Can cats have PTSD? or, Why Does My Cat Do This?

CrazyCatLady or other people with vet-type experience, I have kind of a strange question.

My 6.5-month-old kitty has 3 legs. She was found at 8 weeks at the side of the road with her rear left leg so mangled and broken that the shelter amputated it right away. We adopted her at 3 months (I even had a thread about what to name her) and the vet told us that there shouldn’t be any problems with Petra growing up with only 3 legs, since she was so young.

Well, for the most part, she hasn’t. She’s had normal growth and development, she’s very intelligent, very sweet, and very playful. She runs. She gallumphs. She climbs and even jumps pretty high distances for a cat with one back leg. No problems, right?

Except every once in a while, she does this thing. She did it the second day we had her. She did it a couple of months ago. And she did it again this afternoon when I was home for lunch. Every so often, Petra will make a grunting/growling/crying noise, appear to be trying to run in circles, backward, and flop over/get up/go backwards in a circle/flop over. It is as though she is trying to get away from something, but there is nothing there. If I pick her up and hold her/pet her for a while, she calms down, but once when I did this and put her back down, she kept doing it. What is up?

My theories are as follows. First, maybe her hip hurts since she’s still growing (the only thing she has left of her leg is her hipbone), and she doesn’t understand why? Second, maybe she has phantom limb pain? Third, maybe she’s having weird flashbacks to whatever hurt her leg in the first place? (nobody knows what it was; she was found with the injury) I really can’t figure it out. The first couple of times, it kind of freaked me out. I’m wondering whether it’s some kind of a pain response, or whether she’s just being a weird cat. Can cats have PTSD or phantom limb syndrome? Could we possibly know, even if they did? I know she wasn’t weaned properly (she still tries to suck on a blanket if we’re sleeping, it’s 5 AM and she’s decided it’s Petra Lovey Time), but I don’t think that has anything to do with it. In all other ways, she’s an awesome cat. I just can’t tell if she’s actually in pain or not.

Any ideas?

I haven’t had a cat in your cat’s situation, but I know that every now and then cats just get freaky, even “normal” cats. I don’t think anyone really knows what makes cats tick when they do this. Sometimes my cats just get a wild hair, and shoot across the house. My little kitten will try to chase and grab her own tail—and she looks like what you’ve described that your cat does.

Maybe some other folks will have ideas.

Regardless, it sounds like you have a lucky, well-loved cat. I"m glad that there are concerned loving cat owners like you.

Yeah, one of our cats does this really weird thing occasionally. She’ll run into my bathroom, start meowing, then run out of the bathroom, jump onto my bed (f ft from the bathroom), and pounce around on the sheets. Then she’ll run back into the bathroom and repeat this 5 or 6 times. Just a little quirk she has.

Sounds like pretty normal cat psychosis to me. No, really, all cats are insane. Ours stalk and pounce on things we can’t see, then careen through the house bouncing off the walls and slapping the dogs and doing flips.

The blanket sucking thing isn’t usually a weaning issue so much as a security issue, and she’ll probably outgrow it. Eponine used to suck on the blankets, and my sweaters, and Q-tips (even used ones–blech!) until she got fully adjusted. It can sometimes be a symptom of needing more fiber in the diet, but more often it’s like a kid sucking his thumb–just their way of comforting themselves when they need more reassurance than you can currently give them.

Occum’s razor time.

The simplest explanation is the most likely.

Two-dimensional shadow creatures.

Only cats can see them. That’s why they stare at nothing and suddenly pounce at things no one can see.

Rememer, you heard it hear first.

Odin, I have a similar belief about my cats that somewhat proves the existence of fairies. :slight_smile: And I got it straight from the cat’s mouth … although I was on heavy drugs at the time. lol

Seriously, though, I’ve known a few three-legged cats in my time, and while it’s possible your kitten could be going through some sort of PTSD, I think it more likely that she’s just being a kitten. Last night, my 6-month-old cat spent half an hour utterly motionless inside a paper bag, then proceeded to chase his tail until he busted out of said bag, and hid in the bathtub at the noise he made–then viciously attacked the soap as if it had done it. I wouldn’t rule out phantom limb pain, but I think it more likely that it’s just “normal” cat behavior. Keep us posted, though, I’d like to hear when you find out what it is!

Yep. I think it sounds like your cat is doing kitten things, but that it looks strange and alarming because of the three-legs thing. Cats look funny enough when they go nuts and suddenly start careering across the house, but I can see how it would look surreal if she was also falling over every three seconds.

We call it the “kitty-krazies”.

I’ve been around a lot of kittens before, and she does all kinds of insane kitty things, all behaviors I have seen before. But the reason I’m concerned is that the noise she makes is a scared/hurt sound, not a play sound. The first time she ever did it, I had reached down to pet her while she slept on the floor. She woke up, turned backwards in circles as though she were trying to get away from something, and cried. It really freaked me out. Since then, it’s been while she’s awake. The time yesterday was odd because there was some growling along with the crying noise.

Who knows, maybe it is just Insane Kitty Syndrome. She does all kinds of tail chasing, bolting through the apartment, climbing things, jumping, attacking. Usually when this particular behavior happens, though, she’s relaxing or resting and then all of a sudden she’s turning around in circles, backwards, flopping over and crying.

Thanks for the reassurance, guys. If she keeps doing it I think we might take her into the vet to ask about it.

It sounds like a case of the FRAPs-Frantic Random Activity Periods.

We had a kitten and one of her front legs was pretty useless-at least for walking. But man, was she fast. Unfortunately, she had peritonitis and had to be put to sleep.

:frowning:

A trip to the vet certainly won’t hurt, and you’ll be sure there’s not some problem that needs to be addressed.

If she is having some kind of flashback she will probably outgrow it. I have a cat that used to “cry” in her sleep. It was a really distressing noise, and it might happen several nights a week. She was almost grown when I got her, so I don’t know what happened in her past. I assume she was having nightmares.

With time, this happened less and less. Now it hardly happens at all. Your kitten will probably be the same way. The memory will fade with time.

I have a cat who licks plastic bags, will stand firmly on paper with three paws and paw at a corner with her 4th until we take the paper away (it’s gone on for 10 minutes before), and is frightened by invisible or non-living things - like the carpet. I was worried about how incredibly jumpy she is when I first got her (a mean previous owner came to mind), but no, cats are just strange.