My cat is afraid of her reflection

We are having a serious problem with our sweet little 10 year old gray tabby Pom Pom. We just moved to townhouse that has sliding glass doors, and kitchen appliances with shiny black fronts. Pom Pom has always hated other cats. After we moved, she started screeching, hissing and slashing at the air. We thought she had gone crazy until we realized that she is seeing her own reflection. She worse she tries to scare that cat away, the scarier the cat in the glass appears to her. Right now we have paper towels taped over the dishwasher. What do we do? We tried ignoring it. We tried reassuring her and showing her there are no cats there. This is really upsetting to us, and it must be even more upsetting for her to think she is being stalked like this. PLEASE give us any suggestions you have! Thank you. Sharon

I would break up the reflections with decorative decals. They have some that just stick on with no glue or sticky on the back. It might look a bit cluttered, but if it saves Pom some stress it might be worth it.

Fitzy had this same problem when I first brought him home, I have sliding mirror doors on my closet and he thought it was another room with another cat in it. He would get a running start and jump into the mirror to attack the other kitten. I had to put cardboard up so I wouldn't find the poor thing unconscious one day. It took about 6-8 months of cardboard and letting him crawl under the flap to see the other side so he got used to the reflection before he was used to the mirrors. I tried to take the cardboard off earlier and he went right back to running into the mirror. Now we've been cardboard free for 3 months and things are wonderful, not one incident. I know it's not a very pretty solution but it won't be forever. I hope this helps!

I know this all too well. Our cat, Bugs, is freaked out by reflections and even cat ornaments which are approximately like size and cat coloured... I have a collection of James Haddon cats and we have to carefully introduce each new one to Bugs or risk him scaling the bookcase to banish the intruder!

I have similar advice to Fitzy's Mom. Another way of doing the same thing is to put squares of psper over the window. Over time, remove the paper a bit at a time, so that your cat has a chance to get used to the image. It worked quite well for an old friend who also had a "kamakaze" kitty.