Well..
As it turns out, Tommy Gargoyle built up a tolerance to Bach’s Rescue Remedy Pet within about a week. At first he took a nap, and by the last day I had him on it, he was fully zooming around his side of the house and beating on his sissy, Yue, for funsies.
There was one last resort that was brought up during the last vet visit:
“We can discuss putting him on Prozac.”
So guess what.
Tom is now on Prozac, and I only found 2 old spray markings in my room; Stewart told me about the second one after I’d found the first.
My bubba gets 2.5 mg a day in the mornings inside a Greenies pill pocket. He thinks I love him that much more now that he gets “treats” before breakfast.
Overall, his personality is all his, after the first day or two on the medication.
I can go pee in my bathroom and now when he walks in he just says hello and walks out and takes a seat. Before, he saw my “marking” as a reminder that he should do it too, and would spray the wall, the door, or the dresser as he walked out of the bathroom.
I finally feel like we’re getting this under control, and as such, we opened up the door to the kitchen so he can go in there freely. Ask me two weeks ago about the kitchen, and he was banished for spraying in there too.
It’s going to be awhile before we trust him on the other side of the house, and that’s not going to change until we get new couches, because those were marked from Stewy and him. I’ve sprayed them down with Nature’s Miracle, but their noses know better through cloth and wood.
Stewart is not completely blameless in all this. He has sprayed twice since we moved in, and he deeply apologises after and tries to bury it.
Tommy was just a nervous mess. I feel bad about putting him on Prozac, but you know there are plenty of people that would have gotten rid of him for his issues well before this point. Trying ssscat cans, feliway diffusers, calming collars, extra litter boxes, scat mats, Bach’s Rescue Remedy Pet, 5 foot high walls of baby gate, $600 in vet work, and finally Prozac, is not always a route someone is willing to take.
And there was another silver lining in all this: he’s done dieting.
The last time I weighed him he was in the 14s. THE VET SAID HE WAS IN THE 12s. I thought I was getting jerked so I took out our pet scale at home, and he was 12.87 lbs. His goal weight was 13.1, and bub has been on a diet for three years; his highest weight was 21 lbs.
So he doesn’t aggressively feel the need to spray now, acts just like my kitty for the last 7 years, and his lard butt is actually svelte.
Oh, Tommy.