[Tophersmom]

Ok...here's the problem....

My daughter rescued a beautifiul cat a couple of years ago. She's gorgeous, de-clawed, spayed, etc. and about 8 years old or so. Poor thing never had a real steady home so we took her in. At that time we had our terrier mix who really didn't mind cats...but the cat on the other hand was TERRIFIED of dogs. She obviously was chased/hurt by one or more at one time in her life.

Our terrier passed away and we got Topher, who just wanted to play with the cat, but the cat wanted nothing to do with him. I know that if the cat decided to play, she would have had a good time. Topher had no pre-conceived problems with cats...he just wanted a playmate! The cat wanted nothing to do with him.

The poor thing lives pretty much in my daughter's room. Her food is in there and up until last week she did her business in the litter box that's in the laundry room in the basement. (We have a gate in the doorway so the cat can get in or out but the dogs can't get in)

Last week we got Sophie and we introduced the two, figuring that the cat wouldn't mind a tiny puppy. Well, she didn't like Sophie either and took off. She's terrified to come out of Kaitlyn's room and because of that she peed on my daughter's bed (I checked, she doesn't have a UTI) so the reason she peed was that she's scared to leave the room and go down to the laundry room.

So now I've had to put a litter box in my daughter's room (ugh...we keep it clean, but it's not the place for it). This cat is terrified and we feel so bad for her. It's not much of a life being holed up in my daughter's room. My daughter loves her so won't give her up.

How in the world do we de-sensitize this cat so that she'll be able to enjoy life with the dogs? They don't want to hurt her at all, but she doesn't understand that.

Any ideas/suggestions would be appreciated, or any ideas of where we could turn for help.

Thanks everyone!