Hello all
Sorry for the long description but there's just so much to write on this!
First I just wanted to give you a little background on this cat...
A little while ago we go two kittens together. They both just turned 2 in March. One of the cats, Kimber, has given us a lot of problems since the moment we brought her home. She refuses to dig or bury in her litter box. She also eats any clothes we happen to leave lying around. Her sister tries to play with her and Kimber never wants to play and we always end up hearing her hissing and growling while being chased around the house. We also noticed that she doesn't take too kindly to strangers and absolutely hates it when my brother comes over to visit. She starts growling at the door when she hears his car pull up.
Anyway, a couple of weeks ago a belt dropped onto the floor in the laundry room that, for some reason, scared both of the cats. One cat quickly adjusted to it but Kimber was terrified of this thing. We tried to show her that it wasn't going to hurt her but it made things worse. We finally hid the belt and from that point on Kimber creeped through the house like she was ready to be attacked by the belt that was hiding somewhere.
She slowly has gotten better but it seems her fear has evolved into something we can't quite figure out. She walks through the house as if she were in a foreign area. She seems to be afraid of the carpet and anything that's remotely out of place. She walks around on the tile perfectly fine but when she has to cross over onto the carpet she puts her belly to the floor, her tail puffs up and she swipes at the carpet a few times before she finally walks on it. We can hear her around the house at night swiping and hissing at random things.
Her litter box is in the garage and there's a kitty door with plastic flap coverings that she has to walk through to get into the garage. We just discovered last night, after she left us a nice pile of poop in the kitchen, that she's afraid to go into the garage because she has to go through the laundry room that has a rug on the floor and then she has to make it past the plastic flaps which freak her out now. We helped her in and our of the garage all day today and she's made no progress at all. She seems to do a tad bit better when we remove the rug from the laundry room.
What's strange though is that she's perfectly fine outside. She's an indoor cat but we take the cats outside and let them run around while we sit out there. We took her outside today and she was running around like she owned the place! No fear at all...
We're really unsure about what to do at this point. It's getting frustrating because we're afraid she's going to start using the whole house as her litter box and she's starting to freak out our only sane cat.
Any input on this would be so much appreciated!
Sorry for the long description but there's just so much to write on this!
First I just wanted to give you a little background on this cat...
A little while ago we go two kittens together. They both just turned 2 in March. One of the cats, Kimber, has given us a lot of problems since the moment we brought her home. She refuses to dig or bury in her litter box. She also eats any clothes we happen to leave lying around. Her sister tries to play with her and Kimber never wants to play and we always end up hearing her hissing and growling while being chased around the house. We also noticed that she doesn't take too kindly to strangers and absolutely hates it when my brother comes over to visit. She starts growling at the door when she hears his car pull up.
Anyway, a couple of weeks ago a belt dropped onto the floor in the laundry room that, for some reason, scared both of the cats. One cat quickly adjusted to it but Kimber was terrified of this thing. We tried to show her that it wasn't going to hurt her but it made things worse. We finally hid the belt and from that point on Kimber creeped through the house like she was ready to be attacked by the belt that was hiding somewhere.
She slowly has gotten better but it seems her fear has evolved into something we can't quite figure out. She walks through the house as if she were in a foreign area. She seems to be afraid of the carpet and anything that's remotely out of place. She walks around on the tile perfectly fine but when she has to cross over onto the carpet she puts her belly to the floor, her tail puffs up and she swipes at the carpet a few times before she finally walks on it. We can hear her around the house at night swiping and hissing at random things.
Her litter box is in the garage and there's a kitty door with plastic flap coverings that she has to walk through to get into the garage. We just discovered last night, after she left us a nice pile of poop in the kitchen, that she's afraid to go into the garage because she has to go through the laundry room that has a rug on the floor and then she has to make it past the plastic flaps which freak her out now. We helped her in and our of the garage all day today and she's made no progress at all. She seems to do a tad bit better when we remove the rug from the laundry room.
What's strange though is that she's perfectly fine outside. She's an indoor cat but we take the cats outside and let them run around while we sit out there. We took her outside today and she was running around like she owned the place! No fear at all...
We're really unsure about what to do at this point. It's getting frustrating because we're afraid she's going to start using the whole house as her litter box and she's starting to freak out our only sane cat.
Any input on this would be so much appreciated!
