Can Cats Get PTSD?

June 28, 2015 By: The Paws and Effect Gang15 Comments

Dear Most Esteemed and Knowledgeable Kitties:

A terrified white cat looks at the object of her fear

I have a beautiful cat who was a rescue kitten that I got at 8 weeks old, she was found by a mechanic at about 4 weeks old in a car engine hiding and covered in oil. She had been kicked and was almost dead, and she was at the vet on life support for two days. When I got her, she was terrified and stayed clinging to a chair for two whole days. Olive is now 2-1/2 years old, she has anxiety, is hypervigilant and has a high startle response, but otherwise is very playful, loving, and a very special girl. She loves my cuddles and I adore her. However, Olive will not use any litter tray. She pees on blankets, the mattress in my spare bedroom, clothes, anything that she can reach, she pees on. Even today, a blanket had been blown off my washing line and had fallen on the ground, and she chose to pee on the blanket despite having a whole garden to use. I took her to a vet who didn’t check her for a UTI — she was there as she had a cat bite on her face from a fight as she is very territorial about her house — but when I mentioned it the vet said the peeing is not a medical issue, its a behavioral one, that she has such high levels of anxiety that this could be an underlying trigger for peeing on soft items. He recommend anti-anxiety medication which I am unsure about. I wonder if she does have PTSD from early life trauma/abuse. I have two other cats who she absolutely adores; they preen each other and play together, and the other two always use the litter box. Olive doesn’t pee anywhere she sleeps or I sleep, so my bed and sofas appear to be safe. But this problem is really causing me a lot of stress too as I have the biggest pile of unending laundry and I don’t know what to do to help her or stop this behavior. Any advice would be so appreciated.

~ Hollie

Thomas: The answer to your main question, Hollie, is yes — cats can get PTSD.

Bella: Post-traumatic stress disorder causes the symptoms you’re mentioning: hypervigilance, anxiety, fighting and inappropriate elimination.

Thomas: Trauma causes real physiological changes in the brain, and even though you humans say our brains aren’t as complex as yours, we’re still mammals and we still have the same kind of brains as you.

Bella: The changes that happen in the brain are very basic and they occur in areas that are all about stress response, regulating emotional responses, and ability to differentiate past from present.

Thomas: Inappropriate urination, when not caused by medical problems, is a sign of territorial stress and emotional discomfort. Although Olive feels safe and comfortable with you, she pees on other objects because the smell of her urine gives her comfort and eases her fear.

Bella: So what can you do about it? Well, that short course of anti-anxiety medication your vet recommended will ease the PTSD-generated stress response and allow her to reprogram her mind as she realizes she’s safe.

Thomas: Mama knows a little bit about PTSD from personal experience, and she says that when she’s feeling really anxious, sometimes a little Bach Rescue Remedy helps. You can get the regular kind, preserved in alcohol, and rub a drop or two into the fur on the top of her head.

Bella: But there’s also a version just for pets that is preserved in glycerine.

Thomas: When Olive has a major episode — for example, if she gets in a fight with one of her housemates — try giving her some Rescue Remedy. It’s even better if you can give it before the fight, so if you see her revving up and getting aggressive, give the Rescue Remedy then.

Bella: Now, about the peeing. The first thing we’d recommend is that if you only have one litter box, get at least one more. Most behaviorists recommend one litter box per cat, plus one extra.

Thomas: The reason we say this is, it could be that Olive feels that she can’t use the litter box because it “belongs to” the other cats.

Bella: Even though Olive seems to be the aggressor in territorial fights, your other cats may have conveyed to her that the litter box belongs to them and them only.

Thomas: There’s a cat litter called Cat Attract that may help get her into the litter box. We’ve never tried it ourselves, but some of our cat blogging friends have had good results with it, so you may want to try that as well.

Bella: You’re also going to want to increase her confidence by playing with her in the problem areas of the house. Interactive play with a string or feather toy can do wonders to help a cat feel like she owns a space.

Thomas: Celebrity behaviorist Jackson Galaxy, star of Animal Planet’s awesome My Cat From Hell, actually dealt with Mia, a cat who had PTSD.

Bella: With another cat Xena, he used some of his Spirit Essences (flower essences) to help ease her symptoms. In conjunction with anti-anxiety medication, addition of litter boxes and confidence-building, these essences might help Olive, too.

Thomas: How about you other readers? Have you had a cat with PTSD? How did you help him or her?

Bella: Please tell us about your experiences in the comments!

