Trixie's Story
Trixie was found shut in a house with her owner's dead body, where she had been for at least 2 weeks. You can imagine the trauma she went through, trying to find food, desperate to get out, looking for somewhere to relieve herself etc.
She came into our care, and for a while life was good. She got on very well with a big black & white boy called Felix who lived in the next pen, and eventually they moved in together. A young couple came to see them and adopted both of them, but Trixie couldn't get out of the habit she had got into of searching high and low for food and the couple were coming home from work to find cupboards and bins turned out all over the floor. Unfortunately, they could not cope with this and Trixie was parted from her friend Felix and brought back into care.
A couple of months after this, Trixie suffered a bout of cystitis, possibly due to stress and she was also putting on too much weight. She got over the cystitis and to help with that and her weight problem, it was decided that she should only be fed wet food.
Everything seemed ok after that and when she had been here for about a year, a single lady said she would take her on. The lady was told not to feed Trixie on dry food as it could bring on another bout of cystitis. She kept her for 3 months and said she was getting on fine, but then one day phoned and said that she couldn't put up with her weeing on the floor any longer. We went round to get her and poor Trixie had doubled in size, and as I suspected, she was suffering from cystitis again.
The lady worked long hours, and had been leaving Trixie shut in all the time she was away with a big bowl of dry food. She didn't turn out any of her cupboards as she had the big bowl of dry food. When she came home from work, she would open the cat-flap and Trixie would rush out. A few minutes later she would rush back in and wee on the kitchen floor. We think the main reason for this was that having been shut in for 2 weeks before she came into care, she thought the same thing was happening again, and got so excited when her owner eventually came home. The combination of stress from being shut in alone, and being fed completely on dry food brought on another bout of cystitis.
When a cat suffers from cystitis it sometimes gets into the habit of trying to wee anywhere to get some relief from the pain, and we think this was another reason for her weeing on the kitchen floor. This is a hard habit to break, and when Trixie was back in care and had recovered from the cystitis she was still weeing on the floor, which she hadn't been doing before she went to this second home, and wasn't doing in the first home she went to.
Trixie is now back to being fed on wet food only and has lost a lot of her excess weight. She will now wee in a litter tray, but still has the occasional slip up when she will use a sheet of newspaper. She is sometimes allowed out into the garden for a while, but only when her fosterers cats are indoors, as she is very good at attacking other cats. When she is allowed out, the first thing she does is goes for a wee in the garden, so she is happy to go outside. She has been back here for a year now and has had no more cystitis and has lost a lot of the extra weight that she put on.
WHAT TRIXIE NEEDS is someone who is at home most of the day, because she is a cat that is very, very affectionate and likes lots of attention. She needs to have a cat-flap so that she can go in and out all day and night to avoid her little accidents. The main problem would be getting her over the first 2 weeks when she would have to be shut in. We think that it would be best if a new owner was at home with her most of the time during these 2 weeks, so that Trixie really settles in well and feels relaxed. A tiled or lino kitchen floor would be best, so that any accidents could be cleaned up properly with Biological Washing Powder followed by a spray of Surgical Spirit. It would also be best to confine her to the kitchen for the first few days at least to see how she behaves. We believe that once Trixie is over these first 2 weeks and has access to the outside at all times via a cat-flap, then the new owner shouldn't have any problems, and will have gained a very affectionate and loyal companion.
24th January 2008 - The latest update on Trixie is that she is using the litter tray more often than not, and in a new home where there is no smell of another cat to remind her, she may be as good as gold.
Please, please, there must be someone out there who is willing to give Trixie a third and hopefully last chance of a loving home. Even if you live outside our normal re-homing area, please give us a call on 01502 574562 or 01508 548950.
