May 2015
Anastasia (Ana) was an old girl who proved to be quite a challenge. By her owner’s own admission, she had always been a “difficult cat”. She had been adopted from a shelter as a kitten, together with her sister Kati, and had spent her entirely life bullying Kati in every possible way and at every given opportunity.
It wasn’t just her sister she didn’t get along with well. She had zero tolerance for humans, and no one else had ever been able to get anywhere near her. Ana would swipe, growl, hiss and even spit if remotely disturbed. Even her owner had been on the receiving end of her temper on more than one occasion.
By comparison, her sister Kati was a really sweet natured kitty who had fallen very ill a few days before our arrival. Our hostess had to postpone her departure until the vet could give her a more definite prognosis. Sadly, she was not going to recover, and she was put to sleep a couple of days later. But she got a lot of attention beforehand, which she certainly seemed to relish. RIP, sweet Kati!
Usually, we deal with these situations with extra patience, using our body language to convey that we are not a threat, and games to bond and help them understand that being with us is fun and they are safe.
But this time, it wasn’t that simple, for Ana was blind. This meant our usual tricks would not work on her, and we can’t deny that we felt a little out of our depth.
So what did we do instead? The only thing we could do. We talked to her. A LOT. We talked to her in calm, soft voices from outside her bedroom, so she knew we were coming and didn’t get startled as we went in.
We talked to her the entire time we were in the room with her, whether we were giving her food, clean water, opening or closing the window, cleaning out her litter tray or changing her bedding.
We talked to her when she left the room to go for a walk around the apartment, so she knew exactly where we were. We talked to her when she started meowing or howling, trying to find out if there was anyone around.
Little by little, the growling and hissing became less frequent, until it stopped altogether. She started to come into the kitchen when she heard us cooking. She took treats out of our hand. And we even managed to stroke her without losing blood in the process.
Even though we never got properly close to her, considering no one else had been able to do this in the 17 years she had been alive, we considered this a huge triumph!
