A cat from hell turns into an angel
Play
The problems with wild child Manohra's bladder control are resolved thanks to a strong dose of antibiotics
WHAT A difference a half-year makes! Just a few months ago, Wild Child Manohra was almost completely untouchable. Today, she settles in my lap, enjoying a scratch behind the ears.
Readers might remember that by last August, this cat, at that time only a year and a half old, had become extremely aggressive and territorial. She’d attack anyone, even the dog, if she was in a bad mood.
I couldn’t pet her, not even pick her up. The scratches and bites she gave me were so bad that I had to go to the hospital several times for treatment.
Even worse, she was urinating inappropriately. I could smell that terrible cat-urine smell everywhere – in my handbag, on my clothes, on newspapers.
Talk about a “Cat from Hell”.
My vet tested her blood, which might indicate an infection of some sort, but when the test showed nothing wrong, my vet suggested a hormone shot, which might calm her down.
I wasn’t too happy to give the cat an artificial hormone, but the one shot she had worked a bit. The aggressiveness was reduced, and for a while, she urinated only in the kitty litter.
Then, after a few short weeks, she started urinating on my clothes again. It was much too soon to give her another hormone shot. The effects of the injection should last three or four months.
My vet began to suspect that she had a chronic infection, which a blood test might or might not indicate. She needed a much more sensitive (and more expensive) analysis, a urine test.
For a cat who peed everywhere at home, Manohra refused to give up a drop at the clinic. It took a day and a half before the vet could collect a sample, which was then sent off to a lab.
After a week, we got the results. Manohra did indeed have a urinary infection. The poor cat must have been in pain for months.
After she took antibiotics for two months, she slowly stopped urinating everywhere, but she remained too wild for me to pick her up, and she still yelled at everyone when she wanted to claim territory.
The answer lay in Manohra’s food. She needs a special recipe for cats with urinary problems. The aroma is supposed to be especially attractive to cats, and Manohra loves the food – so does everyone else, even the soi cats. I put out a bowl of this special food only on the fourth floor, which Manohra “owns”, but everyone goes up there for this special treat, even the two soi cats.
With queenly dignity, Manohra allows first one cat and then another to eat a little. When the bowl is empty, she comes downstairs and calls to me to fill it up again.
I suppose she enjoys the control over her environment that she never had before.
She’s also started settling in my lap for a short time. At night, she sleeps near me. Even better, she’s stopped biting and scratching me. She still growls, but it’s more of a play-growl.
The inappropriate urination has stopped almost completely – except for one time last week, when I noticed that Manohra was scratching the top of a table near the door as if she was in a litter box.
She also kept turning around to look at me with a worried look, before scratching again.
Yes, she had urinated on the table, but I think she didn’t do it on purpose. For a moment, she must have forgotten herself.
At least, I hope so. You have to be careful about urinary infections. They can come back. So far, though, Manohra hasn’t urinated in the wrong place again. A mistake is much better than an illness, don’t you think?
