Tulip Kitty

Sorry it’s been so long since I posted anything.  There have been some things going on behind the scenes that I’ve been reluctant to post about.  But I think they’re important, so here’s the scoop.

Every since she was a kitten, Tulip has been fairly aggressive.  I’ve always tried to downplay it because she definitely has a very sweet side.  But she has some trust issues and tends to use the claws and teeth first, and ask questions later.  While she has gotten better about this over the years, the tendency is still there.  The real problem is that she takes out her frustrations on Miracle.  As a result, Miracle is stressed out so she pees on the floor.  Not a fun situation for anyone.

Moo has been staying with Janet for 2 weeks now.  We miss her terribly and struggle between wanting to visit her and wanting to let her be.  The plan is to bring her home after my graduation next weekend, and we can’t wait.  We thought the time-out would do all of us some good, and it seems to be helping.  Tulip has calmed down a bit.  Moo seems to be more relaxed, and hasn’t peed outside the litterbox at Janet’s house.  The issue now is, how do we keep things going well when Moo comes home?

We talked to Dr. Côté about the situation. To make a long story short, we are going to start Tulip on kitty Prozac and see how she does. We are still contemplating if we want to do the same for Moo. In any case, both cats have had extensive blood work and are cleared to take it if we decide to do so. We’re going to pick up Tulip’s prescription today, so I will comment back to let you know how things go.

I’m not sure how I feel about all this. I’m certainly not looking forward to giving the cats medication every day. I’m torn about giving them medication to modify their behavior to suit our needs. But I guess the bottom line is, there are things we need them both to do in order to keep them in this house. We love them both to death, so I hope this will be the appropriate solution. In paying closer attention to Tulip’s behavior, I can see that without a doubt she is a lovely cat and has a heart of gold. She just has some issues that she can’t seem to deal with.  I’m praying that she’ll be calmer and learn to trust even more.  And more than anything, I’m hoping that she and Moo can become close.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 16th, 2009 at 3:59 pm and is filed under Behavior. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.