The long road
On being patient with rescue animals
Clementine had one foot in the grave when she made a last-ditch effort to look for food in an acquaintance’s yard. They couldn’t keep her; we said we’d take her. When my husband first brought her home, she never hid, and she jumped right on the couch like she owned the place. The first night, in early March of 2012, she slept on the foot of our bed, and has every night since then in the nearly two years that we’ve had her.
But she showed signs of stress. The edges of her ears were missing their fur. Her claws were brittle. She was affectionate, but also on edge, all the time. She wanted to sit on your lap, but once there she would start growling, hiss at you, and run away. She started rubbing her chin—hard—on the corners of things, making her chin pink and raw.
She was also rubbing all over furniture, our legs, and flopping around. And assuming the mating position—lordosis—all the time. Literally for hours at a time. We thought she was in heat, although she also went into little trances where she would freeze and her paws would twitch, which concerned us. We decided to hold off on naming her until after she was spayed so her regular personality could come out. In the meantime, she vomited up some roundworms. Not surprising, considering her previous circumstances. She was dewormed.
The day of her spay appointment, I called after lunch to see how she was doing. The receptionist said she was ready to be picked up.
“Already?”
“Well they opened her up, but there wasn’t anything there so they closed her back up. So she should heal faster because they didn’t have to do as much surgery.”
“Um. What?”
“No uterus, no ovaries, nothing. She appears to have already been spayed.”
Two different vets, at two different clinics, independently had seen no sign of a spay incision on a young adult cat. I bombarded her with questions, then started crying on the phone to this poor woman trying to answer my questions—we had felt sure that being in heat explained her behavior. What if she was suffering and now we didn’t know why? What were her little episodes? Strokes? Demon possession?
We also had to consider the fact that this personality was…just her actual personality. I felt a little dread and a little regret. I wondered why we hadn’t just waited a little longer and gotten a cat from the shelter whose personality had been evaluated more (not that any animal’s personality under those conditions is a sure thing). At one point my husband and I, after some episode of hissing and growling, exchanged glances that said, “What have we done?” We would never have given her up, but the fact that I had any of these thoughts filled me with guilt. I envisioned some less-committed owner adopting her and then deciding she wasn’t the cat they’d expected and turning her into a shelter. I felt sad.
She continued to rub her chin raw. The fur on her ears was starting to grow back, but one day I noticed a small patch missing on her ear, with a little blood. She started scratching herself bloody, about every day. At some point, worms appeared again. Dewormer, again. She started vomiting, hairballs, all the time.
The vet said she’d been licking her belly excessively—a sign of stress—and thus consuming too much fur, hence all the vomiting. He gave her a shot and and some meds. It helped for a while. Then it happened again. Same routine. I’ve never met a cat that enjoyed going to the vet, but Clementine would become so irate that she would jump to attack, and become so blind with rage that she would no longer discriminate, and come at me, too. We had to put a towel over her head to subdue her just to get a look at her belly. (My childhood cat would get so nervous when we’d take her to the vet that she would get explosive diarrhea. Which is worse? I’m not totally sure.)
It came down to allergies or stress. Orders were a Feliway calming diffuser and a grain-free, chicken-free, basically all-fish diet (cat did not complain).
It seemed to work. The vomiting stopped. She seemed to be licking herself less. Her chin started to look better. Her forehead scabs healed, the fur on her ears continued to grow back. Her social behavior, however, didn’t change much. She was loving, and mean, and unpredictable.
Then one day, I realized that she really didn’t hiss anymore.
A few months later we moved, and she handled it well. She actually seemed happier at our new apartment. Her recovery seemed to continue, until I noticed she had developed dandruff on her lower back. So maybe the move did stress her out. I felt guilty, because we were about to leave her for five days and then bring home a new dog.
When we returned from our trip (yes, someone was checking in on her while we were gone), something amazing happened: I picked her up, and she burrowed her face into my folded arm and didn’t move. She had missed us.
Shortly after we brought home the dog, she vomited. Roundworms, again. She was dewormed, again. (At the same time, we found tapeworm segments in the new dog’s poop, so it was a pretty awesome week.) Her dandruff continued, but she seemed otherwise okay. In fact, one day, it occurred to me that she hardly ever growled anymore, and she was much more relaxed on our laps. In December of 2012—at which point we’d had her for about nine months—we left for two weeks over Christmas to get married. (Oh, and the night before we left, she threw up some roundworms.)
When we returned, it was almost like we’d come home to a new cat. She seemed happy, relaxed, affectionate without the sudden mood changes, and comfortable. I don’t know whether she just experienced a little coincidental improvement or whether our absence had any effect on her, but we consider the nine-month mark to be a milestone in her adjustment.
A friend who also has former strays told me that one of his cats at first would only be nice to him—she hated everyone else. A year later, she was a different cat. The next year, even better. It’s a process. Clementine only slightly resembles the tense, moody cat that we took in last year. Now, any time we leave for a night or two, when we come home she runs over and greets us and purrs and flops around on the floor and wants pets and is a happy cat.
She is quirky, as most cats are, and she is a Tortie and retains some of the “tortitude” they are known for. She comes up in bed in the morning and chirps for us to let her under the covers. She will sleep cozily on your chest for ages, and you can even shift positions and she might not get mad (no promises, though). Where previously she had no interest and almost seemed afraid to go outside, which we have attributed to her brush with death living on the winter streets, she now enjoys hopping up on the ledge of our balcony to watch the birds. She is incredibly affectionate—like she always was—but with more predictable temperament. I’ve even rubbed her belly a few times (quickly—I’m no fool). She loves getting on my husband’s lap while he’s working—a bit too much. She is still a handful at the vet, but much more manageable. The jury’s still out on the worms—but we’ve had her on Revolution for five months now and she’s had no more incidents. Just a couple days ago I discovered she had scratched herself bloody again, the first time in months. The diffusers had run out and I’d been a little more lax with her food because she’d been doing so well, so I’ll tighten my ship and see if it gets better again. She’s a strange, sweet, awesome cat.
But it’s been a long road. I felt remorse sometimes, daydreamed about having a nicer, more playful, more predictable cat. And I felt guilty about it. It’s okay, and it’s normal—just remember what you’re doing and imagine yourself abandoned and starving or neglected and full of worms and losing your fur. I’d be cranky, too. Sometimes when I look at her cozy and curled up I imagine her previous life out in the freezing cold, and it makes me sad and happy at the same time. They need our patience.
