I have a female cat that has always been temperamental (except when she was small). She is known to lull a person into a sense of security, sucking up and rubbing on them seemingly looking for attention....only to swat and hiss when pet. She has on occasion attacked when simply walking by a person even when they pay her no attention (pretty rare). She has never taken to our other cat and often attacks him out of nowhere. We used to be always covered in scratches until we decided to mostly leave her alone.
She didn't have the greatest start to life. She was a stray, carried around by a young homeless girl and fed on scraps, likely exposed to drugs, and left in a tupperware container with air holes while the girl prostituted herself.
Several years ago she was limping around and not using her back legs. When we had her xrayed it turned out she had broken a hip (we suspect a fall off a ladder she liked to climb during renovations), and she also had signs of arthritis in her hips - she has never really liked her back end touched at all. THis has been a difficult to care for cat....she is a longhair and not liking to be touched brushing was impossible. In summer months, with approval from a vet we would sedate and shave her - she would look ridiculous but was much happier.
We now have two kids...my son learned pretty fast not to bother with her. My daughter, now one year occasionally tries to touch her. The cat has done well resisting scratching but we have had two unprovoked incidents recently that make us feel we shouldn't risk her being around the kids anymore. She is now 8 years old and has been extra grumpy. I wonder if arthritis has worsened and she is perhaps in pain. We are faced with an option to rehome her - we would need to find someone content to care for a cat and leave her to her own devices. Since this cat hates everyone and only tolerates us, I wonder if this is really fair and would only cause her more stress. The other and less desirable option is to euthanize her...which I think the vet may agree to...she is in their files as being aggressive (we have not taken her for a checkup in years because she gets so violent).
I guess I'm just looking for opinions, I hate either decision. Currently she is living in our backyard (with food and water) as she is most content when she is outside, and figured this will be nicer for her than locking her on a room.
Our furry demon around the time of her injury showing the offending ladder.
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/np0ha9/aggressive_cat/
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