Hello,
I was just looking for a bit of advice really.
We have a male cat that has been with us from being a kitten, we've had him for 6 years now and to put it bluntly he's evil.
He will randomly attack us and visitors to our house for no reason and this is becoming more and more frequent. This is happening to a point where I have had to lock myself in the bathroom until he will move away from the door or he will just sink his nails into our legs, ankles and feet.
He was neutered as soon as he was old enough. He's a very independent cat and will often stay out all day, come in for food and then disappear again all night.
We have 2 young children (4 and 1) and he has attacked our 4 year old before but only once or twice. I'm afraid he's going to do it again and really hurt one of them.
Whats strange is when I was pregnant both times he would follow me around the house and stand guard at every door of whichever room I was in and if we go out for a walk he will follow behind us until we reach our destination and then wait for us, then follows us home again. Hes quite protective of us all and has even had stand offs with dogs and actually chased off a dog before!
Is there anything that you could suggest that would maybe calm him down as we really don't want to get to the point where we have to rehome him as he's part of our family.
Attacking us and visitors
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Ruth B
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- Location: Wolverhampton
Re: Attacking us and visitors
Personally I never consider a cat to be evil, a cat doesn't think like we do, they live in the here and now, and while they may develop a learned behaviour, there is normally a reason for it, or at least there was originally. Working out what is going on in your cat's head might be tricky as it has been going on for so long.
Unfortunately there can be a lot of reasons for a cat to start attacking and without actually seeing the way he reacts to your family, visitors and your other pets, it is hard to know just what he is thinking and what he is reacting to. It could be that he is still trying to protect you and feels that the dogs, the children and visitors are threatening you and tries to drive you to an area he feels you are safe the only way he know how. It could be that something is upsetting him and it is a case of redirected aggression. It could be that something happened in the past and he is now in a set place where he feels he has to attack everyone to protect himself and his territory. There could even be a medical cause for it either a long term neurological condition, or a physical one that means he is in pain and lashes out to try and stop anyone making it hurt any more than it already does.
My first advice would be to get him checked over by a vet to make sure there is nothing physically wrong with him, the vet may also be able to prescribe a short term course of medication to try and calm him down while you work out what the cause is, I personally don't like the idea of putting an animal on long term medication unless the diagnosis is specific and the medication is for that diagnosis, it can however be a good short term option. I would also suggest asking for a referral to a cat behaviourist, a specialist can often look at a cat and from their body language understand what is going on and give advice on how to change things.
Unfortunately the above options can start to get very expensive, so you might also want to do some research on cat behaviour yourself. Vicky Halls is an English cat behaviourist that has done some very good books, and Jackson Galaxy is a behaviourist in the USA that does the 'My Cat from Hell' TV series that is very good as well as books on cat behaviour. There are quite a few episodes on Youtube you can watch for free and others available to download, watching them might mean you can spot familier behaviour patterns which will help you understand what is happening with your own cat and hopefully give you some ideas of how to go about solving the problem.
Finally, this may be obvious, but try to make sure that he is never left alone with the children until you start to understand the problem. An attack by a cat can be serious and very traumatic, particularly at a young age, you don't want the children to grow up hating or fearing cats because he attacked them, nor do you want to find yourself having to explain to the doctors in A&E that you cat attacked your child. If you have to limit him to parts of the house then do so for the safety of all.
Unfortunately there can be a lot of reasons for a cat to start attacking and without actually seeing the way he reacts to your family, visitors and your other pets, it is hard to know just what he is thinking and what he is reacting to. It could be that he is still trying to protect you and feels that the dogs, the children and visitors are threatening you and tries to drive you to an area he feels you are safe the only way he know how. It could be that something is upsetting him and it is a case of redirected aggression. It could be that something happened in the past and he is now in a set place where he feels he has to attack everyone to protect himself and his territory. There could even be a medical cause for it either a long term neurological condition, or a physical one that means he is in pain and lashes out to try and stop anyone making it hurt any more than it already does.
My first advice would be to get him checked over by a vet to make sure there is nothing physically wrong with him, the vet may also be able to prescribe a short term course of medication to try and calm him down while you work out what the cause is, I personally don't like the idea of putting an animal on long term medication unless the diagnosis is specific and the medication is for that diagnosis, it can however be a good short term option. I would also suggest asking for a referral to a cat behaviourist, a specialist can often look at a cat and from their body language understand what is going on and give advice on how to change things.
Unfortunately the above options can start to get very expensive, so you might also want to do some research on cat behaviour yourself. Vicky Halls is an English cat behaviourist that has done some very good books, and Jackson Galaxy is a behaviourist in the USA that does the 'My Cat from Hell' TV series that is very good as well as books on cat behaviour. There are quite a few episodes on Youtube you can watch for free and others available to download, watching them might mean you can spot familier behaviour patterns which will help you understand what is happening with your own cat and hopefully give you some ideas of how to go about solving the problem.
Finally, this may be obvious, but try to make sure that he is never left alone with the children until you start to understand the problem. An attack by a cat can be serious and very traumatic, particularly at a young age, you don't want the children to grow up hating or fearing cats because he attacked them, nor do you want to find yourself having to explain to the doctors in A&E that you cat attacked your child. If you have to limit him to parts of the house then do so for the safety of all.