Can cats suffer from agoraphobia? It is a condition where the sufferer becomes anxious in places that are strange and where they don’t have control. It usually refers to a fear of wide open spaces. In the case of cats, who might suffer from agoraphobia, I am referring to a fear or dread of going outside.
Some cat behaviorists will say that cats can suffer from agoraphobia. I am not sure and the books that I have do not discuss agoraphobia in domestic cats. However, I have seen indoor cats stop at a wide open door to the outside as if there were a glass barrier between them and the enticing garden beyond. They peer out but never cross the invisible barrier.
Indoor cats
These are indoor cats and they have developed a slight fear of the outdoors because they have lost their confidence by being confined to a very controlled, ‘safe’ environment. My neighbor has several full-time indoor cats and when she opens the front door they don’t rush out the door but stop at it.
Cardi
Also, Cardi, a nervous cat who myself and my girlfriend cared for in her last days, would stop at the wide open door to the room she lived in as if there were a barrier there. There was a barrier, in a way: an anxiety about the unknown spaces in the other rooms.
However, I don’t believe Cardi or the other cats I observed were suffering from agoraphobia, which is a medical condition. I believe they were just unsure (although there is a small difference). Full-time indoor cats will naturally be unsure about the wide open spaces of the outside, but given a chance, and time, will eventually go into it and explore.
Traumatic event
However, it is said that an agoraphobic cat can be unwilling to go out because of a loss of confidence due to a traumatic event such as having been terrorized by another cat. Other events that might trigger agoraphobia are:
- an encounter with a dog.
- alterations to the house that cause confusion about how to get back inside.
- being hit by a car.
It seems that if this condition does exist in cats it is caused by associating a traumatic event with a certain environment, usually the outdoors.
Desensitise
Gradual desensitization is the cure. Perhaps a cat enclosure would be the answer. Some cat owners would probably be unperturbed if their cat was agoraphobic because being indoors would not be a problem to the cat; quite the opposite. This would suit many cat owners.
When I cared for two cats I found that they liked me to go out with them. Not infrequently, they actually asked me to accompany them into the garden. A cure, therefore for the agoraphobic cat might be to do just that: lead your cat into the garden or yard.
NOTE: THIS PAGE HAS BEEN RE-DATED TO BRING IT FORWARD.
I have a five year old Maine Coon cat named Wally, a real doggy cat that talks to you and is very affectionate and obedient. When he was a kitten his mother was killed in the woods where he lived, probably by a hunter. Still today he is afraid to go out of the door. He does it only if there are bushes where to hide himself. What can I do about it?
Yes, I think agoraphobia is meant to describe an anomaly, an irrational fear of open spaces. It’s just a knee-jerk feeling, not the result of a conscious, pragmatic thought process. Fear from trauma isn’t irrational, it is rational, though it can be as difficult to overcome either way.
As usual, Michael has great advice. What I’ve also learned is that cats learn things quickly and for life, especially as it might pertain to apparent survival issues. I think that while they might learn to desensitize from traumatic events, it won’t necessarily erase their memory of them. So they can learn to like or tolerate a situation, but they’ll always reserve judgment just in case things change in a heartbeat. They can learn new perspectives, but they don’t forget the old, they’ll always weigh their options and feelings. I think that’s what people find to be difficult about training cats.