My cat is always jumpy

My cat is always jumpy and scared. She runs around the house randomly, but not all the time. She usually does this after being outside. I know about the wellness center, and read the article about that disease. She only has a few symptoms, and not all the time. She has done this once before. It was last year. She refused to go outside for a bout four months. She is better, now, but still twitches and runs around crazy. She also flips her ears. What could be causing her to be so afraid? The other day I tried to calm her down and she bolted from me. She is eating fine and drinking fine. There are no other problems. I'm just curious if it is serious. She is five years old and had a blatter infections a couple of months ago, but I don't thin that has anything to do with it. She just twitches and runs around like something is chasing her. Any thoughts?

I'm not to sure, maybe someone else will answer your question!



Welcome to a fantastic site!

Sam.

Let me say Welcome to you first. I would try to contact Hissy or Sandie to maybe get an answer to this question.

Sorry no help here....But Welcome to the boards

Welcome to the site! I'm going to move this to Behavior where our experts are more likely to see it.

Have you checked her for fleas or ticks? Back before we had the flea treatments that work (Frontline & Advantage) if a flea got on one of my cats, she would run around like this and twitch her skin. If you don't see fleas, it might be a good idea to take her to the vet to be checked for injuries or illness.

I checked her over briefly for any signs of fleas and ticks, but I will do it again. She is on Frontline once a month and she doesn't scratch, but thanks for the tip. I'm still not sure what it is.

Perhaps there is a ferel cat outside that is causing her anxiety. If she can even smell the other cat it could cause her distress. I would keep her inside only. She will be much happier and healthier as an inside cat.

She stays mainly inside, but does go out when we are home. I never thought about a ferel cat. Our neibor's cat (a neutered male) does come around. She did growl at him the other night, but I don;t know what scares her during the day time. He only comes around at night. Thanks for the tip though!

When you go to pet her back or her back legs does her skin roll or twitch and does she try and bite you?

When you say she runs around like crazy does she run in circles getting tighter and tighter until she drops?

When I scratch her back at the base of her tail she scrunches up her hair and then realeses it when I stop. The other night she woke me up at six in the morning. I could her her liking herself and twitching. I could tell she was scared, so I leaned over to pet her to calm her. When I did so she bolted from my room to the kitchen or the other side of the house. She doesn't go in circles. She just goes from room to room like something is stalking her. One little sound in that room and she is on to the next. It could just be a weird cat.

If she has these type of symptoms I urge you to call your vet on Monday and get her in to be seen.

Feline Hyperesthesia

Do you think that it is that serious? She doesn't go around bitting her tail and she doesn't act this way a lot. She only acts this way if she gets scared by something moving, or a noise that she hasn't heard before. If she doesn;t diplay the symptoms a lot, does that mean she could still have it?

Then she doesn't.Those symptoms are pretty clear when the cat is affected by this. I was hoping that she didn't have it and wanted to just check to be sure. I lost a cat to this last year and because I didn't know about it (nor did my vet) it wasn't caught in time.

Is she spayed?

Yeah she was spayed as a kitten. Her mother was the runt of the litter and I was wondering if her mother's scaredness could be in her too. She just freaks at any little noise. She does calm down every once in a while.

you may check around see if there is constuction or something changing in the surounding environment out side as well... cats are very sensitive to things we don't even think about... like construction on a building elsewhere that we aren't even aware of.... I would definately keep her indoors and just try and make her feel as safe as possible with as little change in the house as possible... and even the trip to the vet for a urinary tract infection or UTI may have been enough to set off this behavior.... I hope this helps and good luck

My mom told me today that our neighbor's cat (a male that is neutered) was sleeping in our yard last night. He has been coming around lately, and that may be why she is so nervous. That is her territory. There is fense work being done between our houses, and so the cats can move about easier. My cat randomly attacked me today. I was sitting there doing absolutely nothing to provoke her and she jumped at my leg and bit me. She tried to scratch me also, but I shook her off of me. She didn't get any blood, but it hurt with her teeth. I don't understand why. Five minutes later she wanted to be pet and was really affectionate. Sometimes I just don't understand her. Thanks for all your suggestions!

Kitty Queen, please click here and read this thread about stopping aggression toward people. Read the section on redirected aggression (as well as the rest of the thread) for ideas to help stop her attacks.

That sounds a lot like Patches. She has just been very flighty. My mom let her out this morning and she sniffed all over her territory. She sniffed the ground, the lawn chair, everything. Itried to have her come inside, but she wouldn't come. She does enjoy it outside. She has a way to get in if she needs it, so I'm not that worried. She always stays away from the other cat, but she is still very cautious.

Hi! I know this is a late response, but I haven't visited this site in a while! Both of my cats do the same exact thing, my boy cat more than my girl cat. I worried about this at first, because I read about the disease and both of my cats roll their backs, their pupils dilate, etc. But it is like you said, they don't do it all the time, they don't get aggravated with their tails, etc. I have noticed that when one of my cats does this and they tear across the room, the other cat chases them and they start playing. Sometimes they come up to me and I kind of run towards them and they want to play a sort of tag! My vet said I didn't have anything to worry about. She said it is normal for all cats to roll their skin on their back occasionally and to tear across the room. If you watch your cat when they see a bird, you might notice they roll their back then. My vet said that sometimes they do this when they get excited. My cats do, so I don't worry about it too much. They eat and drink and use their litterbox just fine. Hope this has helped.

Yes, patches only does it sometimes. Thanks. I didn't know that they do that when they get excited. I guess I'll stop worrying.