The Christmas season, that is. Our Christmas tree is finally coming down tonight. Normally we have our trees stripped of decorations, ribbon and lights and out in the woods by New Year’s Eve. This year we waited a little longer, because I wanted to follow our yearly tradition of taking several couple photos in front of the tree. Well, we slacked this year. I was tired, or he was tired, or the kids were running about, or we were busy, or something. Today, I had it. Enough with a tree that drops about one hundred needles if you so much as walk by it. Christmas is over, the tree is dead, so let’s get a move on! So, we got a move on, put the kids down for naps, balanced my camera on top of my laptop’s Table Mate, which was standing on top of our coffee table (god, a tripod would make things so much easier!), and took pictures. Our favorites:
This was an outtake, but wound up being great for today’s 365 days photo.
2008 has been uneventful thus far. I finally fixed my sleeping issue by not going to bed at all Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. Instead, I stayed up and watched television, did some laundry and ran some errands. By yesterday afternoon I was ready to crash, and I did, but Dan got me up by 5:30pm or so. I went out to dinner with Alyssa and a friend, and then came home to relax. Needless to say, by the time 2am rolled around, I conked right out. 
I also went to Kohls yesterday morning! I meant to go with my friend yesterday evening, but I was bored and didn’t want to waste gas by making two trips out (one trip was yesterday morning to take care of a few things; going to Kohls yesterday night would have been a second trip). I didn’t see any electronics, and the plus size selection was geared towards women my mother’s age, so with a disgusted snort I headed to the toddler section to take advantage of some great sales! For $43.50 I bought $166.50 worth of stuff (I told you the sales were great!) – four shirts for Alyssa, a shirt, pants and pajama set for Ryan (I always want to type Bean — his nickname — but feel weird calling him Bean on my blog!), and a sexy black pinstripe shirt for Dan.
So I didn’t spend the gift card on myself, as planned. But that’s okay. That just frees up $43 later on this month for me to spend any way and at any store I’d like. ;)
Does anyone have any experience with anti-anxiety medications for a cat? Our household underwent a rather drastic change in early October, and then in the middle of the month Blueboy got out of the house for about twenty-four hours. He hasn’t been the same since. For the first week, we didn’t see much of him. After that, he came out a bit more, but was suddenly acting very nasty towards Kirin, with whom he never had any problems with before (they always got along!). I’m talking hissing, spitting, snarling, swiping (my grandmother had him front-declawed when he was a kitten, so thankfully no damage was done). flattened ears, angry posture, etc. However, he has pretty much ignored Simon, or given him a brief lick or nuzzle, much as he did before the changes in the household and him getting out.
Not too long after that — right around Halloween — he began urinating and defecating in our bed or in Alyssa’s bed. Not all of the time, but enough that between the two beds I was stripping and washing blankets and sheets every other day.
Fast forward to the present day. After several weeks of doing our best to keep Alyssa’s door closed, our bed made (oddly enough he would only use our bed as a litter box if he could do his business right on the sheets — he’ll almost always leave it alone if the comforter is pulled up!), he turned his attention to the master bathroom. Unless the door is closed, I can expect to find our bath mat to have been urinated on or defecated on. Our poor bath mat has been washed more times in this last month than it has since we bought it in July!
What we’ve tried so far:
- isolating Blueboy in our bedroom with food, water and a litter box, in the hopes that a quiet environment would help him to relax
- a checkup at the vet – no infections of any kind, a perfectly healthy cat!
- a litter box in the master bathroom (we have a corner litter box in the smaller bathroom) – this worked for about a week
- making sure to give him a lot of attention, talking to him in soothing tones, giving him extra treats, etc.
Overall he is doing much better now than he was a month ago. He is out with us almost all of the time (before he would hide under the sofa and slink about the house), isn’t quite so rabid towards Kirin (but every little bit they get into spats, thanks to Blueboy acting so aggressively towards him), hasn’t defecated in Alyssa’s bed since before Christmas, and hasn’t used our bed since early December (again, we’re keeping the bed made as often as possible!), and isn’t using the bath mat quite so frequently.
But he shouldn’t be using the bath mat at all. And the nastiness towards Kirin has to stop. The other night I was doing some online research, and found many different anti-anxiety/de-stressing medications for cats. A few in particular were homeopathic remedies, which I had good luck with when it came to getting rid of a case of tapeworms in September. All of the products I found were recommended on multiple websites, and all had decent reviews by customers who treated their cats and dogs.
So, to summarize this long, tl;dr part of my blog post: what is your experience with treating stressed out cats with anti-anxiety/de-stressing medications? Please share, because I want the “old” Blueboy back! Not to mention I’m rather tired of having to be vigilant with our bed and keeping the master bathroom door closed, lest I have even more laundry to do!
And lastly:
- Never underestimate the power of directional foreplay! Not only will you benefit from a man whose hands can work almost more magic than your own (let’s face it, no one knows our bodies and what works better than ourselves!), but you can cut the time it takes you to orgasm from manual/oral stimulation in half – if not more. Take it from a girl who knows, whose prior “good” time was about 30 minutes… Now? Try eight minutes, and even five minutes. Whee!
