My roommate, bless her heart, volunteered me to sit her cat while she is out of town (she leaves today and gets back on June 30). I don’t mind looking after Spooky because he is about as good as a cat can get. He is a 12-year-old tabby and is friendly, he comes when you call and is a good companion.
The problem is that my roommate also volunteered me to sit her classmates’ cat (he is going on the same trip to the field). His cat is an 8 year-old female. She has not been fixed. The reason that Keith gave is “She is a purebred. You can’t spay a purebred”. Never mind how dumb that statement is, but she is 8 and if you were going to breed her, wouldn’t you have done so by now?
Anyway, being in close proximity to a male has Ophelia in heat. She is rubbing against everything, more so than cats usually do. But the main problem is that she will not shut up. When I get home from work, that is not that big of a deal. It is a big deal at 3:30 in the morning.
Any advice to help keep her quiet would be appreciated. I can’t get her fixed, although that should have been done years ago. I don’t think that Keith would be happy if I found Ophelia a mate. Cat fajitas are not on the menu just yet. Does peanut butter work? Will the heat stop after a week or two? Please help me keep my sanity.
That is plain and simple torture of a cat. You can and should spay purebreds. I think it’s mean, how would you feel if you were horny 24/7 and couldn’t do anything about it? Cats stay in heat until they are bred, it can last for months I was told.
I feel sorry for you (and for Ophelia) but there isn’t anything you can do until she is either bred or spayed. Maybe you can call a vet and see if there is anything available drugwise, but if it isn’t your cat that might not be a good choice. I would give the cat’s owner a piece of my mind when he gets back, that’s for sure.
Bos is right. I sympathize. When my young female cat went into heat the first time, she kept me up all night with her caterwauling; God, what a hellacious sound! Next day, to the vet she went. Females don’t have to be around males to go into heat, and I wonder how the owner stands it. Please don’t try any home remedies on the poor dear – how about ear plugs until the owner gets back? Then, yes, give him a piece of your mind. He’s no cat-lover if he’s been letting her go through this for so long.
So you’re cat-sitting until June 30?
http://www.peteducation.com/repro/reproincats.htm
http://www.fanciers.com/cat-faqs/health-care.shtml
My advice to you is to talk to a vet. I think you’re in over your head, and you need some serious professional advice. I don’t see anything off-hand on Google about “tranquilizing cats in heat”.
Get some professional advice. 
Um, not sure I made myself clear. She’s not going to stop any time soon. See a vet about possibly tranquilizing her.
The thing about “you can’t spay purebred cats” is that many cat fanciers who own purebred cats enjoy thinking of their cats as a sort of walking gene bank, that they’re holding these purebred cat genes in trust for future generations. “If all the Persian cats in Europe suddenly died of a rare disease,” goes the thinking, “We could use my Ophelia to restock.”
Also, with purebred kittens going for $300 and up, many owners of purebreds feel it’s a crime to spay a female. It would be like pulling the plug on the potential ATM.
Sorry Adam, can’t help you not kill the cat. I say kill 'em all. I despise cats. There are two of them in my house, thanks to the females I live with. My son and I didn’t want cats, my wife and daughter did, so somehow that meant we were outvoted. The first cat was a rescue, an old lady’s cat who was going to be put down because she had to move into a place that didn’t allow pets, but that cat was a declawed, castrated male who’s very aloof and bad-tempered. I would be too if I’d been declawed and castrated. In my daughter’s terms, he was a failure as a cat–not cuddly or affectionate or even interesting–so a female kitten turned up one afternoon after a shopping trip by the women in this household. And you should have seen the hissing and spitting and wailing when the wee one showed up.
I despise cats because they’re still wild animals pretending to be domesticated. They tear up my flower beds, chase and kill birds (which I like and go to considerable effort to attract) in my yard, barf hairballs up on the carpet, climb the drapes, shit on the floor when their delicate sensibilities are upset, claw the furniture, howl in my face at 5 am because they think just because the sun’s up I should get up and feed them…A warning to my neighbours: you can have all the cats you want, but keep them out of my yard. Any critter in my yard that I don’t want there is, as far as I’m concerned, a rat, and that’s how I’ll treat it.
