Paranoid Cat
May 26th, 2008
A couple of years ago my cat was frightened by something and she responded by becoming extremely wary of anything outside of a 2'x2' "safe zone" in the corner of my living room. She was so petrified that I had to bring the food, water and litter box to her safe zone. After many months of coaxing and 2 years of prozac she was back to normal (except for occasional fear of the bedroom). I just moved to a new apartment, and it seemed like her problems were left at the old place. Then, 2 days ago, there was a loud noise in the bedroom and she bolted out, terrified. Now she won't come out from under the couch. I think she would even let herself starve to death if I didn't intervene. I have other cats that she loves and who love her, but their lack of fear doesn't seem to help her. She's still on prozac so I've upped her dosage, and I already have a feline pheromone diffuser plugged in. Has anyone else seen this before and have any other methods of intervention?
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We are experiencing the same
We are experiencing the same exact thing with our 8 month old dog. Something scared the living daylights out of it yesterday while he was running with my husband, and we can't figure out what it was. Now he's just cowering in corners, and if we can get him to come to us, he runs from his spot to us, looking around on the floor behind him to make sure nothing is going to get him. It's impossible to take him outside to go to the bathroom because he just sits and won't go outside. Even if we "calmly lead" him like Cesar says, we still have to drag him a bit, and even then, he only runs out to the grass and lays down. And that's where he goes to the bathroom, so we've already had to bathe him twice. Any suggestions to this paranoia?