Female violently attacking other female recently out of the blue, why?!?!

vel

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My aunt had me come online and try and find out what the reasoning to her cat's behavior could be. Our one female started really etaring into another female that has shared the same living space with her for years. She wants to know if it's possible the Cosmic Catnip stuff I bought her could have permanently made her nuts, because she is right in saying that that was the only thing new to come into the environment when this started happening, and it makes her loony when she used it, maybe this is a new by product in her personality from it? The catnip toy is no longer around however.
 

yayi

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When was the last check up of BOTH cats? Perhaps the other one is sick. They can tell, you know, and it's a common reaction to become aggressive towards the weaker one.
 

larke

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Or it could be that the aggressive one saw a strange cat outside and transferred her territorial aggression to the one inside - happens all the time! They usually get over it in a day, but it can be scary (they'll even attack people) at the time. The catnip theoretically could have affected her neurologically I guess, and she could have had an allergic reaction to it, so as it's not an 'essential', I'd just give it to the other cat privately in future.
 

momofmany

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Originally Posted by yayi

When was the last check up of BOTH cats? Perhaps the other one is sick. They can tell, you know, and it's a common reaction to become aggressive towards the weaker one.
The first thing you check whenever there is a drastic behavior change is their health. Cats are notorious for hiding their illnesses from us, but their cat companions pick it up easily.

If you can honestly rule out health issues, then you start looking at other changes in their environment: a new cat hanging outside, a change in food / litter, a change in work schedule for the owner. Then there are the less obvious things that you wouldn't think would affect them: new laundry detergent (the smells have changed), you moved the furniture around (the territory has changed).

I've also seen instances where a cat has had a scary moment (fell off a table and hurt themselves) and the other cat was in the vicinity when it happened. The scared cat projects the bad moment on the other cat and the aggression begins.

Once you have gone thru the list of things that could be causing this, sometimes you need to start the introduction process over as if they have never met. This applies to the last example (scared cat) that I shared. There's a great thread on how to introduce cats.
http://www.thecatsite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=67321

Let us know what you find out about their health and we can coach you thru the rest.
 
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