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Old April 4th, 2012, 07:01 AM
Kopite1763 Kopite1763 is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: England SE
Posts: 1
How to deal with a cat who hates the vet?

Hi, I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts or ideas on how to calm my cat, when she has to visit my vet.
I have two young cats born on the 9th Sept 2011. Sadly their mother was run over but fortunately, someone found her kittens, who were only a few days old, and handed them to a shelter, where they were hand reared. At 10 weeks old, I adopted two of the litter. When I took them for their first vaccinations, Pumpkin was as good as gold and very inquisitive, however Poppy was a different story altogether. Even before she came out of the carrier, she was hissing and spitting at my vet. She was absolutely fine with me but as soon as my vet went to stroke her, she was aggressive.
Now I've just had them both spayed, and oh the trouble my vet had with Poppy. She had to give her a different kind of anaesthetic to Pumpkin as the usual method couldn't be used on her.
When I went to pick them up, Poppy was still hissing and spitting at the nurses, but again, when I went near her she was absolutely fine.
Once home we tried to get the buster collar on Poppy as she was pulling at her stitches as soon as she came out of the carrier, but she is a little wriggler, and we couldn't manage it (she didn't hiss or spit, just wiggled, a lot). My vet suggested I take her back and they would put the collar on. Well, what a saga that turned out to be! It took 4 nurses and 20 mins to get the collar on her. At one point they thought they might have to sedate her to get it on.
5 days have passed and this morning, with the help of her sister, Poppy managed to get out of her collar. So far she hasn't been biting or picking at her stitches, and she seems so relieved to finally get "that thing" off her head, I'm reluctant to go back to my vet and put both Poppy and them through that ordeal again. I'll keep a close eye on her, but if she does start picking and biting, I'll have to take her back.
So what I'd like to ask you kind folk is, if anyone has any ideas as to how I can calm her down when I have to take her back to have the stitches removed. Will she always be aggressive with my vet?
She is such an affectionate cat at home, and has never spat at anyone before, not even when people visit or say when the tv repair man visited (in fact she took a real shine to him).
She has only been to my vet 4 times and already she has been dubbed the devil cat, such is her aggression, yet at home, she is the loveliest, sweetest cat.
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