My husband and I rescued a cat who had also been abandoned by his mother (under a lighting display in an industrial park) before his eyes were open. We bottle-fed him, etc., and then gave him to my parents, who were looking for a cat.

The cat grew up to be insane, much like your cat. He was a large, powerful animal, and alarming to deal with when he lost his temper, which he did unpredictably when my parents were around. Whenever my parents weren't around (for example when we were housesitting for them) he seemed to feel it was his duty to defend the property, and would fight anyone who came near him. After he filleted several people, my parents declawed him, so he took to biting and boxing with his paws, which was not an improvement. (Before anyone jumps on me, I don't believe in declawing.) Highlights of his career include the time he hid in the darkness on top of the china cabinet and leaped from it to my husband's head, the time he almost severed my index finger, and the time he tore a large hole in my father's blue jeans and bit him so badly that he had to have stitches in his calf. All family members except my mother have scars from encounters with this cat.

Our vet was of the opinion that his mom abandoned him because she knew there was something wrong with him. Although he could be incredibly loving when he was in the mood, he was more like a wild animal than a domestic one.

He also had an amusingly twisted sense of vengeance; if for any reason any of the other cats yelped in pain, for example if my mother accidentally stepped on a paw or a tail, he would race from wherever in the house he was - and attack the dog. Now, the dog in question is a small, mild-manned, droopy-eyed creature who has never made an aggressive move in his life. Nevertheless, in the demon cat's eyes, anything that went wrong was clearly the dog's fault.

Nevertheless, my parents stayed the course. The cat died this winter at an advanced age, from lung cancer. The last time I saw him, he had little energy to do anything but sit on my lap and purr while I watched television. But he still managed to work himself up to bite my husband. It was his last hurrah. The wounds he inflicted were still healing a week after he was in his grave.

Letter Writer, you've already said you can't bear to put this cat down. I understand. None of the other solutions sound workable. Therefore you are stuck with this cat. Laughter helps. Try the behavioral specialists (my parents read lots of books and websites in their quest for a solution), but be prepared for the possibility that your cat may not be entirely normal and maybe nothing will work. Remember, cats don't live forever, and someday this cat will make a great story.

Well, that was interesting.

I feel blechy right now (lupus headache) so I figured I would score badly across the board.

Instead I maxed out the angles test and the rotation test (which I thought I was doing poorly on, since it felt hard to me while I was doing it), and scored in the top range of the spot the differences test.

No surprises on the empathizing/sympathizing thing, since this is essentially the same measurement as Myers/Briggs Feeling/Thinking, and I score a solid X on that test. Identical scores on the two halves in this test, too, both somewhat higher than average.

On the other hand, I have girly fingers, a preference for extremely masculine faces, and good scores in the reading emotions and verbal fluency tests. (The verbal fluency test as a measure of masculine/feminine strikes me as very fucked up, since it's going to be extremely influenced by education.)

Now, I probably score highly on a lot of these tests because they directly measure things I do everyday - building 3d models of faces out of lines and shapes, for example, and writing dialogue for games. I'm not sure it's fair to test someone on something they practice regularly and compare it to the score of someone who never does this sort of task.

I'm gonna make my husband take it - he's far better at rotating things in real life than I am (since I ask him for help when I have problems with a model, I know this) and he has extremely masculine finger length. On the other hand, he's generally known as an extremely empathetic and not very male-oriented guy - the guy who prefers hanging around with the "Bitches Guild" to hanging out with other guys.

In response to the discussion about statistics: Yep, the danger with any statistic is that people try to misuse it. An average is not predictive of the characteristics of an individual, period. If you give people a concrete example, this becomes obvious. Let's say that men, on average, are taller than women. Bob is a man and Mary is a woman. Bob is therefore taller than Mary, right? Except Bob is 5'6" and Mary is 5'9"! No one with sense would use average height as a predictor of the height of a specific person, but for some reason, smart, educated people will use a 10% variation in average skill based on sex to make sweeping statements like "Men are not empathetic" or "Women are bad at spacial visualization."

Well, most people don't get up several times a night to bottle-feed animals they intend to eat.

Having an animal you cared for when it was tiny grow up to attack you hurts your feelings, even if you try not to take it personally. Putting the cat to sleep means admitting you failed. Even if the LW has no fondness for this cat after the way it's behaved, putting it down isn't any fun.