Advice regarding one of our cats...

VonVix

We got her 5 years ago a the age of 8 weeks old. From the day we got her she had a nervous disposition. Initially we assumed she would settle down, however she seems to progressively get worse with time, we think largely because of our household has become increasingly more active, it is not a quiet household we live in.

She is essentially a feral cat who sleeps and eats here. She is also a long haired tabby which requires grooming especially when she is shedding her coat, but we cannot groom her. She ends up pulling her own hair out and generally she eats so fast she often throws up, despite having "safe places" to eat, I am pretty sure she is underweight because of this but it is hard to tell when it is so difficult to get near her and she is quite fluffy.

We feel like we'd be better off rehoming her to a quiet/rural household given the chance, but we doubt anyone would take her considering her fearful nature.

Thoughts? Advice?

Pumpkinseeds

With the bolt eating you can get food bowls that are designed to slow down the speed at which they eat. 1 of our cats does it so we raise her ordinary bowl onto something like a box of tissues, it's not high but it's high enough to stop her bolt eating and throwing it up. We leave a bowl of dry food down all the time and it's on a ceramic plant pot so it's sturdy, weird but it works for them.

1 of our cats was a feral kitten, he's 5 now and despite loving to snuggle on my lap and on the bed he's always got a bit of feral nervousness, especially if he thinks he'll be confined in any way. The fur pulling sounds like a stress issue, but could be a physical thing. The little female we found abandoned last year does this a lot and has a lot of fur balls as a result. I'm going to try the Spirit Essences products with our 4, some people swear by Bach Rescue remedies but they haven't worked for ours.

You could also try Calm Aid in her food, Feliway plug in diffusers and playing to wear her out. Is there anywhere in the house that she has as a safe quiet place?

VonVix

Pumpkinseeds wrote: »

With the bolt eating you can get food bowls that are designed to slow down the speed at which they eat. 1 of our cats does it so we raise her ordinary bowl onto something like a box of tissues, it's not high but it's high enough to stop her bolt eating and throwing it up. We leave a bowl of dry food down all the time and it's on a ceramic plant pot so it's sturdy, weird but it works for them.

1 of our cats was a feral kitten, he's 5 now and despite loving to snuggle on my lap and on the bed he's always got a bit of feral nervousness, especially if he thinks he'll be confined in any way. The fur pulling sounds like a stress issue, but could be a physical thing. The little female we found abandoned last year does this a lot and has a lot of fur balls as a result. I'm going to try the Spirit Essences products with our 4, some people swear by Bach Rescue remedies but they haven't worked for ours.

You could also try Calm Aid in her food, Feliway plug in diffusers and playing to wear her out. Is there anywhere in the house that she has as a safe quiet place?

Issue with that is we have four other cats. We can't offer her one particular bowl and giving her Kalm Aid (we do have a box of it) would be impossible as she won't eat from our hands and she runs off if there's any activity from us around her. We do have a bowl of dry food out all the time but she never eats it, she only eats wet food.

She has never been a lap cat, she's the kind of cat if you simply look her in the eyes she runs off. Trust can be built with her over time, but it's broken very, very easily. If you do so much as drop something accidentally in her presence she'll avoid you for the next few days and then you're back to square one.

She has one room in the house that's vacant most of the day so it's where she usually sleeps, we have locked her in there by herself with food before and she's never eaten it, we've opened the window for her and shut the door but she still flies out the window and one of our other cats happily comes in and eats the food.

She gets matted chunks on her sides and near the base of her tail, she tends to rip at the fur on her sides often leaving these bald-ish patches.

My roommate (her owner) thinks it's unfair to keep her here because she looks neglected and has a very stressed out nature here but she is afraid of her being PTS.

Pumpkinseeds

That's a very tough situation. I suppose the only way of getting rid of the mats is to have the knot shaved. When the fur is knotted it can hurt them. But that of course means a trip to the vets and having her sedated:( I'm not really sure what else to suggest. Maybe have a post on Feral Cats Ireland facebook page and see if anyone can suggest something or if they know of anyone who could take on a mostly outdoor cat.

VonVix

Well thanks for giving me your input regardless. It is a tough situation alright, whatever we do is going to feel hard.

Pumpkinseeds

VonVix wrote: »

Well thanks for giving me your input regardless. It is a tough situation alright, whatever we do is going to feel hard.

I know you only want the best for puss. Sundays are quiet days on boards, maybe others can give you better advice. I wish you the best with puss:)

doubter

VonVix wrote: »

Well thanks for giving me your input regardless. It is a tough situation alright, whatever we do is going to feel hard.

Maybe you could try and put some rescue remedy through her food.It might calm her down enough to care for her fur...

VonVix

doubter wrote: »

Maybe you could try and put some rescue remedy through her food.It might calm her down enough to care for her fur...

Do you think that would make a difference? I'd have to put it through all the cat dishes here and even then there's no guarantee she'll even to want to eat at that time. She's a hisser/scratcher if you hold on to her preventing her from moving for even a second.

Heroditas

Pumpkinseeds wrote: »

With the bolt eating you can get food bowls that are designed to slow down the speed at which they eat. 1 of our cats does it so we raise her ordinary bowl onto something like a box of tissues, it's not high but it's high enough to stop her bolt eating and throwing it up. We leave a bowl of dry food down all the time and it's on a ceramic plant pot so it's sturdy, weird but it works for them.

Get away! Something as simple as that works?
We have an awful problem with one of our females wolfing down her food and then puking. She seems to do it at least once a week, particularly with the wet food.
To be honest, the other female eats just as quickly but I honestly reckon she has a stomach crafted by the devil. I've never seen her get sick.

Pumpkinseeds

Heroditas wrote: »

Get away! Something as simple as that works?
We have an awful problem with one of our females wolfing down her food and then puking. She seems to do it at least once a week, particularly with the wet food.
To be honest, the other female eats just as quickly but I honestly reckon she has a stomach crafted by the devil. I've never seen her get sick.

Yep, it's been that simple for us. What happens when they bolt eat is that air gets trapped so they bring the food back up fairly soon after eating. Raising the food bowl up a bit slows them down when they eat. So long as the food bowl is on something stable that won't fall over and that isn't too high it's fine:)

mymo

I must try that pumpkinseeds, jake is a bit of a puker since he got older.

Nody

And if you need to slow them further try this one; we use it for treats mainly but it can really slow them down to eat properly.