- Thank you for all of the suggestions on websites and reading material in my last post. I have bookmarked every single link given to me, and once I get some time to play with my camera this weekend I’ll definitely be checking everything out!
We had to put my grandmothers cat on anxiety medication and it worked miracles for her. She went from doing the same things as BlueBoy to her normal old self again.
Want to first say thanks for commenting on my site! Aww, bye-bye Christmas tree!! Nice photos you got though of you and Dan!
Poor Blueboy! I hope you find something or someway to get him to be atleast somewhat of his old kitty self!
Love the pics, especially the outtake, lol. That was hot. I miss our real tree.. hopefully next year.
I hope something can be changed with Blueboy… it definitely doesn’t sound like a good situation for him or you.
My family use to breed cats. We figured cats act like that once they get a little older and there are more cats around. Like you said you should really give him a lot of attention, he’ll get better! :biggrin:
I read on a cat website that they could have gone through some sort of tramatic experience with another cat (that looks like the cat you have) and they freak out. I think that could be part of the problem…and maybe the other cat is smelling a bit different to the cat? As for the bad behavior, i would confine the cat to a smaller space, such as a walk in closet or bathroom for a week with the cat box in the room, then the next week let the cat out into a bigger area with the cat box if the cat was good and went in the litter box, and so and so on until they go in the box. But, don’t let them have reign to the whole house right away. They have to earn it by good behavior. It’s called re-training and it works really well for some cats. Also you could try this litter called Cat Attract (thecatconnection.com) and possibly an enzyme spray to deplete the smell of where they have gone before.
Good luck with the cat!!! One of mine is acting pretty weird right now too, but nothing like yours!
I’ve never had any experience with putting a cat on any destressing medicine. But we have 5 cats (yeah, we’re crazy cat people) in our house. Two of the cats, out of the blue one day, started attacking the youngest cat. We’re talking they’d run after her and either attack her or just scare her so much that she would pee and poop all over the floor. We took both the cat that was getting attacked and the ones doing the attacking to the vet and basically all they said was that sometimes there can be too many cats in one house. They suggested Feliway but it really didn’t do much to help. We had to get a large cage for her, about the size of one that you would keep a dog in, and put food, water, and a little box in it and we had to keep her in at night for months. She doesn’t sleep in it anymore at night, but she still only uses the litter box in it. Things have gotten a little better with the others cats, but she still growls and hisses if they come near her.
Obviously my comment isn’t a whole lot of help
But the two things the vet said was too many cats in a house and to try Feliway.
I know this is totally ignorant to suggest, as I have no idea, but what does the vet say about letting him outside? I mean, if he’s depressed since last being allowed out… Meh. Probably not if he has the anxiety. He probably saw something scary out there. Meh. Either way, good luck with Blueboy if he gets to stay, otherwise, I hope someone can help him with his problems.
I have a 15 year old cat that has moved with me to 4 different appartments and now a house. Through each move she has been great until we bought our house last Jan. The previous owners had 3 indoor cats and shortly after we moved in my cat starting urinating at the back door daily. I guess she picked up some kind of leftover scent from the previous cats, even though I had all the carpets professionally cleaned.
I did a lot of research and tried a lot of different things. I finally removed her litter box and feed bowls from the area near the back door to the basement to prevent her from going near that area. I bought Feliway, a cat pheromone spray that is supposed to calm cats and reduce their urge to urinate (you can buy it at Amazon.com for cheaper than what’s sold at pet stores). I’m also using the Cat Attract cat litter. It’s pretty pricey, but it’s worked so far! In addition, I’ve placed tin foil (very classy) in the areas where my cat used to urinate. Apparently, they hate the sound of pee on tin foil.
My best advice for you is to research and try things out. It took me almost a year to retrain my cat. Be patient! Okay enough from me, I seem like the crazy cat lady now. And I swear I’m not!!
I don’t know what can help an aggressive cat, but I know what will be good for your beds. Target, and I’m sure other places, has these mattress pads that liquid won’t soak through, and hey are not plastic or noisy. Just in case he decides to use the bed again.
Oh yeah… I know I said this before. I read online that cats will stop spraying if they get neutered or spayed. Is he neutered? My cat used to pee on the couch, and when I got her spayed, she completely stopped. That was years ago, and she never did it once since.
My cat also has behavioral problems. She hisses and tries to attack people when they come over. I don’t think anyone but me has touched her in over 4 years. I wish I knew what to do about that. I have taken her to the vet twice because she attacks the vet.
I know you asked about this a couple posts back, but I wanted to tell you about a site I found on digital photography. I’m sure it would be helpful in answering some of your questions.
http://digital-photography-school.com/blog/
I hope that helps!
I’m like you… my tree never comes down until at least February but I’m ready to take down the tree. I never had a real tree before but I can imagine the stress of walking on the needles.
I’ll tell you what. If he shits on my chair a third time, I WILL kill him myself.
“…I meant to go with my friend yesterday evening, but I was bored and didn’t want to waste gas…”
I’ll try not to bore you next time we go out
She meant going to Kohls too. Were you going to go there too? I thought it was just for Friendly’s.
When I said I was bored, I meant I was bored on Wednesday morning, when I was awake. That’s why I went, lol. And since I was out that way anyway, to take care of some other stuff. It had nothing to do with being bored with you, J.