Frances

My Jelly has some degree of PTSD and when we rescued her I put her on a schedule. She had a lot of food anxiety, and inappropriate peeing as well. We have a large bathroom that is the size of a small room, so I put a bed there, her own litter box, and her food bowl. For the first couple of months she spent a lot of time in her room, Then, when she started to explore the house, I put her back in her room throughout the day for her food and naps. After a couple of years, she now hangs out with the other cats and seems relaxed and happy. The peeing has not stopped completely, but she does use her litter box. A private safe retreat with “nap times” seemed to help her a lot. I’m definitely going to try the other tips in the article – Thanks, Bella and Thomas, I read your column faithfully.
Susan Langer

I’ve used Jackson Galaxy’s Spirit Essences with a rescue cat who always marked his territory. It has worked well and the marking has stopped. Could your cat be reacting to being outdoors? Cats with high anxiety and PTSD do better in a smaller, confined area until their anxiety is treated.:)
Rd

lottsa gd info about ptsd in cats
im a vet an can relate
what is bach rescue remedy and where can i get it ??
pet store or vet maybe
thanks in advance
Rd
- Misha
  
  Just click on the link in the answers from Thomas “Bach Rescue Remedy” and you’ll be directed to the seller. Unfortunately the three words are not really outstanding in color or bold. Good luck.
Dorlis /grote

My Annie has PTSD. Her owner was dying with cancer and was going to put her to sleep if she could not find a home like hers so my vet kept asking me if I wouldn’t take her (I have the word sucker written on my forhead). So I took her home with me. She went from a single wide trailer to large house with a basement, one person only to 2 people ad another cat (19 years old). She came by a cardboard box to the vet’s office, into a carrier to my house . She was also tested at the vet’s office and found to be positive for leukemia. I still think this was due to stress, as she is healthy as can be. When I got her home, she spent the first week in the basement, sneaking up for food when everyone was in bed. Since, I have gotten other cats and her response to all of them is scream, hiss, run and slap and then run away . It has gotten better over the years. I try to give her special attention to let her know she is loved equally. She has never had a problem with litter boxes as I have had up to 8 cats at a time so there is always one she can claim as hers. Right now I am down to 4 cats: Homey who is 8 same as Annie and a brother and sister , Harley and Dee (because they purr like a Harley)who are now 3-1/2. They are all “dump” cats who either showed up at the house or in Harley and Dee’s case came from Walmart’s parking lot. A lady was giving them away, the manager called cops who were going to arrest her and take the kittens (3 months) to animal control. In Lincoln County we don’t have that, which mean they would be shot. Of Course I did not want that so I got 2 new kittens. Annie’s main reaction to all this is to lick her front legs almost bare . I try to distract her with toys, treats but I think I will have to try Jackson’s remedy. I don’t want to use drugs (vet’s advice)because of side effects.
- Dorlis /grote
  
  I forgot to mention that she was alone in the trailer for 3 weeks, with no interaction, just the lady’s sister came every other day and put out food and changed the litter.
Sassenach MacConney (Sass, Lou and Chevy)

My Chevy has kittycat PTSD; he was found in the engine bay of a car when he was 4 weeks old. He has many of the behaviors described; hypervigilance, inappropriate urination (but only every once in awhile), aggression, etc. Rescue Remedy on a freeze dried treat helps some (Chevy is very food motivated), but what helps a lot too, is keeping Chevy in the here and now, and giving him the space, encouragement & confidence he needs to figure things out for himself and see that he’s perfectly fine. This whole thing is a process, but Chevy is worth it.
Ilse Devriese

That poor kitty… She is basically constantly afraid for her safety, it sounds like. I really like the suggestions of the extra litter trays and anything that can calm her down a bit to make her more comfortable. I typically use Feliway to start with. Another thing to consider is a new food from Hills called something like ‘preventative C/D’. It has calming effects and is marketed towards cats in multicat households with higher risk of territorial stress issues.

Lastly, as an owner, you could hire yourself a cat behaviourist – and honestly, I would do so before you absolutely no longer know how to put up with this situation – to help sort out the rest. This kitty seems to basically be displaying a complex combination of the two most common issues in cats: peeing in the house and aggression. Depending on the situation, they could decide – in unison with the vet – to put the cat on anti-depressants to help lower her anxiety so she can learn some new, more productive behaviours.

Without seeing the situation, I would personally try some of the following things in general:

– Play with your kitty 10 minutes a day, minimum, with a fishing rod toy. It will allow her to vent her stress and does wonders in managing the symptoms of this kind of problem behaviour. Also, make sure she can easily catch the toy and that it quivers and hides like a real prey. This kind of anxiety does a number on their self-esteem and feeling like an effective hunter can do wonders for rebuilding it and feeling in control again.

– Plug in a Feliway vaporizer in the room that she spends most of her time in

– Have a special treat to use and bribe her. When she is with other cats in the same room, use it to create good associations with them, so use this treat *only* for this occasion.

