I am going to be moving to my first apartment next month, and I am really hoping that some lifestyle and environment changes might help one of my cats with his aggression towards people.
I have four cats, three males and a female, all spayed and neutered. One is approximately 8 years old, my big fluffy boy (17 lbs, not overweight, just a big kitty with suspected Maine Coon in him, or at least some other large ear-tufted and long-haired cat) Sterling who I have had since he was a kitten. My other three are between 4-5 years old and I have had them since they were very young but not as young as Sterling.
I'm sorry for the long story, but I want to give as much detail as possible of his behavior and life up until this point, I have tried to break it up into pieces to make things less of a mess but it is still a jumble of things that have happened.
His history is that I ended up with him after a friend's sister had found a shoebox on the side of a road containing three kittens, one of which was already dead. The other two survived, and I ended up taking one home. I don't know exactly how old he was, old enough to eat by himself but definitely very small and wobbly with a head too big for his body, no idea how to use a litter box and very quickly I learned that he is an ear-sucker, which I know is usually a sign of not being properly weaned / taken from the mother too soon. He got a clean bill of health from the vet, continued his ear-sucking habit whenever the opportunity presented itself (I often woke up with him still wrapped around my neck and with drool on me, if not him actually still attached to my earlobe), got him neutered and overall things were fine with him for quite a while, aside from finding out he was getting pretty big and that he could get very rough with playing and I had to be careful not to get him too excited or play with my hands. My mother and I were the only ones around while he was young, friendly with her but very much bonded with me from the start.
I'm not sure when it happened at first, but we found that he hated my father, bit and scratched him just after meeting him and as far as I can tell it was unprovoked. Over time he met my sister, and her sons which also got the same reaction, also chasing them out. If anyone ever comes into his living area, his response would generally be to get wide-eyed and stare, if approached he would hiss and lash out, or if they stayed away but in his view he would slowly walk towards them, unblinking, unbroken eye contact and usually get close enough to smell them before hitting them with his claws out, very hard and always drawing blood, sometimes jumping up and sinking his front and back claws into them while biting, usually causing them to scream or yell and try to run away, and he would give chase and continue until they were gone. Even with my mother occasionally (and still to this day), seemingly for no reason he would decide he didn't like something she did or the way she looked at him and he would give her "mean eyes" as she called them, leading to a slash or bite if she didn't quickly and nervously leave. Being nervous or scared around him definitely triggers his aggression, even with myself if I calmly pick him up and move him there is usually no problem, but if I am nervous about it or make eye contact with him for too long before touching him cautiously, he will hurt me. He acts as if he has been abused, but I don't know what exactly could have flipped the switch for him other than possibly someone playing with their hands and him not taking it well at some point, but definitely nothing that stands out.
Bringing him to the vet means attempting to drug him with Gabapentin, he cannot be handled while conscious because he basically acts exactly like an unsocialized feral cat as soon as he is out of the carrier. The vets need leather gloves over their elbows, Sterling hisses and fights, flailing around and acts like they are trying to kill him, the last time they had to squeeze him into a box and gas him just to examine him and give him his annual rabies. My presence does nothing at all to calm him and I usually end up cowering on top of a chair while trying to stay out of the war path and they get him out, he is terrifying when he is in killer mode. I can't clip his claws personally, he absolutely will not tolerate it and he is too strong to wrap in a towel and restrain so his nails are always very sharp until the vets can trim them while he is sedated.
