Aggressive 6 y/o Tabby mix—makes us feel unsafe

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clemthecat
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Aggressive 6 y/o Tabby mix—makes us feel unsafe

Post by clemthecat »

Hello! We are looking for advice regarding our Tabby mix. He’s 6 years old, neutered, NOT declawed, and we adopted him almost 2 years ago.

He had been rehomed three times before we adopted him and the shelter let us know he has affection aggression when pet for too long, but this wasn’t the entire story. He is aggressive with most people other than me and my husband and will swat or hiss when people come too close or try to approach him. We always instruct people to approach him calmly with their hand slightly raised so he can give them a sniff from a distance. Sometimes he’ll play nice and act interested for a few seconds and then swat at them seemingly unprovoked. He likes to sit under the table but will swat or bite at our feet if we so much as bump him.

He’s scratched my 7 y/o cousin and tried to bite my grandmother (who we live with) multiple times. When it was just my husband and I he seemed less aggressive but still had his moments. It’s obvious he’s most comfortable with us but even then he’ll become aggressive without much warning.

When we go to work we have to keep him in our bedroom (stocked with food, his litter box, and all of his favorite things) because he will destroy the house and potentially hurt my grandmother if we don’t. The vet has never noticed anything wrong with him before but we’re planning to take him to get a more thorough work up with his behavior. The very first time we took him to the vet they had to send him back out and give us some sedatives to bring him back for another appointment because he was being so aggressive.

We hate to have to lock him up because it’s obviously unfair for him but we don’t have any other option.

I love my cat to death and he’s very attached to us. He can be the sweetest boy in the world but also incredibly scary. He’s also mixed with some breed of larger cat—he’s 16 pounds and 17 in tall—so his size lends to his scariness.

Because he’s already 6 I don’t know how much intervention a behaviorist could provide so I’m really hoping that the vet can find a cause for his behavior outside of it just being his personality. If anyone has any suggestions in the meantime, they would be really appreciated!
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Mollycat
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Re: Aggressive 6 y/o Tabby mix—makes us feel unsafe

Post by Mollycat »

If he was a wild cat mix that might well be a factor, and being rehomed several times would not have helped him either, but you can only start from here to work on moving forward.

One detail jumps out at me - you're telling people to approach him a certain way. I would stop that, and tell people to ignore and even avoid him altogether. Cats by nature are timid creatures, and their best way to feel safe is knowing that they will be left alone. Even more so a wild cat mix. It sounds to me like your boy feels threatened - if he is under the table, feet aren't even connected to people, and if they touch him that will feel threatening. Having people he is unsure of reach out to him will also feel threatening. Staring at him will feel threatening too. If he is only aggressive when approached or touched, or when people near him move unexpectedly, it sounds more life defensiveness than aggression. If your grandmother tends to jerk away from him and be startled by him, he would be likely to be worse with her.

Does this sound like him?

Do you play with him and if so, how do you play? Does he have a high prey drive?

Whether this is him or not, if he doesn't have one already, he should benefit from -
Safe places in quiet parts of the house, up high, and some hidden away. Never bother him in those places.
Active play. Tough toys you can drag for him to pounce on and chase, something he can grab and "kill" and wrestle with, also mimick a bird, lots of different hunt and fight mimicking games.
Let him come to you, but don't touch. Let him spend time with you and near to you without expecting anything from him. Let him get used to you and relaxing with you, without the tension of wondering if you're going to pet him.

I'm lucky, my girl is a flight not fight kind of girl, but we are almost 9 years into our journey together and she is beginning to believe the world is not so scary after all, and she is 14. Last year we had to go to a temporary home for 10 days and to everyone's astonishment she was just fine, she even got confident enough to step into the garden for the first time in her life, having been rehomed to me as indoor because she had access to outdoors before but was too scared. What messed her up in the first place was almost certainly having affection forced on her and a noisy chaotic kitten home. What I just shared with you, she taught me.

Also - great that he still has his claws, does he have plenty of scratch posts and cat trees?

How do you "discipline" him or how do you respond when he attacks?
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Re: Aggressive 6 y/o Tabby mix—makes us feel unsafe

Post by clemthecat »

Yes and no—sometimes it definitely seems defensive but other times he’s demonstrating predatory behavior. He’ll stalk us around or wait under the table to pounce out as we walk by. He loves laser pointers and his mouse toy (it’s motion activated and “runs” away when he touches it). Another problem is that when he wants affection, he asks for it aggressively. We often wake up to love bites that get progressively harder until you pet him. I’ve had to shove him off the bed a few times for biting me too hard while I’m asleep.

As far as discipline goes, I tend to just walk away because I’m frightened. My husband will usually give him a stern “no” or put him in the bedroom. He seems to be much more well behaved and less aggressive with my husband.

He has a tall cat tree and some perches/spaces under the bed that he seems to prefer. His favorite place though is to plop down right at our feet, which is why the biting from under the table happens often.

The other issue is that when people come over, even if we instruct them to keep away from him, he likes to come “inspect” and it seems like there are just certain people he doesn’t like having in the house that he’ll approach aggressively of his own accord.

If it was just my husband and I it really wouldn’t be as much of a problem but because we have to worry about my grandma and because we have a big family and people drop by often, it’s more difficult.

He desperately wants to be outside but because he’s so aggressive we don’t want him to be outside unsupervised (there are a lot of outdoor and feral cats in our neighborhood). We had an Australian Shepherd before we adopted Clem and when our pup was still around Clementine would get a look in his eye and dart across the room just to attack our dog. He was 60 lbs and absolutely terrified of Clem, he tried to avoid him pretty much always.

We want to build him a catio but I almost worry it could make his indoor behaviors worse.

Also: the cat scanner app says he’s domestic short hair, tabby, ocicat, and bengal cat
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Re: Aggressive 6 y/o Tabby mix—makes us feel unsafe

Post by Mollycat »

Oh, that sounds more like inappropriate play maybe? Do you know much about his time before he came to you? Has he got better or worse with you?
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Re: Aggressive 6 y/o Tabby mix—makes us feel unsafe

Post by clemthecat »

Unfortunately, no :( the people who surrendered him to the humane society just said they “didn’t have time for him.” They also said he peacefully coexisted with their dog but that might have been a bit of fib as well considering the way he interacted with ours. My guess is that he had similar behaviors in his previous home and the family couldn’t handle him.

An update on today: we let him roam around the backyard while my husband followed him for about 30 minutes and then suddenly Clementine started hissing at him and trying to run away. He’s definitely a very independent little guy and while his aggression is not the greatest thing he’s very good at communicating lol!
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Re: Aggressive 6 y/o Tabby mix—makes us feel unsafe

Post by Mollycat »

I don't know. My gut is still saying that being approached and followed can't be helping the situation, though obviously there is more to it, but surely changing just that to see how much difference it makes might be worthwhile.
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Re: Aggressive 6 y/o Tabby mix—makes us feel unsafe

Post by GoyangiMiKki »

He kind of sounds like my boy Fezzy... I feel a lot of the time it's less about aggression, but more about pent up energy. LOTS of toys. He has way too many toys. I also like to chase him around in the morning. Some cats show love through wild play than being pet. Also, maybe your ktty is not fully neutered? That is the case for me.
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