– Depending on how bad the aggression is, you may want to do a reintroduction, where you put your kitty in a safe room for a while and slowly re-introduce them ( http://www.infobarrel.com/Introducing_cats_101), before you start the bribing step.

– It is a lot of work, but make sure you clean up all traces of the urine smells she is leaving behind. Green soap, enzyme cleaners and water and white vinegar are all a good choice. Then, if she goes to the same places every time, use a feliway spray to help her feel more safe. Peeing/spraying is an aggressive way of marking territory, and you want her to start using her facial marking again (which Feliway mimics), as well as her nails – so make sure you have several scratching posts and make sure there is one next to the doors to the outside to help her deal with any strange smells that come through that door.

– With multicat household where there is stress, make sure that litter boxes are never guarded (to avoid that, have at least two or more litter box stations in your house), are never covered (coz they will jump on top of the cat coming out of a box, scaring the living daylights out of them), and preferably are located in a room with 2 or more exits, so they can avoid each other.

– do not ever punish her, however frustrating the situation gets. That will make her feel unsafe, only reinforcing the behaviour as elimination is a self-rewarding behaviour.

It is amazing how many cats struggle with this, so I want to thank the owner for reaching out and getting help. I love that this blog creates a platform for these kind of conversations. It is sad to see these kind of problems go on, making owners feel miserable, isolated and helpless and leaving cats stuck in this kind of pain and anxiety.
Quinton Smith

Hello my name is Quinton Smith I run Paw Town Cats and we do a lot of TNR I use soft pads in the carriers for the cats to pee on these are feral cats and stress is high for them why not try using these pads they can be made a depends diaper that old peoples use just cut it to the size of your litter box with the soft side up put a little cat nip on it. I hope this will help you PLEASE PLEASE let me know if it worked. =^..^=
mrobatto2

Get a new vet. Cats will pee in inappropriate places when they have urinary system issues.
Jorta

Re PTSD: My cat Miss Peep was dumped out of a car at around 4 or 5 weeks old. She spent at least two days hopelessly tangled in a bush near a drive-thru restaurant. The employees there said she had been crying for help for at least 2 days (sadly, they didn’t try to help her). When my daughter rescued her, she was terribly weak and traumatized. She “nursed” on my earlobe for several weeks afterward and except for a nervous temperament, made a full recovery. I had her spayed at 3 months. The vet said her ovaries were absolutely huge! Ever since then, she has major separation anxiety and can’t stand to be confined or held against her will. Otherwise she is a very laid-back darling who diligently cares for me since I have a chronic debilitating illness, and she has two “babies” that she cares for as if they were her own kittens. Although she is a mostly indoor cat, she is extremely territorial and attacks any cat that comes near our yard or patio. If I try to interfere, I quickly regret it because her temper turns on me! I know this is normal behavior. The same happens at the vet’s–we can’t even have her claws trimmed without anesthetizing her or there will be injuries–one vet visit actually ended with me at the human ER. Miss Peep is nearly 9 years old now but I accept her limitations as she does mine. She is a caring, diligent registered Therapy cat, and shows great concern when I am having a bad time of it, but I believe the abuse she suffered as a tiny kitten definitely molded her behavior as an adult. She may not remember her actual abandonment and suffering but it affects her to this day.
Kaitlyn Knight

Almost 2 weeks ago, my boyfriend and I lost our apartment to a fire that started in the bedroom. While we were not home, our two cats were still in the house when it happened. The firefighters rescued them, but they both had to stay at the vet clinic for about four days. They have been in our new home for about a week, however our male cat Oliver has been acting really weird. He’s been very affectionate, but doesnt like to be alone at all– he insists on sleeping with us at night. But he’s been peeing on things other than the litterbox. Last night, he peed on our bed while we were sleeping, imagine waking up to a cat peeing on you! He also does not want anything to do with strangers, and when anybody opens the front door to the house (like when we come home or somebody comes over) he runs and hides! In fact, he has been just hiding behind the couch a lot lately, for no reason at all. I dont know if this is a PTSD thing or if it is a fear of a new environment. Our female cat seems to be doing just fine– just as playful as always… Please help. Tell me how I can calm him and help him adapt.
Faie Hennaberry

My cat has PTSD. Every time the shower or bath is running she runs in to watch it. When I’m trying to get in she tries to bite my foot & is clearly upset. She’s had repeated trauma & is terrified of everything. She’s been like this all her life & it’s getting worse. When she’s freaking out I’ll chant a very melodic, soothing sound & it always calms her down but it’s not enough. Where can I find a doctor/vet to prescribe an antidepressant for my cat? It breaks my heart to see her like this. Thank You!
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Jc Lundy

That cat has got to gao

Can Cats Get PTSD?

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