I am currently an undergraduate student and have struggled with depression for years. My coursework has always been rigorous, but somehow COVID-19 pushing several classes to a virtual format has made them even more difficult to navigate. Additionally, where my school is located it snows for a good portion of the year - I’m from the warm and sunny south, so the grey skies and cold weather year round aren’t great for my overall happiness either. I have two dogs that stay at my parents’ house while I’m at school and I love them to death. They never cease to make me smile and can always brighten up my day. I was considering taking one of my boys back to school with me, but they are very closely bonded and both get depressed when separated (i.e. won’t eat, won’t go outside, sleep and/or whine all day, etc.)
Enter: the cat.
Since I could not, in good conscience, separate my dogs, I decided that I would get a cat to take with me. I felt that a cat would better tolerate the smaller living space and would get fewer noise complaints from my neighbors than a dog. Knowing I did not want to go through the kitten phase, I set my sights on older cats. One day I was buying food for my dogs and saw a few cats in the store’s adoption center. Of course, I decided to look - one of my main concerns with COVID was that I wouldn’t be able to meet most animals in person, so I jumped at the chance to interact with real animals rather than pictures on a website. There were several kittens, which I pet a little but largely ignored. Then, I saw a large black and white cat lounging on top of a cat tree. I asked the worker about him - coincidentally, the woman working there that day had fostered that exact cat before. I started asking her about his personality, where he gravitates toward within the home, favorite toys, how long the shelter had him, etc. She told me that Mo was about 3 years old, was pretty laid back but “curious,” and - this is what really sold me - was great with dogs. Making a mental note of Mo and the shelter he was from, I went about my day, as I’m not the type to make impulse purchases/adoptions. I waited a while and kept searching for cats, but really felt a connection to Mo. I went back to visit him a few times within the next few weeks, asking more questions about him to staff members every time, and he seemed to be confident and moderately friendly. After careful consideration and triple checking my ability to financially support another, new pet, I decided to adopt Mo a few weeks before I was supposed to head back to school.
I kept Mo upstairs in a quiet, spacious bathroom for his first few days so he could get acclimated to his new environment. Surprisingly enough, he seemed perfectly settled the moment he set foot in my house, laying out in the middle of the floor and purring. I was very excited, as I know lots of cats are finicky and fearful for a long time in a new home. The dogs stay downstairs, so Mo had the whole second floor to himself. I quickly realized that I was pretty allergic to cats. “Not a big deal,” I said, “I’ll take some Claritin and adjust to him in time.”
After a few days, I started introducing Mo to my dogs. I started by swapping items with their scent - I put Mo’s carrier in the dog room and the dogs’ blankets in Mo’s room. Eventually I started feeding them on opposite sides of the door so that they could get even more accustomed to each other. After several days, I decided to see if I could introduce my Yorkie to Mo in an upstairs hallway that neither Mo nor the dogs frequented (so that it was largely neutral territory). I chose my Yorkie as the first introduction because he is smaller than my other dog - a beagle mix - and avoids other animals, largely preferring the company of humans. My partner was sitting on one end of the hall, petting my Yorkie Sam, while I opened the door to let Mo into the hallway. Sam looked at Mo, took a few steps forward to sniff (still ~15 feet away), immediately got bored and returned to my partner for more cuddles. Everything was going well - Mo wasn’t showing any signs of stress/fear around Sam. However, a second later, Mo calmly padded right up to Sam and whacked him on the face. Sam, stunned, got quickly hit two more times before cowering behind my partner’s legs. My partner immediately grabbed Sam and stood up to get him out of range, turning away from Mo. Even with Sam in my partner’s arms, Mo was standing on his hind legs and managed to get another hit in before Sam could be conveyed downstairs. I want to stress that Mo was NOT aggressive or fearful, he seemed to just enjoy playing with/bullying Sam. Needless to say, Sam was very scared of the cat after that. That wasn’t a dealbreaker, however - “I’ll just work on introducing them slowly again, increasing the distance, distracting both parties with treats/play during the interaction,” I reasoned.
A few days after that I was bringing some new supplies into the room where Mo was; when I opened the door, he swiped at my legs and shoved past me while I was caught off guard. He immediately made a beeline for the stairs. I assumed it was his white whale, since the few times he had managed to slip past me or open a door I had always caught up to him before he could make it down. Unfortunately, this was one of the few times my dogs were relaxing in the downstairs living room instead of outside or in their room. Needless to say, I dropped everything and sprinted after him, intending to catch him before he ran straight into the jaws of my beagle mix. I even wound up falling down half the stairs in my haste. Ignoring the bruising on my legs, I looked up just as the cat made it to the bottom step and darted out of my reach. The movement, however, attracted the attention of my half-asleep beagle, Sterling. He immediately went into kill mode - I knew he had a high prey drive, which is why I did not plan on letting him meet Mo until a few more weeks of VERY gradual introduction. Sterling shot around the corner and was snapping at Mo, who was cowering under the dining room table. Thankfully, Sterling had a cone on because he was recovering from a major surgery and, as a result, could not fit under the table and finish the job. I was able to drag Sterling away and told him to go back to his room. I then was able to pick up Mo and bring him back upstairs. Mo was obviously traumatized by the experience and Sterling could not see the cat as anything but prey from that point on. While I was extremely disappointed, I still didn’t see that as grounds to give up. “More time, they’ll just need a lot more time and training. It will be hard but I can work with them,” I told myself.
