Personality change in a cat?

allytt

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Sorry for the long post, but I have no clue if any of it could be relevant.

While I was at college, I adopted a stray 4 month old. She was the sweetest most loving cat you can imagine.. would suckle on my arm for hours on end and demand to be held all the time. She spent all her time indoors and was spayed at 6 months. When she was 18 months, I moved back home and brought her with me. She never liked the other cats, but she tolerated them. She started going outside too, although she'd just play and come straight back in. Suddenly, she disappeared for 3 days and I was shocked to find someone in the neighbourhood had taken my obviously loved and cared for cat (with a collar) to a vet to be spayed. She'd been opened up and had her ear tipped. After that I was extra careful not to let her out for long periods of time, she'd had unnecessary surgery and was just released on the streets after.. It's been a year since then and her personality has totally changed. She started disappearing for months at a time, she'd come back obviously cared for but starving.. like maybe someone had adopted her and was kicking her out when they went away on vacation or something.. The thing is, when she comes home, she's so vicious it's unbelievable. She bites, hisses and scratches at anything and everything. It's almost like she's in pain. She also "shakes" her tail a lot.. like twitching.. She did fall in to a cactus and was impaled by a spine rather badly at the base of her tail.. I removed it myself and am now thinking maybe it's left permanent damage/pain? Anyone got any ideas? I've managed to bring her in to the house and am keeping her confined in a nice quiet room for the time being but I'd really like to see her happy again
 

enuja

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Behavioral change and problems are often caused by physical problems, so, even if it's completely unrelated to the cactus spine, it might be physical, and vet might be able to fix her. Vets can also help with purely behavioral problems, but I'd suspect that cat that's always hissing, biting, and twitching does have a physical malady of some type.

Keeping her in confined in a quiet room while you make the vet appointment makes sense.
 
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