My heart sank when Leila refused to come out of her travelling basket last Sunday; such a sharp contrast to how she'd been when I took her to my Mum's a fortnight earlier. The next morning, she still hadn't moved, and I decided to give the idea of keeping her in a separate room from the other two cats a try, so I put food, water and a makeshift litterbox in 'The Bathroom' (which is really just a shower and a space for the washing machine) and left her there until I ran out of patience around 6 o'clock tonight. I took her out into the lounge with me, and after about 40 minutes, she started to relax enough to start purring. Another hour or so passed before I dared to move and make myself a coffee, taking Leila into the kitchen with me and making sure she was never more than 5 seconds without me. She hissed at Manasse a few times, but no fights ensued, and I took her back in with me to watch a bit of telly (not that there was anything on, but I had a cat to soothe, and she always used to like sitting and watching telly with me). And after another hour had passed, Leila suddenly got up from my lap and stretched out on the floor in front of me, begging for a tummy rub!

She stayed at my feet in the middle of the room (so no hiding in corners or under sofas anymore) for the rest of the evening. Then I went to check my e-mails and she got into a scrap with Manasse, so I've just put her back in the bathroom again with food and water and a clean litterbox -- but I can't wait to repeat the experiment tomorrow night. Maybe, I do know better than the vet and all it'll take to turn this cat around will be just lots of love and a bit more time. 'Think about having her re-homed', indeed!