How to Tell if Your Cat is Psychotic

The line between "normal" cat behavior and psycho cat behavior is very, very thin. If you only have one cat, you may have difficulty determining whether or not your cat is psychotic; it's always easier to spot a mad cat when it's next to a sane one. Here are some helpful hints to decide whether your cat is ok.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• at least one cat (preferably two to provide a basis for comparison)
• reasonably sharp vision and hearing
• a sense of humor
• a vet's number on your speed dial (optional)

Psychotic Cat Behaviors

1. Does your cat stalk things that aren't there? Maybe she starts trying to climb the walls or jump up into high places to get at your wall hangings, which have suddenly become very threatening. Maybe there really is some microscopic bug that she is trying to catch. Then again, maybe there isn't.

2. Does your cat seem to hear things that you can't? Does he sidle up to the walls, seeming to listen for some minuscule sound? Is there something crawling around in the walls that he can hear but you can't? Or is he having auditory hallucinations?

3. Does your cat roam from room to room in your house or apartment, yowling and agitated, for no apparent reason? Does she only yowl more when you say "What is it?!" in an annoyed tone of voice? Maybe she even tries to lead you from room to room, apparently trying to show you what's wrong but failing to produce any evidence.

4. Consider your answers to the above questions. You may have to think about it, but you may not, especially if your cat is currently having some sort of psychotic break.

Your Cat is Psychotic--Now What?

5. Sometimes psychotic cat behavior has a simple underlying cause. Make sure kitty has food and water (or was fed recently according to his usual schedule). Dirty litter boxes can also drive cats crazy, so check to be sure the litter boxes are clean.

6. Sometimes there really is something wrong. A trip to the vet may be in order if your cat stops eating, drinks large amounts of water, or urinates outside the litter box even though it's clean, in its usual spot, and has his favorite type of litter.

7. If neither of the above applies, all I can say is best of luck to you. As far as I know there's no such thing as a cat anti-psychotic medication, and you probably don't speak cat well enough to accurately interpret her yowls. Soothing her with petting may work, but probably only momentarily.

Tips & Warnings

• Spayed or neutered cats make better pets. It won't totally get rid of psycho behavior for all cats, but it should at least reduce it to a manageable level in most cases.
• If your unspayed female cat is frequently yowling, keeping everyone up at night and seeming to be in pain, she might be in heat. My spayed, normally non-psychotic cat went into heat because the vet left one complete ovary inside her. We didn't know what a cat in heat looked like and thought she was dying of something horrible.