Hello there,

I have looked everywhere for an answer. Because I am very worried about my cat. You see when I first got her with my husband she acted very strange. Today it has been a year, my cat is 2 years old and she acts like a new born baby. In every way, she is very needy although we give her attention. She never understands when she is told to not do something, 5 minutes later she would forget. She looks around as if she has never seen our house, and looks at me sometimes staring for 20 minutes. She overly grooms, every 30 minutes at least, my husband has had cats, and he told me he thought she was probably slow.

We noticed that she doesn't meow normally, and her body hasn't changed. She is a calico female, but her face hasn't grown, she still looks as if she was a kitten. We always have food available, but she over eats, and digs on our garbage can to eat our food. However, we have never given her human food. Her meow is very odd, I have try to educate her for the past 2 years, but nothing happens. She plays by herself, and if we play with her, she never gets tired. My husband used to play sometimes, but she never got tired for 5 hours straight.

I will start with a question I always ask, Has you cat see a vet for a definitivediagnoses ? In Many animals excessive grooming is a sign of anxiety. As for the tearing at the trash, I can only recommend a lift lid for your trash can. I would take kitty to the vet all you say she is small and not normal, if you would like a good place to research questions try Pet Education.com. It is a good site. Key search term, Problem Behaviors, Anxiety, Nutrition & Feeding. I hope I was in some way helpful to you. It is hard to diagnose an animal here on line as One we are not vets, and rely heavily on past experiences with our own pets.

HI,
The answer before this one is so very good!
A Vet is the person to find out what is different, if anything, and can give you some great advise on what to do with the cat.
Best of everything to you, your family, and your cat.

Thank you for the reply,

I wanted to make the question short so that it would be easier for people to read and not go over board. However, she has the best quality food for kittens recommended by my vet. We also give her treats etc... just like any owner would :) about tearing the trash, the lid is always up. She jumps on it, however, these are the main behaviors that I wanted to write down.

She had never scratched any of us, even though I'm diabetic. She is very gentle, but I only wonder because it worries me for her to wonder around as if she has never seen our house or us. She has available food 24/7 which she doesn't abuse, but she will forget things within 5 minutes. Being a pedigree I know she doesn't have to know tricks because most of them are natural, but I had cats before stray and pedigree and her behavior is still not similar. Now we all know that pets will never have the same behavior because each one of them are individual, but we always find things in common because they are still cats. I never rely online for answers, but for experiences, I would like to find people just like me experienced with cats etc... But what I truly look for is to know if theirs anyone out there that has a mentally challenged cat.

Since it is impossible to determine such a defect unless we went through the experience I was hoping to find someone out there that could perhaps advice me on detecting these behaviors. When we love our pet, we look for an answer and research for better understanding. Sometimes research are easier to find, than going to the vet for any hairball stuck on their throat.

They are just like babies, when they are not sick and always have their vaccine on date and loved. The mother always learns new things:o thank you for your kind answer and helping! It was very helpful... :)

Just a few thoughts...

How old was she when you got her? Do you know much about her background? If she was several months old, it could be that in her early kittenhood something bad happened to her, like abuse or neglect of some kind. This can severely impact the behaviour and personality of the cat later on.

You say she's a pedigree too... sometimes there can be a problem of bad breeding. It's very possible to have a mentally challenged or low intelligence cat, although they are usually quite docile, and you say she plays for hours. Are you sure she doesn't have a bit of siamese in her? ;) Siamese are highly energetic and will play for hours.

If she's 2 years old, why are you feeding her kitten food? She should be having adult food by now. The kitten food might make her overweight, as it contains more fat than adult food.

What kind of things is she forgetting in 5 minutes? You say you can't teach her anything; maybe she just doesn't want to be taught or learn, cats can be pretty independent.

I used to have a cat that was actually "retarded" according to my vet. She was very loving cat, but slept a lot and was not very active. She didn't play much, in fact when you tried to play with her, she didn't seem to know what was going on. She would often be in another room and meow incessantly because she thought she was alone in the house, and then you'd have to call her for her to realize that someone was home. She gorged herself on food, had a weight problem, and therefore none could ever be left out. I also had to keep all the people food safely locked away, because she would steal anything left out, even unlikely things like sugar or butter. That's all I can think of that she used to do. Generally speaking she was a good cat, if a bit annoying and high maintenance. She aged quite quickly and the doctor said there was something wrong with her heart, birth defect probably. She only lived to be 7.

My cat is like a dog, she even sits on command :-)
She follows me and obeys very good, unlike to other cats.
What the say, a dog has a boss, and a cat has personel.
But with my cat that is not true
She listens and obeys, she comes always when I call her.

The only thing she does bad is sometimes scratching the wallpaper LOL

I have a grey and white cat, my wife and I love her to death! We also have two other cats!! I just want you to know you are not alone. Every thing you have described about your cat, is identical to my cat (grey & white) swiper! It is as if she has not matured into an adult she is almost 4 and is the size of a 8 month old kitten. Tiny!! I believe she is mentally challenged, she often has this lost distrot look to her, like we are confusing her?? She is smart well, behaived and gtreat with our daughter. She enjoys eating insects moths very much so, catches birds scares the living crap out of them and lets them go, they are always fine! But my wife and believe there is something wrong, in the same boat as you!! The internet can give you a lot of answers, but not this one, we wish we could truly find out if she is mentally challenged? Two different vets opinions are the same she's healthy!! Sorry not a good enough answer, they could not tell me stright up!! Thanks for reading and let me know if you get any answers!!

Hello, :)

I know this is a late response but I have a cat who I think might be mentally challenged as well.

I have a black and white male cat, whom we got when he was a few weeks old. I am not positive if he is legit mentally challenged or not but he hits his head off many things (including your own head if you ask him for a kiss). Some of the reasons I think my cat might be this way are because he was born near a factory, his mother wasn't rasing him well and when they were trying to get him, he ran for his dear little life.

Some of the things he does are, not eating with the other cats, he's scared of pretty much anything that moves, if you call him or make a noise when he isn't looking he won't even flinch, and as I mentioned before, he hits his head off things. Also, the previous comments are right, the best thing to do would be seeing a vet, I have taken my cat before to see what was wrong and they tested him for blindness because of the head thing but want to go again for further detail, and yes there are other cats who have these problems, they're just quite rare conditions and barely spoken of.

Hope you found out what's wrong with her! :)

Haley. <3

Are cats are retarded.

Our cats are retarded.

Are cats are retarded is incorrect. Our cats are retarded is correct.

Hello, I never would have asked the question before, but I have two cats and the response difference is enormous. I felt odd typing in "mentally retarded cat" but his big sweet dopey self never seems to learn or remember. There are two cats and at dinner time I have to place him in front of his bowl- he doesn't seem
To understand that there are two bowls.
It's funny to say, but I feel better looking at this site-I've had a lot of animals and this has never come up!
Thanks
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