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My cat has turned into a right dick

67 replies

BigPawsBrown · 01/12/2013 18:29

I got a rescued ginger tom (8kg) in 2011. He is between four and six. I have posted about him before, eating cheesecakes and dining out at the neighbours.

Over the summer, he had a very hard time at the vet's. He wouldn't get in the box and then he reacted to the routine vaccination (diagnosed with feline hyperaesthesia) and had to have morphine. All fine within a week.

In the early autumn my neighbours texted me and told me he'd been spending lots of time there. He'd not been eating so much here but had been gaining weight. They wouldn't stop feeding him bloody Dreamies so we decided to keep him in. I am sure even if they would stop, he would find someone else to feed him.

His personality has totally changed since he met these neighbours (and napped with them in their bed Confused), or maybe since the vet's, and has got worse since he became a house cat.

He has always been very clingy, always in same room as me, has weird very loud howling episodes when we leave him to go to bed even though he sleeps with us!! Every night it's like he forgets where we've gone, thinks he's been abandoned, then finds us when we call Hmm

He's also got issues with food. He's like a dog - will eat whatever we put down and eats it all in under ten seconds then burps, sometimes voms, and eats that

He's also dominant, will sit higher than us and square up to us etc. When I get in from work he wants to be cuddles with his arms around my neck and he shakes and cries and purrs and kneads me. It's like bloody attachment cat parenting!

Now, though, he's a million times worse. He's on two pouches of whiskas a day as he is overweight (not as overweight as he sounds at 8kg - he is two feet long, massive paws etc). He shouts at us all evening on the coffee table. He attacks things all the time and chases bits of fluff round in manner of something from exorcist. My niece grabbed a packet of his food and he properly squared up to her til she dropped it.

He is obsessed with meals, gets on kitchen counters despite shouts, patrols his food cupboard, licks old plates on the side Hmm, comes running from downstairs if a fork chinks a plate, skidding into the room with food in, squares up to guests who go in his places and bites me when I put his food down.

He's driving us nuts. He meows constantly!! What can we do?

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BigPawsBrown · 01/12/2013 18:31
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Inthebeginning · 01/12/2013 18:41

he's gorgeous! ! have you tried using a plug in felliway? Our rescue cat got very stressed first Christmas we had her. ended in cystitis and we bought one of those and it calmed her down brilliantly. she also does the yowling when we go into another room so we bought her a kong and sprayed it with cat nip and it's her baby. Still yowls but not quite as much. very similar with the eating too so she has half a packet four times a day. too dopey to notice difference!

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BigPawsBrown · 01/12/2013 18:43

Tried Feliway for all of October - no difference. Good idea splitting his food up though!

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YoDiggity · 01/12/2013 18:44

I don't know but I haven't laughed so much in ages. Grin

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Fasterkillpussycat · 01/12/2013 18:46

Oh he is lovely! His behaviour sounds a lot like one of our cats. We have tried feliway plug ins and that does seem to calm him down. He still eats like a pig and runs to the kitchen at the first sound of food but I think that is just him.

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RandomMess · 01/12/2013 18:47

Get one of those lazer light cat toys and start playing with him much much more.

One of our cats is very clingy and needy and I agree it is very very irritating!

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YoDiggity · 01/12/2013 18:47

Has he got worms? Or a thyroid imbalance?

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Fasterkillpussycat · 01/12/2013 18:47

Ah - cross post. Maybe the vet can help?

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BigPawsBrown · 01/12/2013 18:48

Have wormed him last week, and deflead.

The vet thinks he is mental. He likened him to the godfather Hmm

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WhereBeThatBlackbirdTo · 01/12/2013 18:50

Sorry, I've got not advice but oh, he is gorgeous!

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Fasterkillpussycat · 01/12/2013 18:51

Helpful vet!

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bundaberg · 01/12/2013 18:52

I remember your other post about the neighbours!

I wonder if partly it's that he's being kept in and he just needs more to keep him from getting voted?
Tbh he sounds quite a lot like my cat with regards to the chasing stuff like a maniac and dashing to the kitchen and behaving like he's starved lol. Maybe it's a ginger tom thing?

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YoDiggity · 01/12/2013 18:52

I think you need to let him out again. He's not coping well with being kept in, and it's not fair really if he's accustomed to freedom. Ask the neighbours to stop the Dreamies. Even if they don't it's not the end of the world and perhaps he might threaten to beat them up if they don't come up with the goods so they might be reluctant.

