Skeptomania - Paranormal / UFOs, etc.

wrmd · :::::::::

As with a lot of things around the house I lean more on the procrastination side of the spectrum of getting things done and just recently had our girls spayed. The youngest has adapted well since the surgery which was just a little over a week ago, but the older of the two has turned psychotic which is prompted me to post this.

The first couple of days were alright but she without warning decided to viciously attack my youngest cat which resulted in her living up in the basement ceiling panels for a couple of days. I'd bring down water and food which she would devour as soon as the bowls were placed down. Enough was enough I thought, so I had my wife try to pull her down from the ceiling in an attempt to bring her upstairs and keep the other in the basement to cool off. My wife finally convinced her to come down with a strategically placed kitty treat. In retrospect the older one should have been kept upstairs behind a steel cage while the operation was taking place. Just as kitty was comfortable enough to crawl onto my wife's shoulder the mean cat (kitty is too cute of a label to assign to this one) she freaked out and attacked my wife. It wasn't anything more then a surface wound but it was enough to have her tremble in fear (while standing on an awkward chair).

I'm not one to go out of my way to harm an animal, but in order to get her off my wife she received quite the smack, and then another and then another each time she lunged at me.

Well, the next day I had the kitty upstairs and the other in the basement and this is the situation we're currently in. It's not really pleasant but it works for now.

I'm going to try the water and spray technique but I'm afraid that will piss her off even more. This cat owns me.

223fmj

If the cat owns you, then do you own a gun?

Gren · God Of Oreos

If a cat owns you and you own a gun, the cat owns the gun. This is not good.

TheMadHobbit · Subway Tolkien

Yeah, cats tend to have hair triggers.

get it?

murphy · Horse Nazi

Yaish · Intel Chief

This can only turn out one of two ways.

This.

Or this.

paul68 · Shaved Ape

Once a pet attacks someone in the house, it's gone.

wrphhi

Wrmd, have you consulted the vet? Something is definitely wrong here.

Raven · Google Meister

sounds like that cat is trying to assert territory... you have to make a point to remind the cat that the territory is yours and you have the say in what goes on. When the cat attacked either of the times, you should have grabbed it by the nape of its neck... it doesn't hurt them, but it makes them significantly paralyzed while you hold them and makes them very vulnerable (that fact alone gets the point across). While keeping a good grip of the nape, force the cat to lay its side (it will try to resist because its already in "fight-mode" so just bop it in the nose lightly... it gets their attention where you want it to be). As in most animals, lying on their side is a submissive position, even though you read this as, "rub my belly"; they actually mean this as a sign of respect as in, "you're the alpha" because to be lying on their side is a very vulnerable position.
Or, as a quicker method, I also simply hold my cat up by the nape (remember, nape alone is making very vulnerable, putting them on their side is just adding to it) to my face level and glare at him. and if he still tries to get an attitude, I just bop him in the nose to get his attention (nose bopping is very useful stuff… works on my girlfriend too).
Remember that despite what people believe, cats aren’t “independent”, they’re pack animals. Their social order isn’t exactly the same as dogs, but they’re close enough that you can get them to react with most of the same treatments.

asmodee

Do be careful when handling a cat with a short fuse, even by the nape of the neck. We had a stray kitten show up at our house once which we called Scaredey Cat. It would not come near us, but it was comfortable enough with us to eat our food and hang out at our house. My wife caught it snoozing in a lawn chair once and grabbed it by the nape of the neck to check whether it was male or female. That thing did some kung fu shit on my wife and tore the hell out of her hand to get away. He never really did end up trusting anyone but me after that. Now he's gone, though. He had a brother show up at the same time. No room for two male cats in one square mile, apparently. As they got older, we saw him less and less until we saw him no more. The brother is still there, though, looking all beat to hell with part of an ear missing and spraying the hell out of my back patio. He's still as friendly as ever, though.

Raven · Google Meister

yea... you really want to make sure that you have a really good grip and let gravity put force on him... and i did say significantly paralyzed, not completely.
The cause is most likely territorial, and it's cropping up now because of the spaying... could be the hormone change, or it could even be that the cat doesn't actually recognize the other cat anymore (cats use smell for memory more than any other sense, and you changed the smell). So... basically, you need to remind it who the boss is...

wrmd · :::::::::

The vet was called and pretty much confirmed much of what Raven wrote. She's staying in the basement for a while until I can spend some time with the disciplinary action.

Odd the way that she is overly friendly when I'm downstairs, she'll meow and purr ecstatically which always turns into a hiss or growl. I was able to give her a nice and long spray with water bottle this morning which seemed to snap her out of her little tantrum for a while. We'll see how it goes. This will need to be resolved one way or another.

wrphhi

I guess she jut didn't like getting spayed.