Lonely? Pining? Or in heat?

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ghostuser

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Bobbie Two Toes is meowing the house down.

About two months ago, she lost her best friend Diesel.
We tried to pair her up with another cat but it didn't work out,
So now she is on her own again.

Then we went on holiday for a week, and our friend cat sitted.
When we came back she was.... meowing.

She wasn't doing it when we left.
But she IS definetly meowing now...

She's fine.
She isn't sick.

But is she meowing from being left alone?
Or is she meowing because she is in heat?

She is showing signs of being in heat but not all of them.
She is calling...
But is she calling for a mate?
Or is she calling for a friend?

The other thing is she has always had an unusual meow, like a small child.
So it's quite hard to tell wether she is now calling... or just meowing, though it is more insistent, and gets really bad at about 4am.


How do we know the difference?

Could the meowing be because we left her for a week?
The cat sitter stayed here at our apartment with her,
but he was at work most of the day...
And she is used to someone being with her all day...

It's incredibly stressful.
Is she lonely?
Is she bored?
Is she pining?
Or is she in heat?

I supposed the final answer is to spay her, which we shall be doing within the next few days, but what if she's still pining?

Does anyone know how cats deal with loosing a friend?
It's not so much the meowing that is stressful, it's the constant worry that she's pining for her companion.
 

valanhb

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Cats do grieve for lost companions like we do and some deal with it better than others. I know other members can help you more with this area.

As for being in heat, there are a few other things you can watch for to see if she is...rolling around on the ground, tail up and kind of twitchy (not spraying twitchy though), trying to get outside, and of course the constant meowing. Be forewarned that if you take her to get spayed while she is in heat, it will be more expensive. Her organs are engorged with blood because she's fertile and it makes the surgery more tricky.
 

hissy

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It is probably a combination of all the factors you mentioned that is causing her to stress out. You should get her spayed, that will help her be more comfortable and will also contribute to giving her better health for her life. The vet can determine if they can do the surgery.

You said you tried to pair her up with another and it didn't work? What happened and where is the cat you tried to pair up with her?
 
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ghostuser

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1. well i don't know how old she is exactly, but we've had her for about 8 months. She was about 2 months old when we picked her up from the shelter. So she's about 10months to a year old... It's quite difficult with shelter cats because there's not much information about them.

2. What happened to the cat we tried to pair her up with?
He's at the shelter we initially got him from.
Unfortunately we sent him back.

I doubt many people will agree with our reasons for returning him to the shelter but they are as follows:

The reason we got another cat was so that Bobbie would have companionship. For various reasons and inspite of our exhaustive efforts, they were unable to get along. The new cat just kept attacking Bobbie. We tried really hard to get them to get along, because we fell in love with the new cat too.

But after two serious attacks on Bobbie we felt that it was time to make a decision based on the fact that Bobbie was our priority. We were being unfair to her by prolonging the tensions. We were being unfair to the new cat by keeping him because he would get attatched to us and we were definetly getting attatched to him. We were also being unfair to him as he really is a bit too active for an apartment.

So we sent him back.
I doubt he'll have any difficulty finding a home because he has such an amazingly sweet nature when it comes to people... but not when it comes to other cats.

After we spay her, we're going to try again with a kitten from the shelter. She needs a companion. Two cats are always better than one.
 
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