Hi guys, this is going to be a long one but I would really appreciate any help/advice or similar stories of how you overcame it!!
TLDR: After an incident where our cat got spooked by a creaking door and redirected her fear towards my husband and attacked him, she cannot be in the same room as him without being aggressive (puffed tail, hissing, growling). We have a vet appointment scheduled for the 13th Jan (super long wait due to Christmas/new year closures) and am trying to figure out how to deal with this until I can talk to our vet and possibly get a behavioural check done.
Long version: We rescued our cat around a year ago from when she was a baby (4 weeks old) and we have had no issues with her before this incident. She was always super cuddly and affectionate towards my husband and I. She would be cheeky sometimes and play with our hands but we would immediately stop and redirect her to a toy (shout out to the cat daddy Jackson Galaxy) and everything was amazing. My husband was never really an ‘animal person’ but he absolutely adored her.
Fast forward to the week of Christmas, my husband and I and our cat were in the bathroom together (she is very clingy and has to follow us everywhere) and he was trying to get out of the bathroom and moved the bathroom door a couple times and every time it moved, it would squeak. I noticed that our cat started to get spooked as I saw the fur on her back and tail started to stand up. I was about to let my husband know but everything happened to fast. She tried to dash out of the bathroom and she went by my husband and he followed her out and she immediately turned around and hissed at him and he ignored her and continued to exit when all of a sudden she pounced on him and latched onto his leg and started attacking with her claws and teeth. I tried to pull her off him and she ended up tearing up my arms and legs too but I managed to get her off and we slammed the bathroom door shut. She was very very angry and was throwing herself at the door trying to get in and she made the most horrible howling sounds we had never heard before. We ended up being trapped in the bathroom for 4 hours until we got the courage to leave and get into the bedroom while being armed with towels and a water spray bottle if she were to come at us again. Thank goodness she didn’t and we were able to leave the apartment and get to a hospital and get checked up.
We stayed at my dads place for the next few days but made trips home to feed her but she was still very wary of us and would growl when she thought we had come too close. We went back home on Christmas Day and plugged in a Feliway diffuser that we had bought and we created a system where we set up our large balcony area for her with toys, food, litter box, and sleeping/hiding areas. She seems very friendly towards me, but every time she sees my husband she becomes very defensive again. My husband is still very much afraid of her as every time she hisses at him he thinks she will attack him again so when he needs to get about, I bring her out onto the balcony and when he is in our bedroom (like at night time), I bring her back inside.
Fast forward again to yesterday and after looking up lots of advice and implementing it (getting hubby to be the only one to feed her favourite treat, getting him to talk to her and be calm around her), everything seemed to be going really well and we even had a meal in the living area and watched Netflix with her roaming about with no issue and she was very friendly towards him again.
However, this morning when my husband came out of the bathroom, she was at the end of the hall and they bumped into one another and I think it shocked him both. He became a bit flustered and she got spooked and immediately resumed her defensive posture and started growling at him again and he retreated back into the bathroom. I managed to coax her back out onto the balcony but she continued to stare at him as he walked about the apartment with her tail puffed up and growling. I tried to distract her with toys but she didn’t respond and only calmed down after my husband left the apartment for work. I let her back into the apartment and we went about with our day until I rustled some plastic packaging while trying to get some fruit and she started hissing at me. I remained stood there on the spot talking to her as calmly and normally as I could until she walked to me and smelt my legs and I proceeded to walk over to the couch and sit down, when suddenly came towards me and hissed. I ignored her and made sure to not stare at her and waited till she calmed down and I fed her some treats that she happily took from my hands but I was feeling a bit scared by then and took her out onto the balcony and went back into the apartment. Since then I’ve been feeding her treats through the door every time she walks up to me and she seems content again but just not sure if I’m doing the right thing or if there’s anything else I can do. I’m just generally feeling very disheartened and tired while trying to make sure both my husband and cat remain calm and are able to build up trust again.
Thank you so much if you got all the way down here, I know it was a ton-ful!
[link] [comments]
from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/kpgtl3/cat_attacked_husband_due_to_redirected_fear_and/
No comments:
Post a Comment