Pet advice - cat acting strange

About 3-4 months ago, my older cat started acting strange. Circling to the left, creeping along the side of the wall, seems to be looking for something, hiding under nightstand. No other symptoms. No aggressiveness or anything.

Next day he was back to normal.

About 1-2 months later, same thing, next day normal.

Not infection, not an obvious injury, still purrs during the event.

When sick, with infection he hides, and stops purring. (one time, got antibiotics, got better).

Google searches show these -possibilities- but neither fits:
1. Toxoplasmosis - circling behavior, but aggressiveness, and doesn't get better overnight.
2. Obsessive/compulsive due to being abused or something. This cat has never been hit or abused in anyway.

Any ideas?

TIA?

Hi Badge!

I would take your cat to the vet. I know from personal experience that there are many infirmities that strike older cats that result in some pretty bizarre behavior. It may be something as innocuous as ear mites oe as severe as feline leukemia or it may be nothing more than just goofy cat behavior, which any cat owner knows is inevitable at some point; cats are strange and wonderful creatures and sometimes they do strange things; at least they seem strange to us. To the cat it's just being a cat.

YouTube Link

Anyway, hope your cat gets better.

I see very unusual behavior with my cats when the weather is about to change.

We have three cats that all react differently when there are things like approaching storms, just before a rain, even a sudden change in temperature.

One of our cats practically climbs the walls before a thunder storm and runs up and down the hall long before the storm hits us. Our old tom goes from window to window before it snows. Somehow he knows the snow is coming and he likes to watch the flakes fall, and once it starts he meows until you crack a window open for him to look through or sniff the air.

Cat are just plain strange, if you're sure the animal doesn't have a medical problem like an ear infection or something, just enjoy the quirk and try to figure out what stimulus causes the behavior.

Could your cat be predicting earthquakes or storms.

I think its just the cat being a cat.

Cats do strange things.


Althought, it is a 'myth' that animals have a 'sencond' sense to detect 'disturbences' within our planet.

I belive this theroy to a degree, but i don't think that this could every be proven 'scientificly'.



Also, i don't know how to quanitfy what is 'strange'. I have a cat that is about 7 years old, girl, and she doest crazy things all the time. About once or twince a day. Sometimes she will start to get realy hyper, and run around the apartment for about 20 mins...


So i wouldn't worry about is, but if you see like 20 threads saying, 'my cats just jumped thru my glass windown, shatering the window, and then ran inland...


Speaking of which, my cat id freaking out right now... running around the aprtment...jumping thru rooms in a single bound.

I know this may sound odd but We just had a simular problem, the cat started acting very odd, Creeping around and jumping everytime something moved,

We just found out that a frog jumped at him and he freaked out for about 4 days,

It did it again the other day he was playing in the garden and again hes doing the whole creeping and putting his back down and jumping ect,

May not be your issue but worth thinking about also, It was the last thing we thought about, It was only that i was in the garden the 2nd time and seen what happened,

Wow, thanks for all the cool replies.

Well, he was doing it last night. Was outside and when he came in was circling, acting like he was looking for something, and walking along the edge of the wall.

We picked him up and he seemed fine being held, purring and everything.

It sure seems like some kind of brain glitch; like he's hallucinating.

Now ear mites can probably cause an inner ear infection which could affect balance, but I would not expect it to happen so infrequently, and to completely resolve the next day.

This morning he was completely normal, able to jump up on the sink from the floor, purring and fine.

Guess I'm resisting taking him to the vet. One reason is the problem only occurs at night, so you think vet, but then he's fine in the morning and it's a month or two until it happens again. He's only been a little sick one time, I think from fighting with one or two of the cats in the neighborhood, but they must be minor scuffles. He's neutered, and never shows any sign of fighting, no scratches or bites.

Truth is, I'm not so much worried about him, due to the mild and temporary nature of it. I'd just like to know what the cause is out of curiosity. Surprised that web searches turned up only major problems. You'd think someone else experienced this with their cat, but can't find it.

Thanks for all the replies. I'll let you nice folks know if it happens again.

Appreciate it.

[edit on 14-5-2008 by Badge01]

Update:

OK, by process of elimination, I'm concluding that somewhere, sometime during the night my cat is out drinking and getting inebriated.

He then climbs up a tree to sleep it off.

Like many over-imbibing catnipolics, he has a poor sense of equilibrium.

Falling out of the tree, he whacks his tiny kitty-cranium, and becomes 'punch drunk'.

My solution?

Oh my god...


Master Kitty!!!


(That made my day, thank you)

*(in fact, my friend has that helmet, and i think im going to give my cat that Helmet too)