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YoDiggity · 01/12/2013 18:54

Mind you, my cat was a real country cat with tons of freedom and space, and an endless diet of rabbits and mice plus cat food, and he still shouted at me and harangued me and acted all weird and high maintenance for no reason I could fathom, so I just don't know. Confused

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BigPawsBrown · 01/12/2013 18:56

The thing is with the neighbours, they were feeding him bloody roasts, vats of Dreamies, anything he wanted. He was ballooning, and he was spending about 15 hours a day there. They bought him a bed and a fecking SWING SEAT and offered to adopt him as he preferred them Hmm I don't trust them at all not to feed him and have him and also they chain smoke and he comes home stinking

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BigPawsBrown · 01/12/2013 18:57

Also, we live on a busy road and I suspect he was dining out at multiple houses, not enjoying fresh air and exercise, so I just don't know if benefits outweigh cost of him getting lardy and potentially kidnapped!

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YoDiggity · 01/12/2013 18:58

Shock That's cat theft by stealth that is.

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BigPawsBrown · 01/12/2013 19:02

I know!! I'm a lawyer too scared to do anything about them though

I wrote about them on my blog billygean.co.uk/2013/10/29/like-something-out-of-a-horror-film/

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YoDiggity · 01/12/2013 19:03

You need to get him one of those electric shock collars that lets him go anywhere but outside the boundaries of your own house and garden or it zaps him and sit him down and give him a good talking to. Say 'look, I'll let you out, but you've got to play ball. You can't go cavorting up and down the street gorging like Henry VIII, thinking you're it. I'm the boss, and I say you stay in this garden, eat what I give you and love me the best, and if you don't I'll zap you. Right?'

And he'll go 'Yeah...whatevs. Hmm I'm going out. Laterz.'

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Fluffycloudland77 · 01/12/2013 19:05

Zylkene?

I'd change the whiskas to bozita or amiona carny (I haven't spelt that right by the way), whiskas is a bit junk-foody and he's a carby claire kinda cat isn't he? Not helped by the dreamies.

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Mogz · 01/12/2013 19:06

Instead of cutting back on food you need to get him on some high quality light or diet food, as at the moment he will be feeling really hungry with only a couple of small meals, on light food he could eat a higher volume and fill his belly. Also make him work for his food, get a treat ball, hide dry food in cardboard boxes and crunched up paper, give him a few bits of dry food as a treat for doing something good like coming when called or learning some spotting behaviour tricks.

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YoDiggity · 01/12/2013 19:06

That blog has made me laugh some more. Grin

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lovelyredwine · 01/12/2013 19:09

One of our cats is now on a diet as vet said she was getting too big. She has gone a bit mental since we cut her food down. Used to be much more laid back, but whinges all the live long day now and legs it into the utility room if you go within a few metres of the door (assuming she will be getting food).

I feel for you as we tend to chuck her out to burn off some fat (and drown out the constant miaowing), but you can't even do that at the moment. She is also very very clingy with me - as soon as I sit down she's on my knee; if I have my knees up on the sofa she just sits on the arm or the top of the sofa as close to me as possible and stares at me whilst pawing at my legs and miaowing.

We just try to get her to exercise as much as possible - play with a laser pen thing, a ball, a string with a toy on the end of it etc. The most effective exercise regime we have at the moment is our toddler - we always used to stop her from following the cats about, but now we just let her as it keeps our chubby one moving. It's working as she's lost half the weight she needs to lose.

I agree with others that say that he probably needs to go out. If the neighbours love him they need to understand that they can't keep feeding him. Overweight cats are at an increased risk of several illnesses. My mum's cat was overweight and ended up with diabetes. It was heartbreaking as he just got more and more lethargic and eventually couldn't go more than 10 feet without a rest. He had to be put down in the end. The neighbours need to be aware that feeding him 'treats' is very bad for him. Sorry to be depressing - but it's a reality.

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Lonecatwithkitten · 01/12/2013 19:10

My take would be he is bored. Firstly I would given him four small meals and make him work for those meals either hunting them out or using a cat pyramid that he has to knock about to get to the food (dry food works better for this). This should go some way to help with some of his behaviour.
Cats don't do dominance they are superior beings and have no need to put themselves higher than humans. If he is sitting in a higher position it is just because he likes it.
Intimidating your niece into to dropping a pack of food, he has learnt a set of behaviours that get him what he wants he needs to be retrained, the best way to do this is with a squirt of water or clapping hands when he starts this.
Going to the vets spray Feliway in the box 15 minutes before he needs to get in, put him in backwards so he can't do the legs spread at the door. Ask the vets to use a towel to cover him, cover tail when looking at head and head when looking at tail, don't allow the gauntlets - all of this is covered in the ISFM guidelines for cat friendly practices.
His weight I've looked at the picture - it is a problem does your practice have a weight watchers club? It would be worth him joining it is usually free you would have the support of a nurse, he would get trips to the vet not involving needles which would help him to be more relaxed.
Hope all of this helps.
My favourite patients are the ones full of cattitude so I am used to dealing with their quirks.

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BigPawsBrown · 01/12/2013 19:12

I wasn't going to say this...... But my neighbour is about 50 stone. She's disabled with it - she can't walk and is about 35 and has had a heart attack. She was surrounded by biscuits and when I went over so was my cat HmmHmmHmmHmm

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