I Feel Like Such A Heel

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Today I took little black cat Serena to the barn and left her there in a cage. She’s in a vacant stall, with a litter box, food, water, a corrugated scratching pad, and a fabric tunnel she can crawl into to hide in. The floor of the cage has a plastic liner, and I’ve put hay over that. When I left, she was huddled half into the litter box, nothing but her eyes moving.

I feel like a heel. But I’ve reached the end of my rope with her.

It’s the pissing. That, and the hissing. She came to me as a feral rescue kitten, and she’s never really trusted or bonded to me. There’s a sweetly affectionate side to her, but still, two years and more since I adopted her, one wrong move on my part and she’ll hiss with fearful rage and bolt.

She pisses all over the house. When I tried caging her in one room of my house to retrain her, last winter, it seemed to work. She became more affectionate when I was her only company. I eventually released Serena into the general feline population, and the pissing appeared to have stopped.

For a while. Now it’s resumed, worse than ever. I’ve caught her at it, so I know it’s not one of the other seven. There are seven litterboxes, at least one on each floor of my home, that are cleaned daily, so it’s not a Statement About Housekeeping Services.

I’ve talked to the rescue operation I adopted her from, and been told that they would take her back, but given her behavioral problems, she’s probably unadoptable and would have to be euthanized. I tried the caging at home as a last resort, and it’s failed. Now what?

One last option: rehoming as a barn cat. I’m following the procedures that another local feline rescue organization has developed for making barn cats out of otherwise unadoptable rescues. The cats are brought to the barn and kept in large cages, singly or (if already sociable with each other) in twos or threes. The cages go in a vacant stall or other convenient place, where the cats can acclimate to the sounds, smells, and sights of the barn and learn to consider it their home. They stay caged for about a month, then are released.

This system isn’t foolproof. Last summer, the owner of the barn where I board my two horses adopted a dozen barn cat candidates and went through the process faithfully. After their release, about half of them disappeared within a few days. Another two hung around for a while, then vanished. Today we have three still in residence, who started out terrified of humans but are now almost approachable.

So, it’s a crapshoot whether Serena will stick around, or survive at all. At least it’s late May, so the weather is just right for trying this. The stall she’s in is right next to the area where the current barn cats are fed. They’re quite friendly to other cats, and don’t try to drive off strange felines, so she should be accepted by them. My gut feeling is that when she’s finally released she’ll vanish, but hopefully I’ll be proven wrong.

I feel like such a heel, but I also feel like I’ve given her a last chance.

2

I don’t see that you have much choice. She WON’T become accustomed to humans, and has Issues. Possibly, possibly she could become an only cat, but the pissing would make it hard for her human to live with her. I’ve had a cat with litterbox issues, and they can drive you right up the wall.

Life as a barn cat is very risky, but she’d probably be happier as one than as a house cat.

My daughter adopted a feral kitten, and she managed to get him completely tame to her because she bottle fed him for a while. Now he likes people well enough, and is sometimes quite affectionate, but he’s nowhere near as affectionate or demonstrative as other cats we’ve had. He was never handled by a human until he was about 6 or 7 weeks old, and that makes a real difference.

3

I have to agree. You’ve done everything you can, and a no-kill shelter simply means she’ll wind up giving someone else the same grief she’s given you. It’s about the only chance she’s got left. Maybe she’ll mellow out once she’s used to the barn.

4

I have to agree with the others. I have a feral cat and my brother (used to have) a feral cat (before it went and died on him).

Now my cat’s been with us since she was pretty much a baby. She kind of grew up in our back garden. She knew us. Every winter she would come up by our toilet window – huddled together with her sister and brother trying desperately to fight the cold. They all looked so cute there - this little huddled fur-ball of three different shades all moving up and down (simulating breathing).

Now because she was accustomed to us, she would come over to us and play football every once in a while (of the soccer variety). She got so used to me that realistically, from an early age she was very friendly with me and my family. You can still tell she’s got the feral instinct in her though, because she’s quick to temper and still very suspicious of people (a good thing in these parts where little sons-of-bitches kids keep trying to throw matchsticks at cats and attempting God-knows-what kinda crap with them). She hunts like a nutcase, bringing in all sorts of crap (rats, mice, birds, duck and what appeared to be a dead fox once).
Fast forward to my brothers little kitty (or fast rewind). Like yours she was a rescue operation - however, she never really took to humans; pissing on the coach, sofas, crapping on his and his missus heads and scratching the life out of everyone who once argued with her. Well, what can you do? One day she took it too far and jumped on the bed - scratching against his eyes. Upon telling her off pretty bad, she runs of into the distance, comes back the next day belly swollen (cause she ate something - can’t quite remember the details). Now you have to understand that she was a sick little kitty anyway, so this time it just pushed her over. She died in his arms the following day (not to sound too dramatic or anything - but for some crazy reason she never wanted to be near anyone else at the time - she always preferred him anyway).

