Personally, I’d ask the vet the make a house call.
Oh, I forgot to address the shelter issue: No. I definitely am never taking him to the shelter. He was so stressed when I left him at the vet for boarding for a week. Every time anyone went to give him food or water or disturb him in any way, he shrieked.
When I went to pick him up, just walking in the door I could hear a cat shrieking in the background and I said, “Oh god, that’s Albert.” And the techs said he had been doing that off and on for days. Another vet in the practice examined him and couldn’t find anything wrong.
His regular vet is back in Ohio. He does a lot with behavior and he said that he was stumped at this point for things to try, though he thought moving might actually work to give him something else to think about, essentially. The drive went fine (which shocked me). I was prescribed some Valium for him and I gave that to him the first night in a hotel which he seemed to find more stressful than the drive itself.
The first little while here, he seemed happy to be with the other cats. Now he’s back to growling and fussing if they’re within sight. He has always had a persecution complex but it just seems to get bigger. If he’s shut up in a room by himself or just with people, he will eventually cry to get out and then go to where the other cats are and freak out–like a kid who hates other kids who will throw a tantrum around those kids but who refuses to leave them alone either. I just don’t know.
Just wanted to drop in and say that we feel your pain. Do you have any retired male family members/close friends that might give him the cuddly time and testosterone proximity he seems to need?
I strongly second this. My elderly calico has to take an antibiotic every day for her IBD. After about 2 weeks of trying to get her to take it (for an elderly, frail cat she sure has a lot of fight left in her when there’s nasty meds coming at her), I got my doctor to call it into a compounding pharmacy, and they made it up in “Triple Fish” flavor. Now, I just squirt the appropriate dose onto a plate and offer it to her, and she licks it up like it’s the best treat ever. My only problem is, as Wile E said, keeping the other cats away while she finishes it. It’s more expensive but worth every extra penny.
Oh, jsgoddess! hugs That sucks so much.
Try Feliway if you haven’t (pretty sure you have though). It worked for my hard to get along with green-eyed evil kitty. It sounds like woo but it really isn’t.
If not - I know you love all the 'Berts so much, and this must be so difficult for you. If he’s just never going to be happy, and living is miserable, then get Asi to cuddle him and you cuddle him and have him put down. He’s 14, he’s had a big upset, he’s had good long innings, and it might just be time.
I’m so sorry you have to make this decision.
The cat/baby sling isn’t a bad idea. Especially if you lined it with something that still has your late husbands smell. He would associate the smell with his owner and being held, and the more comforted he feels, the better he will behave.
It’s worth a try.
I have a cat, George, who had some behavioral problems a couple years ago…he gnawed on his tail to the point of needing the tip amputated, then he needed several trips to the emergency vet when we couldn’t get him to calm down and let us stop the bleeding and re-bandage him after he ripped off his bandage and bit his tail again. Poor little guy spent months in an E-collar. We tried Feliway, which really did seem to help him, but it’s fairly expensive, and Prozac ended up being a lot cheaper, and even more effective. He’s totally fine now, a year or so on Prozac seems to have been sufficient, and we weaned him off about six months ago.
George was also very, very stressed out with pills, to the point where I worried it was making him worse. I ended up trying Greenies pill pockets, which I thought for sure wouldn’t work, that he’d taste the pill and spit it out. He actually ended up loving them, even looking forward to his daily dose. We saw an amazing improvement in him after he was getting his meds, and wasn’t getting traumatized on a daily basis in the process. So, if you decide to try a medication, and they can’t compound it into something palatable for whatever reason, you might consider giving those a chance.
Good luck, I hope your kitty can pull through. 
I would explore med options before putting him down. It sounds like his main problem is anxiety, and I know more than a few dogs/cats with severe anxiety who’ve really benefited from Prozac, etc.
This. Sorry, but I think it’s about as inhumane as you can get to take a 14 year old cat to the shelter. If he is truly that unhappy, euthanasia may be the best option.
I would second the Feliway recommendation. I have known that to make a big difference with cats that were unhappy, aggressive with other cats, or generally dysfunctional. One of my co-workers had a cat that she rescued that would constantly yowl and wander from room to room and the Feliway diffusers completely eliminated that behavior.
To me that sounds like territorial behavior. He wants them to know this is his territory, so that’s why he still has to confront them and hiss even though he doesn’t like them. Every time I move to a new place, one of my cats gets really grouchy and confrontational with my other cat for a while until the territory lines are re-drawn.
