My cat is so scared all the time!

Question
QUESTION: Hi there,

My wife and I have two cats, one boy called Tai and one girl called Molly. Tai is a ginger tom and Molly is a black and white moggy. They are one year old and are brother and sister.

Tai is a typical ginger tom, loves socialising and human contact and is very loving. Purrs all the time, even when he is sleeping, he is our dream cat!

Molly is different. She is very timid, hates me (Dan), cannot go anywhere without either racing to it or doing it when she thinks nobody is looking. She will gladly spend the entire day hiding under our bed or in the shed or any other place she sees fit just so that she cannot be touched. She won't venture out of the garden and hates other cats apart from Tai. Even if my wife or I walk past her she will dart past us or run away to the nearest hiding spot. She cowers when you try to stroke her. She never bites and she never scratches in fear. If you pick her up she will stay there very still until you put her down. It scares us because she is the exact opposite of Tai. We always handled both of them when they were kittens. We had them since they were 7-8 weeks old. She has gotten progressively worse.

I don't personally think she'll be alive for very much longer because she is always so nervous, I feel she will literally end up scaring herself to death. We thought getting two cats would be the better option so that they bring the best out in each other. Molly will happily chase and be chased by Tai but as soon as she hears us, she's gone.

Please help us, we don't necessarily want a happy cat because we can't ask for that, we want one that can relax and do what she wants to do without any fear.

Thanks for your time.

Dan & Lucy.

ANSWER: Dan & Lucy,

Assuming she has no physical problem, it is no surprise that brother and sister are so different (just look at siblings in human families).  I would leave her alone, not approach her, and ignore her as much as you can (except to feed, water and change litter pans).

I doubt very much that she will scare herself to death.  You just must accept her for the way she is.

Best regards...Norm.



---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Is this the best option? To really ignore a cat that could have psychological issues?

What benefits are there from this?

Answer
Dan & Lucy,

Since cats cannot talk to us, how would you possibly go about diagnosing psychological problems.

The benefit is that, if you give your cat "some space" it is possible she might come out of her shell.  Often cats hate to be ignored, so something might just get triggered there.  If you constantly approach her, how will you ever know what she wants?

I am not trying to be snide or difficult here, but cats do not think like we do.  You can try seeing if your vet will giver her something to mellow her out, but the caveat always is that if a cat believes you are messing with its head, it tends to fight the drug and make matters worse.

All else you have tried saving drugging the cat appears to have not worked, so why not give this a try for a few weeks and see what happens?

Best regards... Norm.