Willa's Journal: April 2002

On Wednesday morning, Bob said he was walking down the upstairs hall and Dinah was sitting in the hall, and he said, "Hi, Dinah," and she hissed at him, then growled, put her ears back, and acted like she was going to jump at him.

He said he clapped his hands and ran toward her, and she took off like a shot downstairs, hiding behind the television. A little while later he went to make up with her, and she still hissed and spat at him; he brought food to her to try to coax her out, and she'd eat the food, then go back into the corner. Later, he couldn't find her, and eventually found her hiding under the bed.

She's always been a little weird--nervous and skittish, especially toward him. She will sometimes hiss at his feet when he gets too close. Lately, though, she's become more affectionate and would initiate cuddling most days, jumping up in his recliner in the office and crying until he sits down and lets her lie on his lap.

Now, though, since Wednesday, she hisses and growls at the sight of him, or sometimes just at the sound of his voice. She was behind the drapes last night and he came down into the living room and said, "Hi, Dinah," and she hissed without even seeing him.

I know that any kind of drastic personality change should be checked out with a vet, but it's not like she's turned completely aggressive overnight, she's still affectionate and fine with me. It's just Bob that she's turned against.

I did an internet search and didn't find a whole lot of useful information, but I did find a couple of articles about "redirected aggression," which is what happens when Pye and Dinah are sitting at the back door looking out, and a strange cat comes into the yard--one or both of them get excited and upset, and they'll turn on each other and have to be separated.

I suppose it's possible that something like that set her off--she was upset about something else, birds or cats or squirrels outside, and Bob was the first thing she saw, but I would have expected if that was the case for it to have worn off by now, 48 hours later. They've never reacted overly to us smelling like other animals when we come home--I'm sure I always smell slightly like the dogs at work, and when Bob visits John he probably comes home smelling like Artemis, John's cat, but it has never been a problem before.

And anyway, it was morning, Bob hadn't been anywhere. I'm sure he wasn't smelling like anything other than himself.

It's a mystery. I put a call in to the vet this morning to see if it's anything I should be worried about, and if there's anything he thinks I should do. He hasn't called me back yet.

Later . . .

The vet called back, and I explained the situation to him, and he said he thinks it is a case of "referred (or redirected) aggression," i.e., she was upset about something else, possibly a strange cat outside, and she transferred that feeling of anxiety and fear to Bob, the next thing she saw. He said since it's springtime, there are a lot of cats out "catting around" (as he said), and with the windows open, there are a lot of interesting (and possibly anxiety-producing) smells, too.

He said he didn't think we should worry about it, that Bob should just stay out of her way for a few days, and it will probably blow over.

That's pretty much what we were going to do anyway, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to get an expert's opinion.

I noticed a change in the way Amazon.com was serving search results, and filled out a comment card this morning. They responded immediately with a form letter that didn't apply to my question, so I wrote again, and someone else responded with exactly the same form letter that, again, had nothing whatsoever to do with the comment I had made.

They were prompt, though.

Date: Fri Apr 12 10:00:27 PDT 2002 Subject: Other Questions & Comments To: form-info@amazon.com From: willa@willa.com --------------- 04/12/02 09:59:42 NAME: Willa Cline COMMENTS: Just a general comment about a site change. When I used to go to a page that listed all of an author's available books, when I chose to sort "By Publication Date," it was sorted most recent first, i.e., the most recently published books came up first on the list, which are always what I'm looking for. I now notice that sorting "By Publication Date" sorts with the first-published work appearing first in the list, and since you don't list following results pages by page, i.e., 1-2-3-4-5, but only say there are, for instance, 112 pages of results, there is no way to get to the most recent publications without hitting *every one* of those pages, which, for a prolific author, can be quite a few. It doesn't seem to be a very user-friendly change to have made. Thanks, Willa Cline

--- cust.service02@amazon.com wrote: Dear Willa, Thank you for writing to Amazon.com with your concern. When you use our keyword search engine to look for items, our system looks for any items whose title, author/artist, or subject includes the keywords you specify. The information that appears in the title, author/artist, and subject fields of the items on our web site is determined by the publisher or manufacturer. Therefore, you may occasionally find that a search produces results you were not expecting or were not interested in, as happened in the case you described. I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. We designed our search engine to perform broad searches in this manner because we wanted to make sure you wouldn't miss finding items that you might want. We appreciate the time you took to send us your feedback on this subject. We hope to see you again soon at Amazon.com. Best regards, Joan K http://www.amazon.com

Date: Fri Apr 12 11:35:37 PDT 2002 Subject: Re: Your Amazon.com Inquiry To: cust.service02@amazon.com From: willac@yahoo.com Hi, You misunderstood my comment. I was talking about the "sort order" when sorting by publication date. For instance, I was looking for a new book by Lawrence Block, that I don't know the name or details of. When I search for "Block, Lawrence," I get a list of books sorted by "Featured Items," which mean nothing to me. So I change the sort criteria to "By Publication Date," and the first items on the list are books published in the 70's, which are all out of print. In order to find out the name of his new book, I have to wait for the page to load, scroll down to the bottom of the page, hit "more results," and do this ten times before I see the most recently published items. Previously, sorting by "publication date" listed the most recently published items *first,* which makes sense, since none of the items that come up first on the list now are even available to be purchased. Just seems sort of counter productive. No need to respond, I just thought whoever does your customer-experience testing would want these comments. Thanks, Willa Cline