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Are "mixed-up neurotransmitters" involved in cat's kleptomania?


Altostrata

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You know pharmapsychiatry has jumped the shark when a cat's hunting behavior is blamed on "mixed-up neurotransmitters."

 

Cat steals from everyone in San Mateo neighborhood

 

Carolyn Jones, San Francisco Chronicle June 19, 2011

 

Lucky for Dusty he's a cat. Otherwise he'd surely be in jail, or at least a 12-step program.

 

The San Mateo feline has pilfered more than 600 items from neighbors - behavior so odd it's baffled and delighted animal experts and made Dusty a minor celebrity.

 

"It's extreme, but it's absolutely adorable," said Marilyn Krieger, a cat behavior consultant in Redwood City. "I can't say exactly why he's doing it, except it has to do with mixed-up neurotransmitters. I think it's a form of OCD."

 

Dusty's nocturnal heists started about four years ago, a year after his owners adopted him as a kitten from the Peninsula Humane Society.

 

"I noticed a piece of latex glove on the bed one morning and told my husband he should do a better job cleaning up his work stuff," said Jean Chu, a dentist. "He said, 'It wasn't me. I think it was the cat.' "

 

After that, Chu and her husband, Jim Coleman, were greeted each morning with a tableau of neighborhood detritus on their doorstep: gloves, towels, Crocs, swim trunks, Safeway bags, bubble wrap, a Giants cap and other backyard sundries.

 

Chu started keeping a log of Dusty's haul, which averages three or four items a night. His record spree is 11 in a 24-hour period.

 

"It's work. Every time I go out to get the paper in the morning, I have to pick up after him," said Coleman, an artist. "Sometimes he brings things that are sort of expensive. I get a little worried about that."

 

As for the booty, Chu washes it and hunts for the rightful owner. If she can't find the owner, she stores the loot in boxes in the dining room. The boxes are now piled two deep.

 

"He stole my bikini," said Kelly McLellan, who lives a few doors up the street. "He did it in two trips. He was very focused on keeping the ensemble. When it went missing I wasn't worried, though. I knew where to go."

 

McLellan's son, Ethan, 6, lost a Nerf rocket football.

 

"I looked for it, but I didn't know where it went," he said. "Then I remembered. The cat took it."

 

Stephanie Somers' family lost six bathing suits and countless shorts, towels and car wash sponges.

 

"We don't leave anything out anymore," she said. "But we don't mind. We like Dusty."

 

A year ago Chu contacted People magazine about her kleptomaniac kitty, and a star was born. Dusty has been on the David Letterman show and Animal Planet, and infrared footage of his nighttime antics are a hit on YouTube - there's even video of him dragging home a brassiere....

 

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhRW4WmfrDA

 

Dusty's predilection for theft is rare but not unheard of, animal experts said. Some cats will bring home half-dead mice, acting on their instinct to teach kittens to hunt. Dusty's habit is likely related to that somehow, minus the kittens and mice.

 

"It's like a predatory instinct gone awry," said Richmond cat consultant Mikel Delgado. "He's obviously very bold."

 

Anika Liljenwall, behavior associate at the Peninsula Humane Society, said Dusty's predatory instinct has become "crossed in his head."

 

"In his mind he's caught something and he's bringing it home to share," she said.

 

Neuroses aside, everyone agrees Dusty seems to be a perfectly happy and healthy cat.

 

"We always try to find meaning in what animals do," Liljenwall said. "But maybe he just does this because it's fun."

 

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/06/19/BAIN1JVID8.DTL

This is not medical advice. Discuss any decisions about your medical care with a knowledgeable medical practitioner.

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has surpassed our humanity." -- Albert Einstein

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I can't say exactly why he's doing it, except it has to do with mixed-up neurotransmitters. I think it's a form of OCD

You know, it's amazing that a lot of psychiatrists did/do believe very similar things, with the same amount of sophistication, as this cat behavior consultant.

 

Anyone hearing alarm bells too?

Been on SSRIs since 1998:

1998-2005: Paxil in varying doses

2005-present: Lexapro.

2006-early '08: Effexor AND Lexapro! Good thing I got off the Effexor rather quickly (within a year).

