this should bring me some interesting searches
How do you tell if a cat has dementia? One of our cats has recently started to wander around yowling at odd hours of the day and night. Also, he’s preventing the other cat from going into the basement to use the litter box. Which is So! Much! Fun! And has resulted in the second cat peeing on all sorts of things in our house. Like the Potato’s favorite blanket. And his second favorite blanket.
The first cat is fairly odd to begin with–he’s terrified of all humans, including us. I’m not sure if either of the kids have ever touched him. I don’t think I’ve touched him in the last five years, come to think of it. He hides in the basement whenever we have guests. About once every six months, he’ll let landisdad touch him, but other than that, he’d like it if we just left him a pile of food and never bothered him again.
But his behavior lately is even more odd than what we’ve come to expect. It’s a little hard to diagnose a cat who’s already deranged, so I’m not sure if we’ll ever know.
elise said,
February 19, 2007 at 9:26 am
You know, I was just telling Sarah the other day that when you have pets you have to accept some problems…my newest is that Beau who is 10 or 11 years old (golden retriever) can no longer always make it through the night. And since I would become physically ill if I had to wake myself every night in the middle of the night to let him out, I have to accept the messes. I am currently heating the garage and he sleeps in there (happily since he associates it with getting a nighttime treat). I just couldn’t deal with messes in the house that my husband would and has stepped in when he leaves for work in the dark. As my hair dresser put it “the bottom line is, having old dogs sucks…” Beau’s problem comes on the heels of a 6 month journey of finding the reason for his bouts of diarrhea and now treating it with expensive food and pills everyday. Sigh. So good luck with your own journey, at least Beau is very loving and lets us touch him…
chichimama said,
February 19, 2007 at 5:28 pm
Huh. I don’t quite know what to tell you! I guess you have to figure, what can you do if he does? Poor thing, and poor “parents.” And poor other cat who just wants his litter box!
Jay said,
February 19, 2007 at 11:24 pm
It’s hard to tell with cats, because they’re so weird to begin with.
christie said,
February 20, 2007 at 8:31 am
pets, like humans, can become depressed and what not.
Talk to the vet- maybe they know.
And that is sooo weird.
Hope you get it all figured out