Sometimes, out of nowhere, my cat will freak out. Not just like you're probably thinking - it would just jump and hiss maybe at something that startled it. No. At completely RANDOM times (often early like 2-3AM), she will start meowing (almost yelling) and running around in circles with big eyes. It's as if she'd be possessed. We put her on medicine and it seems better, but even the doctors don't know what the cause of this is. Does anyone have any idea what might have caused this odd behavior in my cat?
Add a comment
|
2 Answers
Unfortunately, the only way to come up with the real answer is to observe your cat.
Since the episodes are very unpredictable, the best way to do this is to set up cameras in your house. Luckily, since home security cameras are a huge thing now, you can probably do this pretty cheaply and easily.
That said, at the moment, I would guess that the episodes are an overreaction to something that's genuinely scaring it, rather than truly random. If so, it's probably more likely that it's sensing something outside that's scaring it. Therefore, it would be useful to set up cameras to observe your yard as well. It would also be useful information to simply see what the cat is doing when an episode occurs. It might be that it's looking out a window, and sees something, for example.
If it really is being scared by something, then if you can, try to get rid of whatever is scaring it. A common stressor for cats is animals outside. You can humanely scare animals out of your yard by installing motion activated sprinklers and the like.
But keep in mind cats can be scared by pretty unexpected things too. For instance, there was a similar situation on the cat advice show, Jackson Galaxy's My Cat From Hell, where the cat was being triggered by passing car headlights.
Now, this is a hard-to-know problem. First if all, is she an outdoor cat? If she is, there may be a creature outside or thing outside that is scaring her and specific objects may be scaring her. If so, try finding out what is scaring her.
If you have yelled or someone has yelled or shouted loud or a car alarm has went off recently, maybe she is scared of the person or cars in general. Maybe try to comfort her and attempt to feel better.
Some books say that cats have like sixth sense, (ability to sense ghosts and supernatural things or bad events in the coming) so it may be that there is a supernatural being causing your cat distress or something bad that will be happening to you or the cat’s surroundings.
According to the book, Rebel Cats! by Kimberlie Hamilton, they say about one of the things that cats predicted, “A Persian cat’s owner went away on a long holiday. About a month later, his cat-sitter noticed that he seemed very depressed and refused to eat. Just then, the sitter got a call and learned that the cat’s owner had died.”
And other things in the book such as this, “In 2011, many cat owners in Japan noticed their pets were behaving strangely or seemed stressed out. Days later, there was a terrible earthquake and tsunami that killed thousands of people. Experts believe the cats sensed this disaster ahead of time.”
Of course Japan is cat crazy so yes, but this Persian cat owner story is not specified to what country it comes from.
Overall, your cat may be stressed from something so help them to calm down!