 

**PSYCHIATRY: TAKE YOUR CHEMICAL IMBALANCE AND CHOKE ON IT!

APA=FUBAR

FDA=SNAFU

NIMH=LMFAO

 

Currently tapering Lexapro ~10% every month:

 

STARTING: 15 mg

11/7/10: 13.5 mg

12/7/10: 12.2 mg

1/6/11: 10.9 mg

2/3/11: 9.8 mg

3/3/11: 8.8 mg

4/1/11: 7.8 mg

4/29/11: 7 mg

5/27/11: 6.4 mg

6/24/11: 5.7 mg

7/22/11: 5 mg

8/18/11: 4.5 mg

9/14/11: 4 mg

10/13/11: 3.6 mg

11/9/11: 3.2 mg

12/7/11: 2.6 mg

1/3/12: 2.1 mg

2/2/12: 1.8 mg

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"Lucky for Dusty he's a cat. Otherwise he'd surely be in jail, or at least a 12-step program."

 

Or on psych meds for untreated mental illness.

 

Comp Sports

Drug cocktail 1995 - 2010
Started taper of Adderall, Wellbutrin XL, Remeron, and Doxepin in 2006
Finished taper on June 10, 2010

Temazepam on a PRN basis approximately twice a month - 2014 to 2016

Beginning in 2017 - Consumption increased to about two times per week

April 2017 - Increased to taking it full time for insomnia

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I am focusing on the cat's behavior and it looks like play to me. Dusty isn't stealing, he's SHOPPING for TOYS.

 

He is very smart and entertains himself quite well! Reminds me of my cat Ella, who became enchanted with the covered elastics I used for my hair. She would bring them to me, and drop them for me to shoot. Then bring she retrieved them - endlessly. She also started just fishing them out ot the container I had on my bureau and playing with them...

 

God in Heaven protect from the psychiatric diagnosis.

 

1989 - 1992 Parnate* 

1992-1998 Paxil - pooped out*, oxazapam, inderal

1998 - 2005 Celexa - pooped out* klonopin, oxazapam, inderal

*don't remember doses

2005 -2007   Cymbalta 60 mg oxazapam, inderal, klonopin

Started taper in 2007:

CT klonopin, oxazapam, inderal (beta blocker) - 2007

Cymbalta 60mg to 30mg 2007 -2010

July 2010 - March 2018 on hiatus due to worsening w/d symptoms, which abated and finally disappeared. Then I stalled for about 5 years because I didn't want to deal with W/D.

March 2018 - May 2018 switch from 30mg Cymbalta to 20mg Celexa 

19 mg Celexa October 7, 2018

18 mg Celexa November 5, 2018

17 mg Celexa  December 2, 2019

16 mg Celexa January 6, 2018 

15 mg Celexa March 7, 2019

14 mg Celexa April 24, 2019

13 mg Celexa June 28, 2019

12.8 mg Celexa November 10, 2019

12.4 Celexa August 31, 2020

12.2 Celexa December 28, 2020

12 mg Celexa March 2021

11 mg  Celexa February 2023

 

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This is a clear case of Feline Domestic Item Retrieval Disorder.

 

Or maybe Dusty just thinks his household needs more towels.

This is not medical advice. Discuss any decisions about your medical care with a knowledgeable medical practitioner.

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has surpassed our humanity." -- Albert Einstein

All postings © copyrighted.

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Feline Domestic Item Retrieval Disorder

Wow, I gotta say Alto, that's pretty rad.

Been on SSRIs since 1998:

1998-2005: Paxil in varying doses

2005-present: Lexapro.

2006-early '08: Effexor AND Lexapro! Good thing I got off the Effexor rather quickly (within a year).

 

**PSYCHIATRY: TAKE YOUR CHEMICAL IMBALANCE AND CHOKE ON IT!

APA=FUBAR

FDA=SNAFU

NIMH=LMFAO

 

Currently tapering Lexapro ~10% every month:

 

STARTING: 15 mg

11/7/10: 13.5 mg

12/7/10: 12.2 mg

1/6/11: 10.9 mg

2/3/11: 9.8 mg

3/3/11: 8.8 mg

4/1/11: 7.8 mg

4/29/11: 7 mg

5/27/11: 6.4 mg

6/24/11: 5.7 mg

7/22/11: 5 mg

8/18/11: 4.5 mg

9/14/11: 4 mg

10/13/11: 3.6 mg

11/9/11: 3.2 mg

12/7/11: 2.6 mg

1/3/12: 2.1 mg

2/2/12: 1.8 mg

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