IM SORRY FOR THE LONG STORY, i think its relevant, and I really want help.
We have had Coco for about 5 years. Shes almost 6 years old. We got her from a rescue, and we knew she had a bad childhood. Something like her first owner died, and she almost starved (super young, 3 monthish), 2nd owner neglected animals I guess and she got sick and taken away - given medication and treated for fleas etc, then given to us as the third owners.
I spent the first 6 months feeding her from my hand (or trying to) but she would king of attack my hand, but clearly to get food that she had issues getting before. Eventually, she calmed down, but would sometimes drag food across the carpet out of the bowl ha ha. She wakes you up with her claws, but shes gentle about it now, and she will claw at the carpet if you lock her out of the room :(
We have another cat, Jinx, who we got from the wild (a rescue) and she did pretty well with him, still does. Sometimes he kinda pins her to t he ground and bites the back of her neck, but the internet says thats perfectly fine and normal, stop it if you see it, but its nothing to be worried about, its a dominance thing. Okay. Cool. They lived in an apartment for a year or two together and then we bought a 2-story 1700 sq foot townhouse.
Things were good. Then we got a dog, Milo. She would randomly attack milo, for no apparent reason. Maybe hes running past her to get a ball, maybe he barked at her, maybe hes just sitting on our lap doing nothing. For a while we had to be cautious. She would kinda claw his hind legs and he would skitter away to us and that would be that, no real damage done, and it was the dog basically learning not to piss off the cat. We would separate them and she would go in a bedroom. We would reward her if she was near him and did nothing with treats and pets. Shes gotten better and havent seen anything in like 6 months from her besides maybe a simple no-claw tap on him or hiss and back away. She has gotten to bumping noses with the dog, rubbing head against dogs nose, and being generally really sweet.
3 weeks ago we got a new puppy, the last of our house to make everyone have a friend to play with. We were worried she might be a little bitch to the puppy, but amazingly, we didnt really have to introduce them much because she seemed to really like him. She would do the same stuff she did with Milo in a positive way. She would hiss and back away, she never hit him, she would sniff him and even chase him and he would chase her a bit. She would butt heads with him and nothing was wrong.
Then last night happened. He pooped outside, he came in, had the zoomies, was running around and Coco went into the room he went into and 5 seconds later we heard yelping and she was hissing and making angry noises. In the closet, under a little table I have setup for folding (its a big closet) she had him cornered and was attacking him. I yelled, tried to grab her, and she attacked me, clawing my arm really bad and hissing, growling, being super angry. Jinx (whos a SUPER sweetheart and lover) attacked her as i screamed a bit in pain (she got me really, really good) and that made me pick her up so I could get her away from the situation and put her in another room -- then jinx redirected his defensiveness towards me to Bjorn (puppy) but wife grabbed Jinx and everything was separated.
For t he next 30 minutes so both cats were very upset, she was meowing in the front entry, Jinx was growling a bit and wanted to go near the dogs, he swatted at Milo once, but really wanted to get close to Bjorn, but was slow and cautious so we just put him in my the basement, coco upstairs (they were upset at eachother, too, ha ha) and the 2 dogs slept with my wife last night in the bedroom and I slept in the spare downstairs.
Today, Coco is really normal except a bit timid, growled a bit when i picked her up, but didnt swat or anything. I fed the two cats together, they were fine, and still are. I put coco away, brought down the dogs to feed them and see how Jinx would do and he was slinking trying to get towards Bjorn and growled a tiny bit, Bjorn was noticably staying away from Jinx but thats okay, I feel like thats just a bit of tension still. Jinx in no way hurt any of the animals, hes never used his claws on anything except a husky that got too close and for playing. I havent had Coco and the dogs in the same room, yet.
Both upstairs and downstairs theres a cat tower, upstairs theres some tables/stands near the windows she can get away from the dogs. Downstairs she has my computer desk and the entertainment center which leads to a wall ledge that runs along the basement and a cat tower along there as well. She can basically get around the basement without touching the floor unless she wants to go to a bedroom, but even those have wall-ledges along the windows and half of the walls.
We're thinking of rehoming the cat but we're afraid of how hard it will be find a home for her, given the stuff she does... or if she even would manage a new home well.
We really love her, shes gotten to be very friendly, cuddly, playful (she always was), willing to meet strangers instead of hiding, really cute all t he time -- except when she randomly seems to snap. We're afraid of long-lasting damage of the dogs being afraid, or god forbid, an eye gets scratched or something.
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/bk86gt/please_help_me_keep_my_cat/
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