-This is a novel I know but there needs to be a lot of detail to figure out what's up with a cat. We took him to the vet and he non-nonchalantly said maybe he's just a one cat house and get rid of him if he doesn't calm down. I was very disheartened by that since he was a vet.
We (my partner and I) adopted a cat about a month ago. We have an older cat who is a senior, we originally had 2 senior cats but one died about 2 months ago. We moved and then waited about a week or so then got our new cat. Our new cat is 5 but acts younger, he's neutered. He's very gently with humans, never bit us or scratched us/got his claws out. He leaves furniture alone and has fairly good litter habits outside of getting poo on the walls in the litter box room (I think from adjusting to canned food from dry, he refused to eat dry and went straight into the wet after 3 feedings). He is a bully to my other cat so we've separated them. We have a large 2 bedroom apt, so she gets our bedroom + attached bathroom to live in and he gets the rest of the house. We try to switch off where they stayed at first but he freaks out being put into another room unless we are in there (even then he still freaks out if he wants to). He hates being put in a small room and quickly after getting him he wouldn't allow us to keep him in a small room to adjust to the house. He meows excessively for hours and bangs his head on the door and bangs at the door with his paws and puts his paws underneath.
He recently got used to his food and now is always wanting to be fed, sometimes we cave in as he will meow for hours and get into things like left out dirty dishes/random food on the counter (he even attacked a bag of bread once). My other cat has gotten into the same habits of wanting food all of the time, we suspect it's because he wants to be fed and she was pester us for food. We are feeding her a good amount (probably like 1/2 can a little extra but if we go under 2 cans a day she pesters us all day). We feed him 3 cans and 3 times a day, I'd like to move it to 1 1/2 can a day for convenience and in case we need to leave town (I have a dying relative that might need to be go to them anytime since they are on hospice care).
He's not a super affectionate cat, he's gotten to where he will let us pet him more and he tolerates being held and goes limp like a rag doll cat. However, he's not really a snuggler. He loves his cat tree, hammock and other cat things we have. Sometimes he sits near us on the couch and has sat on us for a few minutes when he's hungry and lets us pet him. We our used to our cats snuggling near us or even on our laps so the fact he doesn't want to kind of sucks.
The big issue outside of the excessive meowing for no reason/to torment the other cat/for food is he doesn't like our other cat. He has attacked her multiple times in the past despite us trying to separate them. I once was looking at him then 3 seconds later after blinking he zoomed into the other room when I didn't shut the door hard enough. He's that quick and stealthy. So we put on a bell collar on him which he hates but he keeps trying to run away so he needs one on. He hurt our other cat really bad and gave her an abscess, she's healthy now and healed but she doesn't like or trust him for good reason. He will go to our door when he's hungry and stick his paws under and she will growl or ignore him. He gets this "kill" look and predator mode in his eyes when he looks at her sometimes when we've tried to make them interact in a safe way (him in a kitty harness and giving them wide space/keeping them separated). We tried to feed them on opposite sides of the door but they both ended up not liking that and just walking away from the door and both sides (we did this multiple times everyday and it's a big hassle and didn't work).
When we first got him he tormented me with his behavior, he freaks out when I leave the room or anyone else does. He is always hungry and getting into stuff, he torments our other cat and demands to be let into our bedroom which he isn't allowed. I had a bit of a breakdown and just went "ok, I will try to love this cat best I can and try my best to make this work we are keeping him" as I went back and forth on it since we got him since he is "psycho kitty". We have feliway (or something like it) and the shit doesn't do anything. We've tried EVERYTHING but an anti-depressant for the new cat and a cat specialist. We reached out to a local non-profit (funny cuz she just suggests donations aka you still need to pay her) and despite living in a big city there is like 2-3 cat behaviorists here and they all want 100-300$ an hour for just a skype session!!!! She answered our emails one time and it took a week at least. I emailed her back 2 times and no answer so far. I don't know if I even want her help since she takes forever (I guess she's overwhelmed with helping but still, she asks for a minimum of $100 per session!).
I realized today that this cat is terrorizing us both, if he was a human he'd be an abusive boyfriend. He is very controlling and if we don't do what he wants he freaks out. Is there any advice anyone can give us to try. The last things we can do is the medicine (need to get the vet to give me liquid as he hates pills) and that means I'd have to commit to 2 times a day forcing meds in him and it takes 2-3 months for it to show if it will help or not. I've watched every jackson galaxy and read all the cat articles and I'm at my wit's end. We are at a point where we dread him being awake and just wish he'd go to sleep all the time. He also exhausts us and we play with him 1-2 times a day minimum and sometimes he's still so hyper.
He went full psycho yesterday when he rained and stormed. We've put so much time/energy/money into this cat and we don't know what to do. He is making all of us stressed and I know it's easy to say get rid of him but it makes us feel awful to think we need to and this might be his last chance. The shelter we got him from had him brought back 2 times before. I think if he's returned once more, no one will want him and he will either end up in a rescue or maybe put down. He was returned once due to them not having enough time for him (I need to call and ask the shelter to elaborate on this) after 3 months and once he was returned for fighting with another cat and they said he should be in a one cat home after 3 days.
We asked the shelter about this since he was in a open cat room with another cat and they said he was in there with up to 8 other cats for day and never fought any of them so we ended up taking him home still. I know that now it was a bad idea so please don't say I told you so. I've felt like utter shit about this decision since we got him and he hurt my other cat. I just want to fix this if I can or move on.
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/bdb96i/help_my_cat_from_hell_is_making_us_miserable/
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