I adopted a 6 month old kitty rescued from a terrible home environment about a month ago. Initially I thought she was just really skittish and always on the defense because of how she was poorly treated, and since I am good with animals I thought she would warm up and become socialized gradually because I have a very calm and quiet home. When I first brought her home I left her alone for a few days and let her do whatever she wanted. She was growly and hissy but I just let her be and after a few days she warmed up to me and started to come to me for cuddles. I play with her often and she has a lot of energy. I thought that since she is still young I could teach her to be friendlier and give her a nice home where she doesn't have to be afraid of anything.
However, I am not sure that I can handle this cat and I'm beginning to regret adopting her and I feel really bad about it. She is so incredibly wild. I've raised cats from babies before and I've never seen a cat this wild. She is extremely aggressive and attacks all the time. If I don't let her do something then she freaks out and attacks. I don't let her on the stove when I'm cooking so she attacks me. I don't let her eat the paint when I'm painting so she attacks me. And when I put her in a room by herself she destroys everything. Even if there's not much in the room she tears up the carpet. She is also really food aggressive and will steal food right off my plate or attack me while I'm eating. Even when I have just fed her a whole delicious meal. Now I take my meals in the bedroom with the door closed.
I live alone and I'm home often so she isn't alone for long periods of time. But whenever I have a guest over it's horrible. She growls and hisses and attacks them and makes those angry cat fighting sounds and she doesn't let up. Even if a guest is there for a long time she just doesn't stop growling and hissing and fighting. My brother was over for a few weeks and she hissed and growled at him the entire time, even when he was sleeping. It got to the point where my brother could no longer be in the house because he couldn't stand the cat. Ever since he left she is now growling and hissing at me all the time too, previously she didn't.
I kinda wish I had adopted an older cat because even if the cat wasn't socialized well and hated people, at least older cats will just keep to themselves and ignore everyone and only get mad when you go close to them. But since this cat is young still and so full of energy she destroys everything, attacks everyone, bounces all over the walls and shelves. This is not good for me since I am a painter and she attacks my paintings and the paint as if it's her personal arch enemy. I've lived with cats before and I understand the difficulty of painting with a cat around because they are attracted to the moving paintbrush, but this cat is something else. She doesn't want to play she just wants to destroy.
I don't know what to do or how I can get her to calm down and be better behaved. I know she's still young and maybe it will take time? But it's really hard not being able to have any guests over without them getting attacked by my cat. Or not being able to eat or cook peacefully or do my hobbies. I feed her well, play with her often, treat her nicely and respectfully, reward good behavior, sternly tell her no when she's doing something I don't want her to do, but still she is kind of a monster and I don't know what else I can do? I diffuse calming essential oils (ones that are good for cats) to help her relax and it does help a little bit but not always. I'm worried she's going to claw my eyes out one of these days. She has attacked my face when I was asleep before too.
Any advice on how to manage this cat? It was my intention to take care of her and give her a good home and teach her love and gentleness so she doesn't have to live in fear and she can have a good life and learn to love people. But this is really stressing me out. I am especially concerned about my guests, some of which are young children. And I do travel for a few weeks at a time so I have people who will take care of her when I'm away, this was something I worked out before bringing her into my home since it would have been an issue if I didn't have a place for her when I'm gone, but now I'm not sure if anyone will be able to handle her, or if they'd even want her in their homes since they know what she's like.
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/d7lak6/help_with_poorly_behaved_rescue_cat/
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