August 2, 2017
Dear City,
I’m really struggling … I really hate my home life now. My cat is ruined and now it’s making my life miserable.
Out of kindness and compassion, I had adopted this botched declaw older cat from the shelter. He had been given up for urinating outside the box and had been at the shelter for a long time. He was in pain. I felt bad for him and no one wanted to help him.
So I adopted him and gave him a loving home.
But frankly I keep regretting saving him. He relapses and urinates everywhere, all over my stuff.
Of course I’ve had the medical checks, multiple urinalysis and he has a clean bill of health. It’s purely behavioral. I’ve tried so many things, spent so much time and energy and some money, worked with so many medicines and professionals, from Western to holistic to more. He has already received paw repair surgery, and I’ve been in touch with the PawProject.org for help.
I’m already very knowledgeable about cat behavior and have fostered numerous cats and kittens and worked at cat rescues, but he is the worst problem cat I’ve ever had.
So many behavior problems — the anxiety and inability to deal with stress because he can’t relieve stress through scratching, which is what cats do. He can’t really run or jump because of his pain in his front paws, so he can’t exercise to relieve stress or feel good.
He can’t climb at all because his paws are so mutilated, which means he can’t do the climbing that cats enjoying or need to do to escape if needed — leaving him feeling nervous, vulnerable, anxious, fearful of changes. He is emotionally damaged and psychologically damaged because he has been reduced to a helpless prey animal who can barely run away and can’t escape by climbing. He’s not able to play by climbing and leaping and running, and if you can’t do the things you enjoy, you get depressed.
Since he can’t handle stress appropriately, his response to stress is to urinate or spray the walls (or the dishwasher). When he is past his stress threshold (which is very low), he urinates uncontrollably when faced with anything he dislikes or makes him uncomfortable, such as if I try to give him any meds or he sees the landscaper blowing leaves too close to his windows. He is extremely sensitive to any stress and that includes stress from me when I find his urine on my furniture, which only exacerbates his stress and the cycle continues and the pattern hardens.
He is a loving and sweet cat, otherwise. But I know I am his last stop before euthanasia (because the sanctuary options are not better).
He was abused (mutilated and left in pain) and abandoned at the shelter before I got him. These left emotional scars and psychological damage that I have to struggle with every day during his relapses. One stressor sets him off and the following week is filled with urine everywhere, my upset and angst, his fear, our stress.
I now hate living with him.
I hate living like this. I hate living in constant fear that he will urinate on any item of clothing that falls onto the floor (somehow due to the pain of declaw, he has learned to prefer to urinate on soft clothes on the floor), I hate walking into the house wondering where he peed this time — the rug, the carpet, the bathroom mat, the bathroom tub, the kitchen floor, the kitchen mat, the wall, my furniture, my workout bag, my bag for work, my shoe rack.
I’ve started hating coming home because I dread the urine and the cleanup. I’ve started trying to live in my car as much as I can to escape him. I had the opportunity to travel for work and stay at a hotel and I jumped on it, eager to stay at a hotel and not have to see or deal with him. He yowls at me constantly for attention and playtime and if I don’t play with him immediately, he will urinate on my rug or spray the wall, right in front of me.
He is extra needy because he can’t fulfill his psychological needs of exercise on his own, so he depends on me to play with him and socialize. He has fursiblings who respect him and want to play with him but he only wants to play with me … or else. I hate being late for my appointments and meetings because I suddenly found a new puddle of his urine somewhere as I was trying to leave.
It’s like living with an alcoholic. You get periods of sobriety (no peeing outside the box) followed by relapses of urine everywhere outside the box, followed by anger/sadness/disgust, aggressive prevention, passive prevention … then the cycle repeats.
I really hate living like this, with this emotionally damaged cat who urinates everywhere.
But, after this, I will probably never save another declawed cat again.
The emotional and psychological damage done to cats by cutting off their 10 toe bones at the first knuckle creates pain for many cats and the people who care enough to try to help them.
He is upset and confused and wonders why I don’t seem to love him anymore or want to play with him, but the truth is that I hate living with him because I am constantly worried about and fearful of where he will urinate next. I don’t want to keep him locked in a room but I hate letting him have run of our small home. Because of all the time and energy I spent trying to launder my rugs and furniture of his pee or cleaning the pee off the carpet etc, I have no time left to play with him.
Or motivation to play with him.
Yes, I resent him for doing this to me. And he is confused and upset by this.
What a sad situation.
How many declawed cats with such problems simply get dumped or euthanized because people don’t want to deal with this.
From one of your supporters.
IF YOU WANT TO HELP END THIS LEGAL CAT CRUELTY AND AB– USE, PLEASE GO TO MY WEBSITE, WWW.CITYTHEKITTY.COM AND SIGN UP TO BE A CITY THE KITTY CRUSADER. LET’S END DECLAWING ONCE AND FOR ALL!
ALSO PLEASE SIGN MY PETITIONS TO CORNELL, AAFP, AAHA, MARS INC., AND PURINA TO INSPIRE THEM TO HELP US END DECLAWING. https://citythekitty.org/my-petitions/