I ended up living with an ex-girlfriend for several years, the first bit of which involved Sterling attacking her whenever she got too close (or occasionally when he found her sleeping), and attacking her intact male cat before we got him neutered (I didn't know he was intact when I moved in). Him and the other male eventually somewhat calmed down around eachother, but for a long time things were still very tense between them and there were sometimes fights when they got too close to eachother. We adopted a few other cats over time and didn't have any problems with aggression between them and Sterling, he would sleep with them and groom them sometimes but often preferred to be alone. There was one day that my ex-girlfriend was tickling me to the point that I was screaming and crying and Sterling came charging into the room and jumped up on the bed next to me, fur bushed out and eyes huge, looking back and forth between us, coming to me and letting me pet him until he calmed down, and I had the very clear understanding that he came to defend me, normally he would never have run to me while acting like that. He never really got used to the ex, he tolerated her existence after a while but did not want her to touch him or interact with him in any way, and I became the only caregiver of the cats. She was very mean to our pets and I don't know if she may have struck him at some point but it is possible, though I didn't see it myself and he didn't act any more aggressive towards her than he had from the start. He attacked anyone who ever came over, once chased a cable-man out of the house as if he was going to kill him, hissing and screaming. The ritual became to put him away if anyone ever needed to come over, and mostly stay out of his way the rest of the time unless he specifically came to find me for attention. I moved back home after several years and Sterling closely bonded with one of my males, they groom and sleep together and get along very well. Other than me and my mother, he has not had anyone else able to pet him or allowed anyone else to come into my living area since we have moved back home. A few months ago, a family friend came into my bedroom while I was not home because he had heard a loud crash late at night (a fan had fallen over), and after frantically checking all my cats for injuries and finding nothing I only figured out where the blood trail came from after hearing the story the next day about being viciously attacked.
I sadly have quite a few stories about him attacking people, most commonly being when I am there but not very many times have I been the focus of his aggression. When he is not in demon kitty mode, he is very affectionate, purrs up a storm and follows me and my mother around while rubbing his head on us, weaving around our legs, still coming to me in bed and trying to nurse on my ears while kneading me. He is very calm and well behaved as long as no one else tries to come over and I don't do anything to show him i'm afraid of him or do something to make him angry, examples of that are doing things like trying to move him when he doesn't want to be, or accidentally touching him with a foot while in bed (Ouch!), trying to brush him or touch his paws, anywhere out of his comfort zone. Sometimes the other cats do something to set him off, most commonly being trying to reject his attempt to groom them or act like they are going to run away from him, and he will grab them, bite, scratch or otherwise get very rough with them until eventually they escape and run off. When he does this, he doesn't even seem particularly angry, it is almost like he is casually punishing them and seems totally unphased when they cry or struggle, and acts like it never happened when eventually his victim comes back into the room, he just snaps and has violent outbursts and then goes back to whatever he was doing.
(Thank you for your patience if you are still reading this!)
So currently, I am still living at home with the kitties, and next month (on the 1st), I am going to be moving to my first apartment closer to work. My plan is to move and set things up as much as possible, and bring the cats last so they can get used to the new place. I have several cat trees, and I am going to be aiming to get a lot of things to climb up on including shelves, steps, adding different places to hide and overall trying to give them as much to do as possible. I am going to be able spend more time at home with less than 1/4 of my current daily commute to and from work, and I am planning to give them more play time with laser pointers, feather wands, interactive toys and anything I can find to rotate and entertain them. I have watched some My Cat from Hell and I am hoping that tiring him out and giving him ways to get up off the floor might help things? I have been seeing someone for a while now and he has not met my cats, mostly because I am afraid of Sterling attacking him. I know they have smelled him on me regularly and have stopped seeming interested in that, I don't know if giving them one of his shirts would help anything. I am trying to think of any way I could introduce them with as little violence as possible, and my ultimate goal is to just have Sterling tolerate someone coming over, even if they can't go up and pet him or anything like that. He is very food motivated so I am thinking if he can just stay calm with someone there, he might eventually accept a treat from them? I have a lot of trouble trying to sneak pills or medications into food for him which is one reason I haven't really considered something like kitty prozac but I don't know if that would help anyways.
Tl;dr: I have an 8 year old neutered male cat who is extremely aggressive towards strangers and seemingly very protective of me, I am trying to find a solution and hear suggestions for things I can do in my new apartment that might help him tolerate people coming over without turning into a demon and trying to kill them.
[link] [comments]
from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/eqj9pm/my_8_year_old_male_cat_has_severe_aggression_with/
No comments:
Post a Comment