Background, Pt. 4

So what did I do that was so bad, you ask? Well, it's like this... Quite a while ago (before we moved last summer, I believe) we bought a harness and a leash for Electric Mayhem. Back when my in-laws still lived within easy driving distance, we used to haul her along with us for weekend visits and I believe that we bought the new rig for her planning to use it when we made the new, much longer drive to visit them in New Mexico.

On a nice, sunny day in early August, I was working out in the yard with the Amazing Husbandini and the three downstairs kitties were crowded up against the screen door between the kitchen and the patio, sniffing the summer breeze and meowing at me to come back inside. Big Yellow Hallway Monster and Little Grey Kitty were hogging the floor (though getting along quite well), and Electric Mayhem was up on the table. Somehow, for some reason, I got the brilliant idea to hook EM up in her harness and leash and bring her outside with us.

In retrospect, considering the reaction we'd had to an interloper kitty a month prior ... stupid.

EM actually enjoyed her outing pretty well. But right about the time she started to get overstimulated, I got nailed on the thumb by a wasp. I let out a very impressive scream (I'm a little surprised nobody called the cops) and that just upset her more. (And probably the boys inside, though we weren't paying attention to them right at the moment.) So we gathered her up and brought her back inside. Things were fine until we got her unharnessed and put her down on the floor. Then suddenly, we had another scary 3-way cat fight on our hands. And this time, they weren't breaking it up on their own, and when we finally got them separated, LGK was staying puffed up and snarly and was ready and willing to tear into anyone who came near him ... humans included, we thought.

Luckily, at this point in our experiences with the new boys, we had already figured out that LGK would often want to go upstairs to retire by himself in either the studio or the guest room. We joked that he just needed some "alone time". So I did manage to get his attention and shepherd him upstairs (luckily avoiding Big Acoustic Kitty on the way) where he settled down in the guest room and I could shut the door. At first we decided to just let him cool off for a little bit, but when he was still agitated that evening, we just put some food and water and a litterbox in the room with him and left him overnight.

This was the point when we finally looked at one another and said, "This can't go on." We made straight for Cat vs. Cat and the sections on aggression and peeing. By this time, we were already tearing our hair out over the spraying activity in the basement and the dining room, and hearing somebody say, "who peed on the rug in here?!" from some corner of the downstairs had gotten to be fairly common. We had each seen BYHM and LGK spray once, but most of the time we just came across the evidence and the specific culprit was unknown.

Our first decision was to make a vet appointment for LGK to rule out any medical problems. We decided he could live in the guest room for a couple of days until the appointment came around. Turned out, he had himself a urinary tract infection. Considering the stress in the house, I'm not surprised. We brought him home with a week's worth of antibiotics and a tube full of trans-dermal ear goo (Amitriptyline, actually, but "ear goo" is easier to type) and instructions to keep an eye on him. Happily, he took the medicine (reluctantly, but still) and there have been no outside-the-box incidents since he's been incarcerated. (However, he's been locked up in a room upstairs all by himself for over two months. That's not really the life we want with him.)

We figured he would be fine up there for a few days or even a week or so until we could read up on the whole reintroduction process. That's when the next problem started to reveal itself ... you can find all kinds of information on introducing new cats to each other. The problem is that too many of these resources also say, basically, "reintroduction is just the introduction process repeated." Well, yes and no, we've found.

There was also another aspect to our problem ... we soon found ourselves thinking that we had locked up the wrong cat. With LGK out of the picture, we started to be able to see some other behavior problems that were still going on. A week or two after LGK went into lockdown, there was yet another neighborhood cat that came by. I think he was originally just heading across the yard, but when he saw me standing at the door, he came over to say hi - and found himself nose-to-nose (again, through the glass) with BYHM. Neighbor kitty backed up and hied himself off, and the next thing I knew, BYHM had launched himself at EM (who had just happened to be wandering through the kitchen) and started attacking her. It broke up pretty quickly, but only because she rolled over on her back and peed all over herself. That seemed to appease the alpha in him and he went stalking off.

After that incident, we decided that BYHM needed a trip to the vet as well. And it turned out that while he didn't have an infection, he did have crystals in his urine. So he came home with prescription cat food and his own tube of ear goo.

This pretty much brings us up to date. LGK did move out of the guest room and into the studio in early September because we needed the guest room for, you know, guests. And since more guests will be coming at some point, we decided to leave him where he was. But other than that, nothing much has changed.

Up next: The Problem and The Plan (and The Players, since I just realized I don't have any gratuitous kitty photos posted yet.)