Hi,
I'm not sure if this is a behaviour or health question, so feel free to move if you need to.
Chester is almost 4 this year, and I've had him since about 4 months old. He was diagnosed with a severe heart murmur at the age of 1 year, and was labeled as "stable" by the cardiologist last year. He is on blood pressure meds and asprin, which seems to be working.
A couple years ago he started doing this thing where his whole body would twitch and then he'd look up at the ceiling, his eyes would get big and he'd start running all over the house. I didn't think much of it, other than he was a weirdo because we've had other cats who have done that.
More recently he started to look annoyed during these times occasionally, and would bite his tail/bum connection like he was cleaning it during the twitchings. I still thought it was just random, and it wasn't hurting him, nor was he being hurt by it.
2 weeks ago my boyfriend and I moved into a new apartment together. Chester is dealing with new surroundings, having the boyfriend around, and some new pets to boot. So far he's been dealing well with this, although he did get lost in the kitchen a couple times.
2 days ago I have been told that Chester was up on the plant stand and knocked over my watering can. The bang, water and yell from my boyfriend scared him, and he ran off. Apparently he then hid under the bed for hours (unlike him). He ate and drank normally however when I got home, but always returned under the bed. We closed the door to the spare bedroom so he couldn't go in there and he slept all night with us. Yesterday he chose to hide next to the bed, next to the toilet or in the bathtub. We also noticed an increase in his twitching.
By about 8:00 last night I gave him some rescue remedy, which seemed to work wonders. He actually started coming out into the livingroom and his twitching became less frequent. Today he has been in and out of the livingroom, but mostly sleeping on the bathmat and he's still twitching occasionally (but not biting or running). Given the improvement, I'm starting to think it was a new environment/startle that did this, but after reading some stuff I'm worried about rolling back syndrome....especially since I'm a student and just spent $1000 on my slowly dying car, and Chester's ultrasounds are $500 per year already.
All this is very strange. Any thoughts?
I'm not sure if this is a behaviour or health question, so feel free to move if you need to.
Chester is almost 4 this year, and I've had him since about 4 months old. He was diagnosed with a severe heart murmur at the age of 1 year, and was labeled as "stable" by the cardiologist last year. He is on blood pressure meds and asprin, which seems to be working.
A couple years ago he started doing this thing where his whole body would twitch and then he'd look up at the ceiling, his eyes would get big and he'd start running all over the house. I didn't think much of it, other than he was a weirdo because we've had other cats who have done that.
More recently he started to look annoyed during these times occasionally, and would bite his tail/bum connection like he was cleaning it during the twitchings. I still thought it was just random, and it wasn't hurting him, nor was he being hurt by it.
2 weeks ago my boyfriend and I moved into a new apartment together. Chester is dealing with new surroundings, having the boyfriend around, and some new pets to boot. So far he's been dealing well with this, although he did get lost in the kitchen a couple times.
2 days ago I have been told that Chester was up on the plant stand and knocked over my watering can. The bang, water and yell from my boyfriend scared him, and he ran off. Apparently he then hid under the bed for hours (unlike him). He ate and drank normally however when I got home, but always returned under the bed. We closed the door to the spare bedroom so he couldn't go in there and he slept all night with us. Yesterday he chose to hide next to the bed, next to the toilet or in the bathtub. We also noticed an increase in his twitching.
By about 8:00 last night I gave him some rescue remedy, which seemed to work wonders. He actually started coming out into the livingroom and his twitching became less frequent. Today he has been in and out of the livingroom, but mostly sleeping on the bathmat and he's still twitching occasionally (but not biting or running). Given the improvement, I'm starting to think it was a new environment/startle that did this, but after reading some stuff I'm worried about rolling back syndrome....especially since I'm a student and just spent $1000 on my slowly dying car, and Chester's ultrasounds are $500 per year already.
All this is very strange. Any thoughts?
