Deedee
Deedee came to the RAPS cat sanctuary in 2007. Her owner had adopted her from another shelter and was sad to give her up, but Deedee had started peeing where she shouldn’t and it was too much for her owner.
It turned out that Deedee had a terrible urinary infection, which had been the cause of the peeing. RAPS staff were able to get the infection cleared up, but Deedee remained cranky and prone to mood swings. Carol commented that she was acting like a cat in heat, and a trip to the vet revealed that she indeed had never been spayed.
Spaying helped with the mood swings, but Deedee remained a bit of a cranky girl. She’s not a fan of other cats, with the exception of Charmin, with whom she shared a cage for some time. I don’t get the sense that they were necessarily lovey BFFs, but Leslie says they “respected and tolerated each other.” And one of Phaedra’s comments on my Charmin post back in 2010 was that even when the cage door was opened and both cats could leave anytime they felt like it, they rarely did.
Deedee was pretty cranky with people to begin with, but she gradually got better over time. (Staff discovered that she loved tuna, which had to help with the process.)
Deedee can still be a bit cranky, but only if you don’t pay proper attention to her – if she’s sitting on a shelf in the doublewide and you walk by without stopping to pet her, she might reach out and give you a little smack to remind you.