As you can probably imagine, this kind of traumatic experience has had a pretty profound effect on this little girl. She still, though less frequently as time goes on, carries around toys in her mouth while meowing, I suppose for the rest to follow her. But as I've learned, that was only the beginning.
Koshka suffers from severe separation anxiety, likely caused by her abandonment and the loss of her kittens. This causes some small, but expensive, destructive behavior. On the whole, she's remarkably calm. She doesn't climb things she shouldn't, play with things that aren't hers, and weirdly, won't eat anything if it's not on the floor. You can't even get her to eat treats from your hand. It took several days before she would eat treats from anywhere but her food dish. She also has zero interest in people food, including a plate of tuna I put out for her when she was recovering from a respiratory infection. All in all, Blues are pretty darn good cats, wouldn't you say?
Kosh also suffers from mild obsessive compulsive disorder, which is exacerbated by stress. She chews on the middle claws of her back feet, and has done some damage to them. She also has thunderstorm anxiety, and will hide for hours at the first sound of rain (often while chewing her claws); and she is violent (due to her extreme fear) when forced to interact with other cats. Unfortunately (for me) she usually redirects this anger, possibly because she's smaller than most cats. That just means she attacks me, then goes into hiding for a few hours.
She's been cleared of medical causes to her anxiety, and I'm consulting with a behaviorist about her problems. Desensitization treatment has only resulted in minor improvements, and I want this girl to finally be happy with her life and her home. As she improves, I'll certainly catalog it, so that others can have a "ballpark" timeline for their own animals. Remember, each cat is different, and all require patience and time to retrain. In the meantime, my carpet will still get torn up by the front door. But, I can't say that I mind too much. Just look at that little face, and you know I have no choice but to keep trying to help her.
It appears from all perspectives that I was meant to end up with Koshka in my home. I had been kicking around the idea of getting a cat for many months, but just never got around to it. I had toured the shelter once or twice before, but nothing really jumped out at me - not that I didn't want to help them all, of course. But I had never left feeling like I was leaving something behind - which is very unusual for me.
Then one Thursday (Thursday?!?) I suddenly felt that I had to go to the shelter that day. It was all I could do to wait for adoption hours to begin - I was outside waiting for them to open the doors. I walked in, and there, on her first day of display, was this gorgeous silver girl. I really didn't even need to take her out of the cage - she was already mine.
