We all do what we can to make sure our pets are happy and healthy. We pay for their medical check-ups and vaccinations. We buy the best food. We entertain them with toys and exercise. But despite our very best efforts, sometimes the pet diverges from the straight and narrow, goes rogue and becomes a delinquent pet.
Today we will explore these issues of pet psychology with our guest, well-known cat psychologist, Dr. Gato Pussi.
Pterosaurish: Welcome to the program Dr. Pussi. We are all interested in hearing what you have to say about how owners can best prevent their pets from developing serious psychological disorders.
Dr. Pussi: Thank you so much. Frankly, a lot of a pet's psychological well-being depends on its owners.
Let's start today by picking up a typical example of what can go wrong in an owner-pet relationship and how the pet can be disturbed for life by the experience.
Here is a case that was recently reported to my clinic by one of my interns.
A female cat — we will call her "P" to protect her identity — has been living in her owners' house now for 12 years. Found languishing under a shrine where she had been discarded by her first owners, she was brought into her new place at still a very early age, perhaps several months old. Her life, therefore, began in trauma, but — dutifully — her owners undertook to overcome the dysfunction of her early months by welcoming her and providing the stability and security that they thought she needed.
There were already two female cats in the house, so introducing a third was clearly establishing an uncertain balance. Groups of three are notoriously unstable among humans, so this seemingly small defect in P's new environment might have planted the seeds for her formative pathology.
This was probably the initial mistake.
The first symptoms of her disorder appeared the very first evening of her arrival. She immediately decided that the other two cats were totally unnecessary to a happy and fulfilling cat-human relationship and did her best to pester and attack the other two pets, hoping to make them move out. Only the timely intervention by the oldest cat prevented P from asserting a problematic dominance in the household. These periodic "interventions" notwithstanding, P continued over the years to test the limits. When the oldest cat died, the second cat — totally lacking in any aggressive genes — was exposed to P's relentless persecution.
The evolution of P's chronic condition continued.
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| P at rest |
And soon, to replace the oldest cat who had died, a new kitten (male) was brought into the household. P's refusal to accept any additional challenge to her position in the house caused her to try to kill the new cat at every turn. So aggressive was her behavior that the two of them had to be separated completely. Neither was allowed out of a closed room while the other had run of the house.
The newcomer, for his part, admittedly provoked P and can be blamed for some of the "acting out" that became more prominent in P's relationship with him and with the house itself which she clawed to ribbons in her frustration. But it goes without saying that the groundwork for a full-blown psychosis had already been well established.
Unfortunately, the new cat was run over after only three years in the household, but this enabled P to return to a seemingly more stable period of psychological equilibrium. Her protectiveness of her territory and constant vigilance in surveiling her domain, however, should have revealed the growing Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) that lay just beneath the surface of an outwardly calm demeanor.
On one occasion, for example, a stray kitten traversed the owners' lot when P was outside. It wasn't long before P brought the kitten — now dead — back to the house and dropped it triumphantly at the door, much to the shock and dismay of the owners.
Clearly their being in denial about the course their cat was taking was not contributing to the pet's rehabilitation or recovery.
As the years passed, P continued to exhibit adjustment "issues" most of which the owners attributed – falsely — to the trauma of having been abandoned as a kitten under the shrine by her first owners. Refusing to see that their own behavior in not setting rules and requiring P to follow them and also introducing a rival into the house, provoking her already well-developed pathology, the owners have to accept a lot of the blame for the problem.
When P would act-out or manifest symptoms of her underlying disorder, the owners would — perhaps jokingly — suggest loudly that P be returned to the shrine where she was found. Of course P could hear these comments, and this only contributed to an even greater sense of insecurity and tendencies towards OCD.
Pterosaurish: So what you are saying is that the owners themselves contributed to the problems that P was suffering from?
Dr. Pussi: Yes, there is no question about it. Though they were well-meaning and did all the things owners are supposed to do in raising a cat, certain of their actions undermined their well-intended behavior and caused P to suffer this psychological condition.
Pterosaurish: So what did you recommend for treatment?
Dr. Pussi: I first prescribed a regimen of drug therapy, involving powdered catnip, but P proved to be resistant to this remedy, so I had to go to the next level and prescribe "matatabi", a relative of the kiwifruit plant, which has a psychotropic effect on a cat's nervous system.
Pterosaurish: And was this successful?
Dr. Pussi: Yes, I am happy to say that this has provided some relief from the more aggressive symptoms of her disorder, but I am also recommending behavioral modification and counseling for the owners as a part of a complete rehabilitation program.
Pterosaurish: Well... we hope for the best for this poor kitty. Thank you so much for being with us today, Dr. Pussi. We look forward to having you back again to discuss other pet-owner problems and how they can be resolved.
Dr. Pussi: Thank you for having me; it's been my pleasure.
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