realize that was taking place at the time -- but in hindsight, I see that's what he was doing.)
I'd never had cats not get along, so I mistakenly thought they'd work it out. Wrong. Two vet visits later for abscessed bites for Meg (Zorro is twice her size), and I still didn't know what to do. I asked him if I could try putting the cats on Clomicalm, and he agreed to let us give it a try. However, neither animal would take the pill, no matter what I tried; they'd wait for me to finally let go of them after I thought they would have to have swallowed it, and then spit the darn pill out.
So I figured I'd just keep them apart, rotating them in and out of our office (a prime territory with two windows and lots of cool places to hang out) so that one of them was in the room while the other got the run of the house. (I usually tried to make sure they each had two "shifts" in and two out during the day so they wouldn't get bored -- and there's almost always someone in our family doing something in the office so that they don't get lonesome, either.) It certainly wasn't an ideal solution, and hubby was certainly not crazy about having cat food, water & litter in his nice office -- but it was working...or so I thought.
Very early Saturday morning, just as I was leaving to catch a plane to a meeting, I was in the office printing off my boarding pass -- and left the room very carefully as always to make sure that Zorro (the current "room prisoner") didn't get out. However, he shot right past me, made a beeline for Meg and tackled her. She ran under our bed -- he followed her -- and there we were trying to break up a cat fight with a queen-sized bed in the way. It was so, so awful.
We did manage to break them up, and cleaned up the various bites with peroxide (but will probably end up taking Meg to the vet all the same, as Zorro took a dime-sized bite out of her side and I don't want to take any chances). I've managed to successfully keep them apart since then by making sure that if Meg is in the office, Zorro is behind another closed door before I go into the office, and vice versa.
As I said, I am really at my wits' end. Though my vet's office supposedly has a behaviorist on staff, she has ignored my repeated requests to discuss this problem -- and my vet himself has very little in the way of ideas, except for finding a new home for one of them. The idea of that just makes me sick; I can't possibly move Zorro, even though I'm really frustrated with his behavior, just out of fairness; he was here first. He has been my guy since I adopted him as a 1-year-old back in 2002, and I know that with his personality, he would have a VERY hard time transitioning into a new home, even if there were someone out there who wanted a neurotic 7-year-old cat.
But Meg reminds me so much of my first and dearest cat Murphy (who died at 19 in 2002) in terms of her behavior and personality that it would be like losing him all over again to have to let her go. It took her months to finally get used to me (though she adored my husband and daughter), and in this past month or so when she finally began playing and cuddling with me as well, it has just made me so happy. Yet again, I'm not sure there are many places out there for an 8-year-old cat -- and she's already lost one home through no fault of her own.
I get so upset thinking about this -- presently bawling my head off -- but I really do not know what I'm going to do. My husband has given me until I go back to school (I'm a teacher) to get the situation resolved -- and that gives me 2 weeks.
I know you all are really good about sending prayers & positive energy -- well, we could use some around here!
Hugs,
Diana