Is there a way you can add any more high up perches for him? I’ve noticed that my cats behave a lot better when they have more places to climb. I think it helps them feel secure. Or maybe try adding a bird feeder to a window near where he likes to hang out so he can entertain himself with that. My cats love that.
I definitely agree with you that taking him to the shelter would be the wrong answer. I think the people suggesting that don’t understand how hard it is for even young adult cats to get adopted. Most people want a kitten so even my cats who were only like 1 year old when I adopted them spent months in the shelter until I adopted them. Elderly cats don’t have much of a chance, even though they deserve it.
It would be very cruel to make an older cat live out its last few days in a little cage at a shelter where (even though shelters try their best) he wouldn’t get enough attention, snacks, or toys.
I’ve only been around these cats for a few months, but it doesn’t strike me as being a normal territorial issue. He very rarely actually confronts the other cats. He mainly sits in a corner and moans and groans if there is another cat within eye-sight, but he doesn’t seem to be moaning AT them so much as he is involuntarily expressing his extreme unhappiness at the reminder that other cats exist.
If one of the others actually wanders within reach of Albert (generally for reasons that have nothing to do with him), he does sometimes do the loud screech-and-yowl. But more often than that, he moans more loudly, maybe takes a swat at the other, and then runs off to hide in a different corner somewhere. jsgoddess would obviously know better than I would, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen Albert attempt to defend a territory. And while the other cats are sometimes playful, they are not aggressive.
If you think of a normal cat being Clint Eastwood, pulling out a shotgun and yelling, “Get off my lawn!” Albert would be the guy who whines, “WHYYYYYY are you on my lawn? WHY???” and then packs up and sullenly moves to another neighborhood. It makes us so sad because he is a really adorable and lovable cat.
On occasion, we have taken him into our bedroom (which is normally a cat-free zone), and for a little while, he will seem happy to be around us and free of the others. But after only a few minutes, he’s itching to be back out amongst them, despite how much stress it seems to cause him.
Meds. Please find a way to try anti-anxiety meds.
I read this thread yesterday and it’s been on my mind all day. Such a sad situation. I agree with the others who say do not take him to a shelter. That is just cruel. I agree with IvoryTower, some kind of anti depressant or anti anxiety medicine is worth a try.
Some friends of mine had a similarly unhappy cat. The vet prescribed buspirone. The difference was like night and day.
Every once in awhile one of my cats would cop an attitude and go into seclusion. It appeared to me like the cat was in a negative feedback loop. I had to make a point of interacting with the cat to lure her back into happy land. Of course, the cat already new I gave good backrubs and ear massages. It was just a matter of starting a positive feedback loop again.
If it’s truly chemically depressed then it wouldn’t hurt to try different happy pills.
I know administering happy pills isn’t going to be fun for anyone, but there is a chance that being medicated will make such a difference for him that he won’t continue to react nearly as negatively the way he has in the past. You won’t know until you try it.
Can you talk Asimovian into sitting on a towel for a few days to leave his scent on it? One of the tricks I use to calm down my cat is to use the previous day’s shirt as bedding in her crate when we go to the vet. It works when I change the bedsheets too and she’s not happy about it.
Wouldn’t take much convincing on my part. I don’t think Albert’s anywhere as near as fond of me as he was of Steve, but I don’t have any problem trying.
Cats are at the same time tenacious and finicky critters. You might not be “best”, but I’ll bet you’re “better”. 
I’m with the others who say try the meds. Worst case scenario is that you can’t make it work, and you’re no worse off than now. On the other hand, if it does work, you’ve given him back his quality of life.
Ask your vet about compounding pharmacies and/or try pill pockets. Make the pill a treat rather than another stressor. Compounding pharmacies can do some amazing things. My cat needed anti-biotics for a month, and the liquid tasted so awful that after about two days of trying, the poor guy would dry heave just from seeing the syringe (and would barf the liquid up right after, so it wasn’t doing him any good anyway). I called my vet and they called the prescription over to a compounding pharmacy which dosed the anti-biotic into little tuna chewies, which he loved. He thought I was giving him a treat, so there was no chasing him down and trying to force it into him, he ate it willingly. My other cat couldn’t understand why he wasn’t getting treats, too. 