# Cat acting scared



## Cin (Aug 31, 2017)

Hello all,

I wonder if anyone can shed a bit of light here. I have a 3 year old cat. He's a happy, healthy, spoiled and very confident cat, and he owns every bit of the house. A week ago he followed me to the basement. He spent sometime there and came back up really suspicious of everything in the house, sniffing every single corner. We thought it would be temporary, but he's still behaving that way. He gets scared of any noise, and when he comes back from outside, he goes straight to the basement door to sniff it, as well as other parts of the house. He's body language is of a scared cat, walking low.
He has been to the basement a few times before, and he was never scared of it, only curious. 
There's no way another cat can get in to the cellar. Maybe there are some mice, but he's a mice hunter, so he's not scared of them.
There are quite a few cats in the neighbourhood, but they know each other, as they all hang out in the night. We have a cat coming to our garden, and sometimes sneaking into the house to eat my cat's food. My cat has seen the intruder cat running away a couple of times, but it has never bothered him. He always acts cool.
His eating pattern is the same, the only thing that has changed is that he's now scared of everything in the house, even when I walk, he stares at my feet and goes into an alert state. The other day, he was sniffing a corner and I touched him on his back and he jumped. He's never done that before in the house, this has always been his safe place. Since his last visit to the basement, he comes and chill happily next to us in the front room, but any unusual noise makes him alert, and his pupils dilate. 
He seems paranoid, he's not feeling comfortable in the house. Does anyone know what is happening to my bubba? I just want him to chill and enjoy his home.


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## chillminx (Nov 22, 2010)

Hi @Cin and welcome 

There may be some kind of unknown scent in the basement that has alarmed your cat because he can't identify it. Evidently he was already quite on edge anyway, as you say a strange cat came in the house and pinched his food. If a strange cat gets into their territory it can make a cat nervous, and anxious and they can start jumping at shadows.

Cats are very good at making associations between different things, wrong associations in some cases. Your cat being on edge has made an association between his fear of the strange cat intruding into his home and his fear of the unknown scent in the basement. We know the two things are not connected, but he does not.

Best thing is to make 100% sure that no strange cat can get into your home by fitting a microchip cat flap. Sureflap cat flaps have come down in price now, cheapest is from Fetch or Zooplus I believe.

Also take some treats with you when you go with your cat to the basement, and feed him treats one by one so he begins to associate the basement with rewards.


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