OldMan, that wasn’t nice. It was accurate and true, but it wasn’t nice. Why be accurate and true if you can’t be nice?
adam yax, wow, you’re in a spot. Like you’ve been told, she in heat and she’ll stay in heat. (Cats are so cool that way. At least a dog only goes in heat twice a year for a limited time. A few breeds only go in heat once a year. Of course MY dogs never go into heat. They were surgically altered to suit my needs.)
You could…
[list=A]
[li]“Accidentally” get her knocked up.[/li][li]Go to the vet and get pills to keep her sedated for a month.[/li][li]Go to the vet and get her fixed.[/li][li]Board her somewhere. And leave the kennel bill with the owner.[/li][li]Buy earplugs, and sleep through your alarm for a month.[/li][li]Buy earplugs for yourself and everyone in your building. Who wants to listen to a horny cat till the end of June?[/li][li]Let her play Steve McQueen, your apartment is a German Prison Camp, and your open window is the Barbed Wire Fence.[/li]-or-
Let her play Ginger, your apartment is Mrs. Tweedy’s Farm, and your open window is the Barbed Wire Fence. (Same thing)
Every option so far has a fundamental flaw, but hey, you didn’t volunteer. You were conscripted. The kennelling option is really the most workable solution. Except for the expense, and how much the kennel staff will HATE you for dumping off a #%@^&** cat in heat on them for a whole *^^%$ month!
I say introduce the kitty to a nice tomcat. The owner may not thank you for it but the kitty might, and I don’t see how the owner deserved a lot of consideration here.
Of course then there’s the whole business of unwanted kittens to think of. Hmm…OK this requires further thought…
I don’t suppose you could just buy the kitty a vibrator?
Q-tip
Eh, I wouldn’t go for A or C. You’d be liable to a lawsuit if the roommate’s friend comes back and decides to be “difficult” about (A) a litter of kittens or (C) a spayed purebred (Oh, no, you pulled the plug on his potential ATM! :eek: )
I saw a Judge Judy show where somebody was suing the woman she’d asked to dog-sit, because the woman gave the dog away to the animal shelter, got fed up with it, I don’t remember why.
Second-best option, after “tranquilizers”, would be D. But I dunno how that would work, interpersonal relations-wise, to saddle this fellow with a huge kennel bill after you said you’d look after the cat.
You didn’t exactly volunteer, but you weren’t exactly conscripted, either. You volunteered to look after the roomie’s cat, and then she said, “Hey, what about Keith’s cat, you could watch her, too,” and how could you say no? You didn’t know then what you know now, about unspayed females…
There is another option: foist Ophelia off on someone else. 
Don’t know if this will help you but during the rainy season when my pets don’t want to go outside they get a little stir crazy. The dogs bark at the cat and the cat starts making that siren noise and suddenly the house is way to small to contain all of them (two dogs, ave. weight, 75lbs, 1 cat, 8lbs). I’ve found that turkey can provide a temporary fix. Not only is it a delicious treat that will have them all begging, the triptophan is a natural sedative that will knock them out just like that Thanksgiving dinner does you. And you thought it was the Lions game.
BTW, turkey works great if you are travelling with your critters.
Three other points:
-
I doubt whether being in close proximity to an altered male cat would have caused Ophelia to go into heat. It’s not Spooky’s fault, so when Keith gets back and you bust him about his meshugginah feline, don’t let him pin the blame on Roomie’s Sweetie. A cat’s reproductive capacity, AFAIK, isn’t dictated by whether there are other cats around. As a matter of fact, since they’re solitary in the wild, I would think it wouldn’t matter at all.
-
It’s extremely likely that she’s always like this, and Keith is just so used to it that he doesn’t notice anymore. Or else he applauds it as a sign that his potential ATM/gene bank is still alive and well.
-
Since you can’t change the cat, try to change your mindset.