Soon, it was time for me to go back to school. It was a long drive, so I planned everything in advance. I bought a medium pop-up dog kennel to put in the backseat so that Mo had enough space to get up and walk around, use a disposable litter box I put in there, and drink some water. I also included a small scratcher and a shirt of mine that I had sprayed with Feliway. I had tested out driving short routes around town with Mo in the weeks leading up to my return to school, and he did pretty well. I wound up getting a mild sedative from the vet, however, as he started to get a little vocal and restless on the longer test drives. The day of the trip, everything was fine and Mo seemed pretty calm. Fifteen minutes into the drive, Mo starts meowing. My partner, who was traveling with me, was comforting him, petting him, and giving him treats periodically. Five minutes later, Mo starts pawing at the kennel and I said “No,” very firmly, causing him to stop. There are a few minutes of silence, when all of a sudden I hear frantic pawing, followed by a tearing sound (he had split the zipper). Next thing I knew, Mo was in the front seat, tail up and purring, almost making me swerve off the road. I pulled over at a truck stop, put him back in the kennel, and secured the broken zippers together with a tie before getting back on the road. Three minutes in, there’s another ripping sound - this time, he had torn through the actual seams of the kennel, making it completely unusable. I pulled over AGAIN and wound up putting him in a much smaller carrier, as it was the only containment device I had left and I wasn’t risking my life with a loose cat in the car. Five minutes later, Mo claws through the seams of the soft carrier from the inside. Within 35 minutes, he had ruined $150 worth of containment. And we still had 9 hours to go. I wound up putting his harness on him and tying him to one of the seats - the little b*stard was perfectly content to sit on top of my suitcase and look out the window for the rest of the drive.
“Rough start,” I said as I brought my stuff back into my dorm room, “but everything should mellow out now.” Mo, true to character, settled right into his new living space as if he hadn’t just traveled 600 miles in the span of two days. The first few weeks were full of trial and error - we were still getting to know each other’s personalities. I found out what toys he liked, what food he liked, his favorite spots to lounge around my room, and his favorite things to chew/knock over. It was frustrating at times, but owning a pet always is initially so I sucked it up. He has become increasingly destructive as of late, however. I come home to a war zone almost every night, whether he’s rummaged through my trash, knocked things off my desk, bit completely through his bag of food right in the middle so that kibble was all over the floor, somehow knocked a plant off a high shelf, etc. It seems like it never ends! I physically don’t have enough space to secure every single possession of mine and, even when I think everything is fine and secure, he manages to get into something else.
I really feel like I am giving this my best shot. There have been a lot of hiccups, but every time I’ve said, “It’s ok, I’m willing to work with him, there’s obviously something I’m doing wrong.” He even scratched me very badly the first time I started vacuuming; I noticed he was getting freaked out so I turned off the vacuum, unplugged it, put it across the room, sat next to Mo, and pet/verbally reassured him for the next twenty minutes until he was calm again - his eyes were half closed and he was purring a little. My hand had been resting on him for the majority of those 20 minutes but, for whatever reason, as I started to pick him up to put him on his cat tree (where he feels the most secure) he clawed the whole length of my forearm with his back legs. Thankfully I had just clipped his nails a few days prior, but I was bleeding a decent amount and probably should have gone to a doctor. Even then, I said, “It’s not his fault, he was probably still on edge from the vacuum,” despite him not showing any overt signs of fear.
Now, I’m starting to think he’s just not the right fit for me. I actively play with him for 20-30 minutes morning and night, I bought interactive toys for him during the day, I have several puzzle feeders to keep him engaged, and I leave the shade up on the window because he loves lounging in the sun and watching the construction across the street for hours. Since he has rummaged through my trash and chewed though several food containers, I thought “it makes sense that he’s hungry during the day, let me get an automatic feeder.” Mo’s food is portioned up into five meals per day - he doesn’t go more than four hours without eating in the daytime, yet I still come home sometimes to him rifling through the garbage when there’s NO food trash in there. On nice days, I take him outside on hiking trails for a long walk (1 hr+) in his harness. We have nightly obedience training sessions to get his brain working and build our bond. I have no clue what else I can do to keep him stimulated. I have spent well over $500 dollars in total on passive toys, interactive toys, puzzle feeders, an automatic feeder, cat trees, scratchers, etc. but he still seems to be doing this stuff out of boredom. I definitely don’t believe he’s a bad cat, but I honestly feel like he may not be best for me. I’m starting to feel like he would do better as a single pet in a larger space. I truly only want what’s best for him - I’m not trying to get rid of him simply because he’s a little destructive. I feel that I can’t give him the space, constant attention, mental stimulation, and regular interaction he craves. Additionally, it’s been months and I’m still quite allergic to him. I vacuum every few days, brush him out (with a mask on) with a deshedding tool whenever I can, and even wipe him down with a damp towel every now and then in case I’m allergic to his saliva.
I’m considering returning him to the shelter I got him from. They readily retake the pets they adopt out, and I would prefer I bring Mo back to the (no-kill) shelter I got him from than subject him to a new place. I suppose I’m asking, is this enough to warrant a return, or am I not trying hard enough? To all the people who will say, “a pet is like a child, you wouldn’t give your child away if they weren’t acting right,” you can stop right there. I understand that having a pet is a commitment and I FULLY intended to fulfill that when I adopted him. However, with the persisting allergies, small space, behavior issues due to boredom that I cannot at this point in time alleviate, and two dogs waiting at home - one terrified of the cat, the other viewing him as another opossum or squirrel - I’m really starting to feel like everyone involved might be happier if Mo went back to the shelter. At least then, I could tell the employees specific details regarding what I’ve learned about his personality, energy needs, favorite toys and treats, dog interactions, etc. and give them more information they could use to find him a perfect, forever home. Does it make me a terrible person for considering bringing him back to the shelter?
from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/mgc0qd/should_i_return_my_cat_to_the_shelter/
