[Finn]

I have two girls. They are litter mates. And have only been apart for the first six months of their lives, and even then, they saw each other on a regular basis. Which isn't really my point. But anywho.
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I have had Neko from eight weeks, and she is a wonderful cat. I got her to replace my last cat who had been twenty. And she's doing an amazing job.

I love her to pieces. Same with her sister. Neko, the one I've had from the start has separation anxiety. It's fairly uncommon in cats. But she does have it. She wants to be with me every minute of the day. And has problems when I leave for a couple of hours. She's gotten better, now she will talk to the rest of my family when I'm gone, but before all she would do was sit at the window and wait for me to get home. She still stops whatever she's doing and comes to my side the minute I walk in the door. And from then on she will constantly check in on me, make sure I'm still there. My biggest problem is, I do live in pet care as a part time job, which means that every few months I have to go away from anywhere for a few days to a few weeks. When I do that she still eats, but she is very unhappy. And will pee on my bed and wait for me to come home. I'm always in trouble when I go away for a few days, but as soon as I'm home she forgives me. Does anyone know how I can handle this?

I do have some issues with her, but they are medical and we are trying our best to deal with it. She suffers from chronic urinary tract infections during which she develops crystals in her urine and a high pH. Due to this we have gone to the vet for her pretty much once a month since I've had her. Which is starting to get a little pricey. And so far, for all of the tests that they've done and even the specialist we've seen. There has been nothing found, other than she has a very small bladder. No stones, and no bacteria. Is it possible that the two are connected?

 

[mahas_human]

It is possible. Stress and anxiety can do all kinds of crazy things to our bodies and can do the same to animals. Have you discussed this with your vet? They have things that are supposed to help with cat anxiety. I haven't tried it yet, but would like to because I have the same problems with Ma-Ha. She hasn't made herself sick, but she gets really stressed out and messes up the house whenever I go anywhere without her. I'm not even allowed to step outside for a couple minutes. She saw me putting my coat on once and ran over to sit right in front of the door to try to keep me from going out. So yeah, talk to your vet about cat anxiety remedies and see if that helps! Good luck!

 

[BarkingPup]

If you can find them Feliway and Rescue Remedy are some things that can calm your cat down. In Canada they can only be sold by vets and are pricey so I don't use them all the time. I did use Feliway when I was introducing Sugar to Skooma and it went smashing.

If your cat has chronic urinary tract infections I would look into switching to grain-free high quality wet food. Or, even better, raw. Cats are desert animals and don't have much of a drinking drive and kibble has almost no inherent moisture.

For training.... perhaps getting the other family members to start showering treats, love and attention instead of you? By removing yourself from the equation she may warm up to the others and not be so attached to you. It might be hard and she'll probably protest but that's all I can think of. Skooma had serious separation anxiety (the workers in the house above me said they always knew when I left because they could hear Skooma howl... through the sounds of laying tile and wood flooring...) but once I got another cat she was fine. Now they have separation anxiety from each other but I suppose that's better than me.