aggressive cat

[Angela83]

Hi,

We have a male cat called Jasper. He is 4 years old. We rescued him from Leigh dog's and cat's home around 6 months ago. When we rescued him he had not been neutered and the home had given him his first vaccination. We had him neutered and he is up to date with his vaccinations. He has shown aggression towards myself which has become increasingly worse to the point of him having me cornered in a room and leaping up to bite me! He is very aloof and will not come to us unless he wants food or letting out into the garden. We believe that he is unhappy living with us and would maybe suit an older male owner who wants a cat as company rather than a cat that fusses them constantly. We want to keep him as we love him very much but he just does not seem to like us. When we pet him, he bites us and we have tried different behaviour management techniques but none of them have worked. We know that we chose him and we do not want to re-home him because he is aloof, we just believe that he is unhappy with us which is why he keeps biting us. We have been told that this is a dominance issue and have tried to stop his aggression with the methods recommended by the vet but this has not worked.

Does anyone have any suggestions? We are living in fear of him at present as he is so unpredictable.

Thanks

[Diana]

Hi and welcome.

Has Jasper been like this from the start? If not I wonder if something has happened that has spooked him?

[Angela83]

Hi thanks for responding,

When we first rescued him he was sort of aloof but he would sleep on our bed at night and he had a routine of coming up and getting on the bed with my husband after I had got up and left for work. He now does not do either of these things but will sleep on a bed we have made for him in our bedroom. He was advertised (for want of a better word) to us as a house cat but we have a large garden and he has taken to sitting in it when we are home. He doesn't stray further than that and we have secured the garden so he can't if he wanted to as he obviously has never been out so does not understand roads etc.

There is a cat that lives in the garden that backs onto ours and he now spends a lot of time guarding our garden from this cat which I suppose is understandable as it is his turf - I am wondering if this is the cause of his aggression.

He has never been a lap cat and thats fine, we did not get him to be at our beckon call. His behaviour has become worse over the last month or so and he is now quite unpredictable. You can stroke him and he purrs and then he will suddenly turn and bite you. He attacks me more than my husband which is what made us think it was a dominance issue but we have tried some strategies to stop this and he is still biting. He will also attack me if I tell him off, he has a scratching post but will sometimes attempt the claw the sofa. I stop him and he will then sit and stare at me before lunging to bite me.

Thanks for any suggestions!

Sorry just to add - we believe he was a stray who was then rescued by someone who then took him to the dogs home to be re-homed. Several people including the vet, have said he has a very large head and that this is a sign of a feral cat. He was not neutered when we rescued him which is unusual for a four year old cat. He had also never been vaccinated.

[greenkitty]

The big head means they haven't been neutered or neutered late not that they are feral...

This does sound like it maybe a case of redirected aggression as the change in behaviour seems to coincide with the arrival of the other cat. Have you tried things like Pet Remedy, Zylkene or Feliway? When he attempts to bite or attack you what is your reaction? Have you tried rewarding his good behaviour/interactions with you?

[Angela83]

Hi,

No we haven't tried those, we have looked into some kind of calming remedy but not actually got anything yet, I wanted to get people's opinions first. When he bites us we just say 'no' and walk away from him. He does seem to know he has hurt us as after a while he comes to us purring and rubbing his head on us when we stroke him. When he does this we are trying to reward him as we want him to know that he can feel secure with us. I also stroke him a couple of times when he is eating which was suggested by the vet. We have stopped fussing him so much since yesterday as we think he may be getting a bit overwhelmed as he is not use to so much attention. We did not fuss him last night unless he came to us and he came and sat next to me on the couch which he has not done for a long time.

Were we wrong to let him in the garden? We did not feel it was right to keep him in and thought letting him in the garden would be ok as he was able to go out without risking himself with the roads etc. Since we let him out he has been more unsettled and this has maybe been the cause of the aggression.

[greenkitty]

Its certainly a good idea to let him initiate the fusses, just let him to come to you when he wants attention, it is possible that he's overwhelmed as you say.

I would also let him continue to use the garden it might be even more stressful to withdraw access to it now. Can you screen the area where he can see the other cat so he can't see it just from sitting on the lawn?

[Angela83]

Thanks for the advice.

We have booked him in with the vet so see what they say and if they can recommend any calming remedies. We put chicken wire up across the fence at the back to stop him getting through when we first got him as it was just trees. We can put a barrier up in the place that he tends to sit and stare so he cannot see through to the garden opposite.

We are going to go out and check if the cat has actually been in the garden and done anything as this might be causing stress as well.