So yeah, my advice, give her up before you get tooooooo attached (I realise this may be difficult with the cat in question, but you don’t wanna have problems after you’ve both got used to each other).

5

I know how you feel. :frowning:
I had to give up my baby of five years because she wouldn’t quit pissing and crapping where the other cats would sleep.
She always would scratch the furniture, too. That I could live with. :rolleyes:
We tried everything to get her to stop but nothing would work.
I knew it was time to get rid of her when I was picturing her tailless-ass flying over the third floor balcony. :stuck_out_tongue: (I would never!)
Luckily, my father-in-law adores her more than any human should adore a cat and now she’s being spoiled rotten out in the middle of Tallahassee wilderness, chasing squirrels last I heard. I miss her but they love each other and I can visit. :slight_smile:
Good luck with it!

6

A friend of mine who works part-time in a shelter had this to say:

That got me to thinking: I really do wonder if at least part of it with Serena is inborn temperament. My seven other cats are all rescues of one sort or another, all came to me as kittens; yet I’ve never had this problem before. So I thought about what I knew of their origins:

Squash and Pumpkin were from a litter of a feral barn cat who’d evaded all attempts to trap her for years. (She finally got caught and spayed after I’d adopted the Veggie Boys.) So they spent their first weeks of life in that environment, then had some number of days (don’t know how long) at the vets’ office being socialized before I got snookered into taking them. They’re afraid of strangers, and can be skittish with me if they think I want to capture them for some evil purpose, but they’re basically cheerful, loving attention hogs.

I’ve been told that just about every litter from the Veggie Boys’ mother that could be caught and adopted out turned out to be wonderful cats. So the partially genetic explanation makes a lot of sense.

I know nothing about EddyTeddyFreddy’s history, other than that they were four months old and already altered when I got them; that Danvers Strays In Need sticks to rescues and ferals, and doesn’t take surrenders; and that the woman fostering them really knew her stuff. The Orange Boys (except for Eddy, who’s mellowed a lot) are also afraid of strangers – heck, terrified. But they adore attention from me.

I believe Sophie and Sylvia must have been dumped at the barn at almost four months old; that’s the age the vet said they were when I took them home (via the vets’ for checkup and shots) a couple of weeks after they’d showed up. They’re the most easygoing about people of all my menagerie, and I bet they were born and raised in a household until their abandonment.

I’ve checked on Serena a couple of times this afternoon and evening. She’s crouched in her litterbox, enduring. When I stuck my fingers through the bars and scratched her chin, she responded by pushing into the petting. I think a stranger trying that might lose some skin, though. I’ll be seeing her at least once every day. Perhaps that will make it a bit easier for her.

7

I hope it works.

Have you ruled out the possibility of a UTI? Our youngest cat started spraying the day after he escaped out of the house and had a run-in with the neighbor’s cat. We were completely convinced (because of that timing) that it was behavioral. We tried everything we could to curb the behavior, and when nothing worked the vet checked his urine. She said she’d never seen a UTI as bad as his.

Elavil and valium can also be used for anxiety spraying in cats.

8

Oh, yes. UTI was the first thing I thought of, since Sylvia is prone to them and must be kept on a special diet to prevent crystal buildup. I had Serena checked thoroughly, and that wasn’t it.

I’d have considered trying drugs for anxiety, except that there’s no way in the world I’d ever be able to catch her consistently to dose her. We’re talking hide-behind-the-furnace distrust of me, upon the slightest suspicion that I might be plotting to :eek: Do Something :eek: to her.

9

{{{EddyTeddyFreddy}}} – the human, not the cats, that is, although the cats are welcome to a petting or a scritching if they like.

You have tried. I wouldn’t be suprised if some of it’s simply personality. Some cats are easier going than others, just like some humans are. You gave Serena more of a chance than most people would, and you are still giving her one. Perhaps it’s one which suits her better. It’s rough, though, when you’ve done all you can only to find it wasn’t enough.

Take care,
CJ