[ahem]
In the wild, cats are solitary creatures, coming together only for mating. When a female cat is ready to breed, she needs to attract a mate. In the deep jungle, this can be difficult. So she sprays urine, and she yowls. Ophelia is actually living in the forest, not your living room.
To Ophelia, it isn’t about “sex”, it’s about “pregnancy”. She’s not “horny”, she’s “ovulating”. She’s not requesting an orgasm–she’s just looking for a few sperm cells. That’s all.
Cat biology is not the issue here.
Here’s what you do, Adam. Just before you go to bed, fill up the sink with warm water. Gather up Ophelia by the paws and gently dip her in. You sleep while she licks herself dry all night.
When you next see Keith, tell him he ain’t doing that poor cat any favors by not spaying her.
Oh man, only on this board.
Thanks for all the replies. I feel the need to point out that I had no idea that Ophelia was not spayed until she was in my apartment. I assumed that most people were responsible enough to get their pets fixed. Yes, I suppose that Keith may see Ophelia as a 4-legged ATM, and it was even suggested that she would be used to pay off his student loans. But, like I said she is 8 years old, and the older she gets the harder it is to carry a litter to full term, so I have been told.
Last Friday I met AFOAF who is a vet. I am trying to get in touch with her to get some advice.
I like the turkey idea, and the water idea isn’t bad either. I must say that one of the first things that came to my mind was a “kitty dildo”. At this point, duct tape is a viable option. Someone at work suggested catnip, and lots of it to drug her and wear her out.
At the end of June I am considering flying in Bob Barker to let him beat the crap out of Keith.
I believe most vets are equipt with a glass “kitty dildo” that they will use to…ummmm…relieve in heat kittys.
Can’t you contact this prick?
Tell him that’s she’s keeping you up and your neighbors have started to complain.
Give him options:
- You’re getting her spayed.
- You’re having her bred with another purebred.
- Hi Opal!
- You’re kennelling her.
Make HIM choose, because you’re going to stick him with the bill when he gets back on whichever he chooses. (Okay breeding will probably be free, they’ll just want pick of the litter.)
It is completely unfair for him to have done this to you. Really unfair. Get pissed at him, not the cat…she can’t help that her owner is an asshole.
[public service announcement]
Remember to spay and neuter your cats and dogs!
[/psa]
Yes, they are. Or so I’m told by a vet tech or two. The cat is relieved, and goes out of heat. What this kitty dildo does is fool the queen into ovulating, which ends the heat cycle, for a while.
I agree with just about everyone else, though, this person needs to get Kitty fixed. Even if Kitty is a showcat, she can still be shown as an alter. Used to be that alters couldn’t be shown, but now they can.
“kitty dildo”? Huh? I worked at a vet’s for 7 years, was a vet tech in training for about 4 years, and I’ve never heard of that.
You should tell this cat’s owner that he is being an irresponsible pet owner. Cats that are not spayed run a greater risk of developing mammary cancer. Also they can develop pyometra, which is basically an infected uterus. If it goes on too long, it can develop into an “open pyometra” which means that it has become so infected that there is a foul-smelling discharge from the vulva. This infection can be potentially life threatening, and I’ve seen dogs & cats die from it.
Plus if she ever managed to escape she could wind up preggers from any Tom, Dick, or Harry cat out on the street (pardon the pun) and possibly end up getting feline leukemia or other nasty kitty diseases, and having a litter of unwanted, sick kittens to boot.
Niceness comes after truth and accuracy. I’d rather be disliked for telling the truth than liked because I’m pretending to be someone I’m not. And the truth is that I hate cats and they consistently behave badly. I dunno why people want animals of any sort in the house. Non-humans should stay outside. So should a lot of humans.
I confess, though, that despite many opportunities I’ve never actually killed a cat, or even injured one. Usually what I do is fire a pebble from a slingshot to hit the fence close to them. The sudden loud noise always drives them away, and they know now not to enter the yard when I’m in it. I know some people love their cats. I don’t understand it, I think they’re despicable creatures, but I don’t want to cause anyone unnecessary grief either.