(With apologies for lenth)...
Some of you may know that last autumn I fostered a traumatised- pretty much feral young cat called Pudding. Her only human contact had been physically abusive, and her response to all humans was extreme fear and ferocious aggression when cornered (many CP members went to casualty as a result of attempting to get her vet-checked or to change her litter tray when she was at the shelter). It took some months (and lots of help from Wizz) to tame her, by which time she'd formed an extremely close bond with me but wouldn't tolerate any other humans. It became clear that her only option apart from living on a farm would be to stay with me... so of course she stayed.
Now... in the ensuing year Pudding has come on in leaps and bounds. She grows more affectionate all the time and constantly tolerates new things- challenging her own boundaries. (Although it has taken nearly a year for her to stop whacking OH every time he comes near. She still won't allow a stroke from him, but does occasionally sniff his hand).
She loves the garden and the adventures to be had there, and she loves her catnip mice and string and -oddly- sticky paper, (but really only when I'm playing with her, although she does have the occasional mad five minutes on her own with a ping pong ball).
But what she can't stand is not being with me every second of the day. She often sleeps on my bed at night. And I work from home, so my morning disappearance up to the study is met with wails of disapproval from down below. If she goes out she squawks loudly and incessantly on her return until I come down to greet her. All very charming... But recently this has developed into more obsessive behaviour. If I attempt to leave the room before she's ready for my departure she lunges for my legs and bites them. If I attempt to go upstairs (which she knows means "back to work") she tries to ambush me and whacks me about the legs or hands. She gets quite agitated when she thinks I'm not going to be staying and playing. She's even reluctant to venture in to the garden without me at her side. And today we went out and she hid behind me the entire time. I wondered whether it's neighbour cats that are causing the fear, but she tends not to seem too bothered by them (though she does have a very vocal and occasionally spatting rivalry with one neighbourhood cat who doesn't seem to understand whose garden is whose!). Because I'm at home most of the time I would almost certainly know about any fights, and there don't seem to have been any...
Does anyone have any suggestions for what to do? I'm of the extremely gentle school of discipline and in any case I don't want to undo any of the good progress she's made in human bonding. Occasionally when she's in anxious biting mode I pick her up (certainly not her favourite thing) and hug her tightly, giving her lots of strokes. She does purr (almost despite herself) when I do this, and often it seems to calm her down (or perhaps it just puts her off approaching me again!)
She can be quite the little madam when she wants to be. Demands for the back door to be left open (despite the perfectly good catflap) are usually accompanied by threats to whack if one tries to shut it. My response to the whacking is the same as it's always been. I never let on that it has an effect, since Pudding used her considerable force and ferocity to keep humans at bay until she met me, and I reckoned that the fear humans showed was a) what reinforced that behaviour and b) frightening in itself. But... I don't particularly want to be bitten all the time... (!)
I guess I could try a refill for the feliway plug-ins I used when first taming her. She does seem to respond to that. But other than that I'm drawing a blank...
