Allie adopted us. Let's get that straight from the get-go.
The tabby simply wandered up from the fields and proceeded to eat everything she could get her mouth on near the porch.
Then we decided to bring out a cup of cat food.
And yes. I do take full blame and responsibility for that. *sigh* It's that ol' hindsight-foresight thing. Damn it.
So we take her in. She is little. Scrawny. And obviously has no social skills.
I'm not simply talking about with other cats. I'm talking NO SOCIAL SKILLS. Her idea of affection is to bite the bejeezus out of whomever is petting/touching her at the time. Seriously. And if you put your hand down BY her when she's eating...she'll scratch you with her nails.
Then she comes into heat. And I'm thinking...Whoa! We'll let her have one litter of grandkittens, I'll litter-train them, then we'll have her fixed. Except for she has kittens and has NO concept of what to do with them. They all die. Which was extremely hard for me to deal with at the time.
But Allie is simply not equipped.
So we keep her in until we can shuffle her to the vet. And WARN the secretary at the vet's office that Allie is um...not quite right. She takes the info.
We go back to pick Allie up the next day and apparently they had written "Dangerous!" on her carrier, and she hissed at the nice secretary lady. *sigh* Yeah. She's a bitch kitty.
The vet said he didn't have a problem but asked if we REALLY wanted her.
Makes one wonder, doesn't it?
But this is not my problem. In fact, she's calmed down considerably. She's a good house kitty. But therein lies the problem. She's not the ONLY house kitty. She was the last adopted and one would think that would put her at the bottom of the totem pole. Ah...not so.
Pumpkin (whom I adore) was our first. Then Sir Phillip Thomas (who after being snipped is hereby referred to as Thomasine by me), then Toby. Allie will put up with Toby. Even though she beats the shit out of him on a daily basis. But it's simply playing.
She catfights with Thomasine (who was a lover and not a fighter, anyway) and Pumpkin.
To say this pisses me off would be putting it mildly. I will NOT leave my other kitties outside in the cold nastiness while bitch kitty lays on a warm bed in front of a heater.
Hell. No.
So now I wonder if there's an easy fix for this or if I just need to google "kitty shock collar."
Suggestions?
Grins*
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4 comments:
She sounds related to a cat we had when I was a kid. J.J. used to perch on the back of the couch and when you least expected it, he (or she, I don't remember!) would claw you on the top of the head. J.J. did not live with us for too long. *g*
I had a bitch kitty once. She too was a stray who we adopted. She was a kitten and the first weekend we had her she was so cute. All she did was sit on our laps and purr. After a week, she became a dynamo. Anyway, you didn't play with her because she would bite and scratch. The first couple of years were okay, she was like an ordinary cat except she routinely caught critters who weighed twice as much as her. Then one day, she changed. She would let us pet her, she stayed away from home for days at a time, she became feral. We had her fixed pretty quick after we got her. After one of her trips, she never came home. I suspect she met a creature bigger than her and met her end. Caution was not something she understood. The other two cats weren't too sad to see her go.
I don't know what to tell you. Cats are almost as bad as kids.
Gah--I've gone through a lot of this. I have a couple of suggestions...
Contrary to popular belief, cats do tend to be social -- IF they are properly socialized by their mothers. The problem is that humans often separate the kittens from the mothers WAY too early, which causes problems. Sounds like Allie might be one of these. Makes me so mad. Ahem...off my soapbox. *g*
Try giving them a couple of months to work things out. She's clueless about how to handle relationships with humans and other cats, and is probably acting out of a need to create her own territory. Things may settle after the hierarchy is established.
You can also try spraying a product called Feliway around the house. It contains calming pheromones, the same ones cats smear around when they rub on things.
If worse comes to worse, your vet can prescribe a med called Clomicalm, which is supposed to help mellow out cats with aggressive behavior issues.
Good luck! Sounds like you've done really well with her!
Never underestimate the power of a simple spraybottle filled with water. Squirt for control. It'll make your wounds heal faster.
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