4 year old cat (had her for two years) suddenly violent

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MrIsaka
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Joined: Tue Apr 13, 2004 3:35 pm
Location: Brooklyn, NY

4 year old cat (had her for two years) suddenly violent

Post by MrIsaka »

Two years ago I adopted a two-year old spayed female cat from a shelter. At first she was very violent towards me and other human beings, but after a long time and lots of patience and love, I got her to be pretty normal. For a while now she's liked humans, and comes up to be pet, and sleeps on my bed at night.

Very recently though, as in within the last month or two, she has become increasingly violent and skittish, the way she was when I first got her. I really don't understand what's causing this change in behavior, and I'm pretty confused on what to do.

What happens most often is she'll be sitting on my lap, and I'll be petting her. She'll be purring and will seem to be enjoying it, when all of a sudden she'll bite me, not a love-bite, but a fast, hard bite, and then she'll recoil with her ears back, and will often hold up her claws as if she's afraid of being hit and is going to scratch me. I try to calm her down, but she always just gets increasingly violent and usually ends up attacking me then running away.

She also cowers when I go to pick her up, which is something she used to do because her previous owners were violent, but she had stopped doing it, again for about a year. I've never really hit her to discipline her, and so I think that's why she stopped being violent, but lately it's started back up again full force, and I feel as if I don't know her, and as if I've made no progress of any sort in owning her.

She used to do that sort of thing all the time, but she hasn't done it for probably a year. I'm really disturbed. Any ideas on what could be causing this relapse, and how I could go about putting things right?

-Isaac
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davet
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Re: 4 year old cat (had her for two years) suddenly violent

Post by davet »

i personally would have no idea what the problem is...this is one of the idiosyncrasys of cats....they are strange people... you might just r=try to ignore her compleltly untill she decides that she needs you which will probably be ten minutes after you ignore and then back to the old habits....i have no idea, never had uunderstood cats but i suspect someone may have a idea soon.i used to think when things like this happens it was becausae some animal within a couple hundred yeads was in heat.... but never could prove it...
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Auntie Debbie
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Re: 4 year old cat (had her for two years) suddenly violent

Post by Auntie Debbie »

Your kitty could have something physical going on that should be taken care of by your vet. Just to be on the safe side, please have her seen by your vet to rule out any physical problems.
There is something called stimulation threshhold which is where a cat will become over stimulated while being petted and will lash out to the petter once the threshhold has been reached.

http://www.catsinternational.org/articl ... index.html

Look through these links, especially under Agression Towards People, see When Purrs become Bites.
You can find more links on "Behavior", "Aggression" and "Attack Cat" under the Feline section of my website (Debbie's Feline Health) listed under Favorites on the menu on the left side of the board.

Determining the cauuse of behavioral problems or quirks is difficult to figure out sometimes. Please start with the vet check and take it from there. I hope you will be able to help your kitty get past all of this again.
Kitty kisses,
Debbie
____________________________________

"Those we shelter on earth will be our treasures in Heaven." Victor Hugo, I think
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