Alison, thank you for your thoughts and the info.....you could well be right
with the allergic reaction to the beesting. I will mull this over...I
guess we never really will know what happened this time because I did not
want to take the terrified little scrap out of the house to the vet to freak
her out any further but my money is on beesting. Every day now she makes
more progress, although right now she is fast alseep - she went out last
night at 8:30pm, but would not come in until 6am. I am exhausted as I woke
up and went out to look for her at 1am, 2am, 4am and finally 6am when she
stretched up as tall as she could on two paws and practically made love to
my kitchen door in an effort to get it to open, in the cutest "I'm starving"
display I have ever seen from her. Very loud erps when the fridge door
opened. I think that is her longest stint ever outdoors without food, she
normally snacks every couple of hours, not a big eater in one sitting.

Getting on with other cats
That's very simple. She absolutely HATES them with a vengeance, apart from
her daughter. She plays with her daughter and it is as if our cat 'owns'
the territory of both our house and the house next door where her daughter
lives, and gives her daughter protection. She will happily chase away ANY
Tom cat, despite that she is actually a very small girl cat and normally
toms will not attack females, sis leaves no doubt - this is mine - paws off.
We leave her at a country cattery when we go away for a week or two, and the
man there always jokes when we return....one thing is for certain, she
really doesn't like other cats.....i.e. no cat particularly likes other
cats, except perhaps two siblings raised together, but she is rather extreme
in this regard. He has diff. cats in and out of there every week but she
stands out in this matter. Once, as we were leaving her off, she even went
up to the wire mesh divide between their little gardens, and she punched
another cat in the face who was admiring her as a new arrival - I was so
embarrassed. After her last visit earlier this year something
changed.....it is like she finally became a little more used to having other
cats around....she no longer arches her back into a triangle if another cat
so much as dares to put a paw within 3 houses of our garden, used to launch
war cries and demand to be let out instantly to deal with the 'intruder'.
Now can even continue eating, while simply keeping a close eye that they do
not enter sacred territory (her garden). Seems to be getting a little more
mature in that regard, but hatred with a passion of other cats before.
Very, very upsetting to have them come around her area.


Personality
As for personality comparisons with her daughter, they are nothing at all
like each other. My cat's name is sister, I will call her daughter 'Apple'
here, as 'Apple' is not my cat. Sister is very gentle and friendly, Apple
tries to be friendly but she bites and scrapes if you pet her despite that
she wanted and invited you to pet her, even put her claws right through my
husband's fingers and out the other side (ouch !!!) some years ago, when she
took a fright mid-petting. Our 80 year old neighbours call Sister "the
good cat" and Apple "the bad cat", so that is an independent person's views
of the two personalities who visit them from time to time. Sis is
super-intelligent, Apple is not. I guess this means that sis knows how to
ingratiate herself better with people - she plays a blinder with my parents
anyways...and she succeeded to get the people next door to shelter her when
she was pregnant and then for us to take her when she wanted to leave home.
Sister lived on the streets while pregnant before she found the house next
door as a shelter to give birth, Apple (one of four of her kittens) was born
in the house next door where she now lives as an only cat for the past 5
years. Sister is a fantastic little hunter, but Apple is useless, despite
all the lessons that Sister gave her as we watched quietly from an upstairs
window. Sister left home to live here with us, several months after her
kittens were born, Apple tried to follow her mom but Sister does not allow
her in the house, only in the garden. Sister has all the signs of chronic
herpes, Apple, fortunately, has none. (Sister is kept indoors and babysat
when she flares up with this, despite this making her depressed to be stuck
indoors.) Sister had pneumonia and almost died shortly after giving birth
to the kittens (probably when the chronic herpes developed). Apple appears
to have had more behavioural problems in settling with her family i.e.
relieving herself on their carpet, whereas we have never had any such
problem with Sister....we can even take her kitty litter to my parent's
house when we visit and she accepts that is where the kitty litter is in
their house, so she is quite adaptable in that respect.) With the
scratching of her eyes, if sister has obvious symptoms, such as when you can
see odema in her eye, i.e. genuine itchiness which I treat with eyedrops
which contain antibiotic etc, I can tell her to stop scratching until the
cows come home, but she will not - she is genuinely itchy. However, 99
times out of 100, when there are no such symptoms present and I tell her to
stop scratching her eyes, with a simple kissing noise, she will stop
scratching immediately. (I have told more about behaviour than
personality because I do not know so much about the personality of the cat
next door - I try to avoid the cat as much as possible to be honest, as
Sister used to get jealous if we gave it attention and she does not want it
to come into our house, so I don't let it in any more. It is jealous of
Sister, it wants to be her and it wants to live in her home, it is like
having something stalk us constantly for access.) Their looks are also
different, Sister is pure black, every bit of her, her daughter is a tabby.
Any good ?

Laura

"Alison" wrote in message
...

"LC" wrote in message
...
This poor little thing has had a litany of tests over the years, she
definitely has allergies, she has had every treatement to rule out
this and
that over the years - I don't remember most of them, a skin biopsy
which
took a lump out of her lovely face which proved inconclusive- even
took her
many many times to the Vet of the Year here in Ireland (very long
drives
over several months). Kit has had the best of treatment but in the
end all
vets agree the picking fur off her face is psychological. We could
go
further with the allergy testing, but I refuse to put her through
any more
probing for a result that will be at best 40% accurate. She will
not
co-operate with any food allergy trials, preferring to starve than
eat cat
food. This new behaviour now with what I presume is the result of a
bee
sting, from the evidence, is only the latest to add to the
catalogue.


Hi Laura,
I read your other post about the cortisone injections. Kim gets
itchy and scratches her face and sometimes she gets a swollen bottom
lip (Eos. granuloma) . The vets gives her an Depo Medrone V injection
and it clears up.
I don't understand why your vet think that scratching her face is
psychological. If she is scratching her face, she's probably itchy.
The most commonist cause of scratching in cats is insect bites such as
fleas. It's the saliva in the flea bite that causes the reaction and
it can take only one bite to cause a severe reaction. She hid under
the bed and was lethergic , this can happen when a cat has had a shock
but I wonder if it was an allergic reaction to the bee sting.

I'm glad to hear she is overcoming her fear of going outside. How
does she get on with the other cats and her daughter? I'd be
interested to know if her daughter has the same personality as her.
Alison