One of the cats at my shelter, a long term resident due to the fact that he is neither a kitten nor fond of people, whether they be strangers or familiar faces, has an official diagnosis of bipolar disorder.
He was rescued on the way to the vet where his owner was going to have him euthanized. He had been extensively abused by a person who disliked cats. Unsurprisingly, he was aggressive and unpleasant to shelter volunteers who worked with him. Some cats who have been abused in their former homes, do come around and form bonds with those who are patient. Some even show a great deal of affection to just about everyone whom they meet, but some do not. In the case of this cat, whatever he had suffered, had been enough to make him permanently wary of people.
Unfortunately, even people who are willing to consider adopting adult cats prefer ones who are friendly. Very few (and who can blame them) want a cat that might hurt their family or visitors. So last year he began taking Prozac, which was a controversial antidepressant in the nineties. Other antidepressants were approved, but at least for awhile, that was the most famous.
In humans, a four to six week period may elapse before the new medication begins to have the desired effect, i.e. “kick in.” After that, the doctor may try a new medication, add a second, or increase the dose of the current one to see if that will work.
Even after several months, I didn’t see much of a change in this cat. He did form a good relationship with one of the volunteers, but I would put that down more to her effort, than the meds. Now my ego can certainly accept that a particular cat, for whatever reasons, just doesn’t care for me too much, but with most of the other people who worked around him, he stayed moody and continued to display aggression in the form of biting, growling and scratching.
I was willing to try different approaches to befriending this cat, but I eventually ran out of ideas. Even the most timid cat doesn’t seem to mind if you stay a short distance away and speak to them calmly (though you may not be able to get any closer), but doing that only seemed to upset this cat.
What did seem to work was changing the scenery. He was moved into a new cat room, which has more sun and as of this writing, only two other cats in it. One is loose, the other is in the cage next to him, but neither seem to bother him at all. While there is still a bit of growling some days, it is noticeably decreased and seems (to me) nothing short of a miracle.
