This cat is about a 6 year old female, spayed. I've had her since she was born. She has always been a bit skittish (and she is a highly clingy cat), but the last 3 months have been terrible. She used to have free access to food and would often eat so much she'd throw up, eat more, and would repeat this 2-3 times every 10-12 days. *She is an indoor cat and eats dry cat food.*
She gained a lot of weight and I put her on a diet about three months ago, very slowly, first moving the food to my room, then portioning out food roughly what she was eating, removing a little each day until she's down to about a cup a day right now. She's lost some weight but nothing drastic yet etc. She is the kind that would loudly alert me if she is hungry so I don't think this is starving her is it? She's maybe lost 2ish pounds.
Then she suddenly decided to stop using the litterbox almost completely. I had to repurpose my closet in order to get her to use it again, so now both her food and her litter box are in my room (which is a small room to begin with.) Something in it's old location is scaring her, but I don't know what as I don't think it's smell, nor are there any new sounds (no new animals etc.) Most of the time, she would use the litterbox, but she still has a habit of not using it when she is angry at me.
Then about 2-3 weeks ago, she decided to start being very angry at me if I didn't brush her at the times she wanted (which could range anytime of the day including when I was asleep, and foten times multiple times per day.) She would start getting extremely angry over this, starting to pee inappropriately, pooping in bad places (including my hair), scratching inappropriately (including me), so forth. This is *only* solved by brushing her with her favorite brush until she finally gets bored and wanders off on her own which might be 30 mins to an hour later. She is oftentimes waking me up in the middle of the night and doing stuff like this, and it's really disrupting my sleep. She does get fleas occasionally but the brushing doesn't seem to be related to that (she likes the sides of her face brushed, mainly.)
She hasn't been to the vet for a while, and I am very hesitant to take her. She generally will hide under the bed for 4-6 days and not eat after a visit, and on the way to the visit she will generally work herself into an uncheckable condition (vomitting, peeing, pooping constantly) so often times we have to bring her back home, give her a bath, and then take her to the vet the next day (or later that day) on an empty stomach so she has nothing she can expel. She often has a fever by this point and sometimes the vet will not look at her while in this state. We have considered sedation but the one time we tried professonal vet grade stuff (nothing else worked, no sprays, no collars, no food, etc) she was so lethargic for way, way longer than what she was supposed to that I am worried about trying it again. She fell off something and just laid there pathetically for over 5 minutes and I was seriously worried she had broken something, and would droop her head into her waterbowl and just flop there so she had to be carefully watched.
I have done several over the counter tests for various worms etc and she doesn't seem to have any right now. The vet's last diagnosis said it was just behavioral and the advice he gave me only partially worked.
So, basically, cat is a nervous wreck, I want my room back, and vet is last option since I generally spend something like 400$ a visit to get nothing and I'm unemployed. How can I ween her off of doing this disgusting stuff like trying to punish me by pooping in my hair and clawing my chest?
She gained a lot of weight and I put her on a diet about three months ago, very slowly, first moving the food to my room, then portioning out food roughly what she was eating, removing a little each day until she's down to about a cup a day right now. She's lost some weight but nothing drastic yet etc. She is the kind that would loudly alert me if she is hungry so I don't think this is starving her is it? She's maybe lost 2ish pounds.
Then she suddenly decided to stop using the litterbox almost completely. I had to repurpose my closet in order to get her to use it again, so now both her food and her litter box are in my room (which is a small room to begin with.) Something in it's old location is scaring her, but I don't know what as I don't think it's smell, nor are there any new sounds (no new animals etc.) Most of the time, she would use the litterbox, but she still has a habit of not using it when she is angry at me.
Then about 2-3 weeks ago, she decided to start being very angry at me if I didn't brush her at the times she wanted (which could range anytime of the day including when I was asleep, and foten times multiple times per day.) She would start getting extremely angry over this, starting to pee inappropriately, pooping in bad places (including my hair), scratching inappropriately (including me), so forth. This is *only* solved by brushing her with her favorite brush until she finally gets bored and wanders off on her own which might be 30 mins to an hour later. She is oftentimes waking me up in the middle of the night and doing stuff like this, and it's really disrupting my sleep. She does get fleas occasionally but the brushing doesn't seem to be related to that (she likes the sides of her face brushed, mainly.)
She hasn't been to the vet for a while, and I am very hesitant to take her. She generally will hide under the bed for 4-6 days and not eat after a visit, and on the way to the visit she will generally work herself into an uncheckable condition (vomitting, peeing, pooping constantly) so often times we have to bring her back home, give her a bath, and then take her to the vet the next day (or later that day) on an empty stomach so she has nothing she can expel. She often has a fever by this point and sometimes the vet will not look at her while in this state. We have considered sedation but the one time we tried professonal vet grade stuff (nothing else worked, no sprays, no collars, no food, etc) she was so lethargic for way, way longer than what she was supposed to that I am worried about trying it again. She fell off something and just laid there pathetically for over 5 minutes and I was seriously worried she had broken something, and would droop her head into her waterbowl and just flop there so she had to be carefully watched.
I have done several over the counter tests for various worms etc and she doesn't seem to have any right now. The vet's last diagnosis said it was just behavioral and the advice he gave me only partially worked.
So, basically, cat is a nervous wreck, I want my room back, and vet is last option since I generally spend something like 400$ a visit to get nothing and I'm unemployed. How can I ween her off of doing this disgusting stuff like trying to punish me by pooping in my hair and clawing my chest?
