Your cat probably needs an anti-depressant. Ours takes one Chomipramine every day and it has made a world of difference in her behavior. We never forget her pill because she knows when she needs her medication and reminds us. If you vet hasn't suggested medication, get another vet!

The whole reason we love cats is that they don't listen to orders. They can't really be trained. They are as far from dogs as a cougar is from a wolf. This idea of working with a behaviourist ("There, that will solve it") is highly unlikely to help after several years of ingrained bad behaviour.

I have heard stories of house cats chasing their owners into the bathroom, or nearly killing them (a cat could conceivably tear open a person's jugular vein). Underneath the veneer of civilization lurks a jungle beast who only stays because the food and shelter are to his/her liking.

And then there's the fact that cats can live for a very long time, even past 20. My cat is now 17, a doddering old man who can barely see or hear, has accidents all over the house, and is no longer the gorgeous apricot-and-white creature of his youth.

In spite of daily grooming, his coat is a dull brown,and he sheds massively on everything. He stands on swaying feet and meows continually in a querulous, irritating voice. He needs multiple (expensive) medications to keep him alive, and I often feel a lot of ambivalence about that. It's sort of like having an ancient relative in a nursing home who keeps almost dying, then rallying, so that you're stuck with another round of outrageous fees.

One day he got out the back fence and disappeared, and I was surprised by how worried I was. I spent most of the day looking for him, and when I heard a querulous meow in the neighbor's yard (the one with the Rottweiller in it), I have to say I was truly glad to see him.

So what's the point of all this? Maybe a cat is sort of like an irritating, chronically ill mother-in-law. You're stuck with her, even if you get divorced. The alternatives do not sound very acceptable or humane. Taking a pet home on impulse, no matter what the circumstances, rarely turns out to be a good thing. It's sort of like giving a kid an Easter bunny, or a baby chick who morphs into a big, fat, obnoxious chicken. Adopting a pet is a lot more like adopting a child than most people realize.

I had a similiar problem, and I tried everything. My cat was violent, destructive, and was hurting my other cat. Finally I had him euthanized and I don't regret it, and my other cat is much happier.

Don't let the unhinged PETA types dissuade you from putting this cat to sleep. This cat is probably beyond hope and was abandoned by his mother because her instincts told her something was wrong with the kitten. Do yourself and the cat a favor and take him to the vet and let him die in peace. Don't abandon him, just take responsibility and get it over with. The sooner you do it, the sooner you will forget about it.

DO NOT LET CATS RUN FREE. Coyotes eat cats, and there are coyotes in most suburban areas. If you love your cat, keep it indoors.

Cats outside use children's sandboxes for litter boxes. They spread two diseases toxic to pregnant women (they cause borth defects and miscarriage. Toximosis is the one doctors warn about. It's not fair to pregnant mothers of young kids to endanger them that way. Newly postpartum mothers are also endangered by these diseases. Our neighbor has a cat who does this to our sandbox, ripping through covers and whatnot. Digging out the box and replacing the sand is not cheap or easy.

I like cats, and have cat sit for friends. So I'm not advocating killing cats. But people who get upset about the sandbox/songbird issue use .22s and BB guns to kill roaming cats. Where I am, there have been attempts to change the law to make hunting stray cats legal. That's because some of these people are ALREADY doing that in rural areas.

Please do not let the cat outdoors. In this neighborhood, we have lost a very nice cat to the coyotes. It's an awful way to die.

There are behaviorists, drugs, and training methods that moderate behavior. Please do not let pyshco cats out of the house. There are people out there with vicious cat allergies. I'm married to one, and it's not fun to come outside, find the cats on his car, and spend time removing the cats and then removing the dander from me. If I don't change clothes, my husband has massive asthma attacks. The cat does not have to be on him, just be in the vicinity.

One of my close friends has a psycho cat of her own. I've fed this cat for her for over twelve years when she goes on vacation. I've saved it from marauding kids, etc. It still hisses at me. Theoretically, the beast likes me. If it didn't, it would never show it's face when I come by, or would bite me. It will sleep on the end of the bed if I sleep over, go past me for food, hiss at me as it goes by, or sit there and hiss at me. It has never bitten me. But it will never let me pet it, either. It's a rescued barn cat.

She and her husband love that thing. It's 17, decrepit, and fat. And it still hisses at me. Evidently, that's how the demented thing shows respect.

I respect their devotion to psychokitty. But I'm a dog person. People who love crazy cats have much more patience than I do. Good luck and God bless.

It really is possible to have healthy barn cats. And many of us who keep barn cats not only provide cat-specific shelter for them in the actual barn (for us, in our tack room, complete with heat and comfy beds in the winter), and regular meals which they invariably show up for both morning and night, many of us make sure they receive necessary vet care, including shots and parasite meds and the like (as we do for the horses and the dogs). They tend not to wander very far. I'm assuming that's because we take really good care of them and pay quite a lot of attention to them. They're not anonymous strays who happen to live in some anonymous barn. They're my cats. We take regular walks together. Or, rather, when I take the very long walk down to my mailbox every day, or when my husband and I take walks without the dogs, the cats (usually all five of them) accompany us. I dunno. I suspect it's because they like us because we take good care of them and pay quite a lot of attention to them. Even though they live in the barn and are free to wander as they like.

As for coyotes, yes, we are surrounded by coyotes. I'm not convinced a coyote is much of a threat to a cat.