Alison, I am smiling at the thought of your cat chasing away bigger cats
I think it is because once they have found a home that suits them very well,
they are literally prepared to defend it to the death if necessary - they
are not going to surrender it to any comers. Then the other cats see a
determined little hopping mad thing coming at them, and scarper rather than
take a chance. I bet you have a fantastic relationship with your cat.

No, I will definitely not give her that Prozac - she has made all this
wonderful progress without it. I gave her catnip the first few evenings
that she went out which someone suggested on here was a hallucinogenic and I
will use any tool I can that does not seem to have risks attached. Prozac
was when I was desperate and before she got the courage to do the morning
stints and it was breaking my heart to see her so distressed, wanting out
but not able to face it at the last second. Now she has voluntary morning
and evening stints, and is settling well during the 'forced' afternoon sun
stints.....She managed an hour yesterday and settled very well - even took a
few strolls down to the end of the back garden and back again. (V. brave
as lots of trees and buzzy things down there.) So, the Prozac will remain
locked away firmly - she doesn't need the added, very real, problems that
taking it may bring.

Thanks so much Alison for everything !

Laura

"Alison" wrote in message
...
Hi Laura,
Sounds like sister had a bad start in life but you have more than
made up for that.
My cat had a bad start too. She was a stray and she is also
aggressive to other cats and chases
them out of the garden.
Sister and Apple sound very different. I just wondered if the
daughter was like her mother
but obviously not so.
Do you think you will still go ahead and give her Prozac? To be
honest if she is getting over the shock
of what ever scared her, I don't think she would need it.
Alison


"LC" wrote in message
...
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