Evil Kitty

My former employer had a couple of feral cats living in their parking lot, that various employees would feed. When they decided to move to a new building they discovered a litter of kittens living in the generator house. Since the generator was to be moved, they decided to trap the mother cats and have them spayed and try and find homes for the kittens.

I took one of the kittens. I'm not sure exactly what his age was, but I had to bottle feed him for a couple of weeks before I could get him to start eatting on his own.

Even as a tiny little kitten he was somewhat agressive....not towards me, but he would attack and bite his bottle when he was having trouble getting milk out of it. Once he got a bit older, he was pretty much a complete terror as a kitten, bouncing off the walls, attacking and clawing everything in sight etc.

He is now neutered and about 2 years old and he is much calmer than he was and is often very snuggly and affectionate, but he still has his bouts of biting and clawing.

The biting generally seems to be completely unprovoked. I've tried the methods suggested here and other places to no avail. He doesn't care about water, yelling "no" or "ow" or making other noises, holding still has no affect on him, nor does attempting to ignore him (actually it seems to provoke more biting if anything) and if you pull him off generally unless I lock him in a room somewhere or put him outside he will continually bite until forcably removed. He pretty much ignores toys when he gets in these attacking modes. He has no health problems per the vet.

I suspect part of the issue may be never having "learned manners" due to being taken away from his mother and litter mates so early, but i'm not sure what else to do with him. I generally just put him outside when he starts biting (I live in a rural area).

Some people have suggested getting him a playmate as an outlet for his extra energy, however I'm afraid he'll be agressive towards the other cat as well....

I'm considering moving to an apartment, where putting him outdoors would no longer be an option and I don't want to have to lock him in a room constantly to keep him from biting, so it would be nice if I could break him of this habit somehow :>

I don't have any suggestions for you, hopefully someone else will soon. Bless you for saving him! I do want to add I would be careful letting him outdoors, regardless of if you live in a house or apartment due to the dangers that he could face out there.

I had a cat like that when I was younger. When their mother is taken away at a young age they don't learn the difference between playing and fighting. Mine used to scratch and bite the heck out of me! Please don't get another cat. We tried it and the bitey cat hurt the "normal" cat and eventually we had to give the new cat to someone else. Basically, your cat's personality can't be changed. It's a hard thing, I know. Your choice is to deal with it or find someone (preferably with a lot of land) who can. I doubt an apartment would be good for a cat who is aggressive and also destructive. I wish you the best of luck, I loved my evil kitty very much and miss him to this day

Your boy sounds like my Go. Go was bottle fed and given the same attention and love as my other cats. But he was born to be an over active, aggressive cat. He can be loving but the cuddling sessions are far less than his "attack and destroy" periods.
Because my cats are indoor/outdoor, I do not have problems with Go's aggression. His adventures outside are good outlets for his behavior. Like what meg19822 posted, it may be a difficult adjustment for a cat such as yours (or my Go) to move to an indoor scenario although it is not impossible.

Originally Posted by meg19822

Basically, your cat's personality can't be changed.

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I respectfully disagree. My oldest cat used to do something similar when he was younger. He was the only cat in his litter and never learned the difference between play and aggression either. One day at my wits end I bit him back. He was so shocked that I would do that. Overtime he learned how to play bite and bite bite. He also has been extremely safe around kittens. He's the first of my adults that I intro new kittens with because he's the gentlest. He lives successfully with three other cats now.

It's great that you were able to change your cats behavior, kudos to you I don't know if I'd want to go so far as to bite my cat back, but to each his own... Did your cat lose it's mother also or was it just an only kitten? If it still had its mom she probably played with it. "Can't" is too absolute of a statement, you're right. I'll ammend it to "Your cat's personality may be difficult/impossible to change". It could happen, but sadly it's the exception, not the rule. Especially if they lost their mom at a critical stage of development.

Ohhhh he sounds JUST like Monster did. I got him from a colony of ferals by my old job, he was 4 weeks old, bottle fed n all that. He was SOOO bad when he was a kitten and even after getting him neutered he was still bad, psycho and hyper. NOTHING worked on him either. water doesnt phase him, ignoring him makes it worse. Finally, i got Mittens, and now, she is considered the bad one. He is so much calmer, but, he really asserts his dominance over her. Lately, he has REALLY been torturing her.

Originally Posted by meg19822

It's great that you were able to change your cats behavior, kudos to you

I don't know if I'd want to go so far as to bite my cat back, but to each his own...

Did your cat lose it's mother also or was it just an only kitten? If it still had its mom she probably played with it. "Can't" is too absolute of a statement, you're right. I'll ammend it to "Your cat's personality may be difficult/impossible to change". It could happen, but sadly it's the exception, not the rule. Especially if they lost their mom at a critical stage of development.

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No, he did have his mother and there was a much older kitten from a different litter entirely who he was able to play with some but I don't know to what extent they really worked on "manners." He was the mom's first kitten ever so maybe she wasn't up to speed on how to discipline kittens herself. I'll admit, Friday and I have a very special bond and can usually work through things together. Also, he may have had the last laugh that day because he's unbelievably fluffy (you can click the link to my blog below and see some pictures of him. He's the long-haired black cat)! I thought I was going to gack up a hairball myself. But it did work.

Originally Posted by angryyew

I suspect part of the issue may be never having "learned manners" due to being taken away from his mother and litter mates so early, but i'm not sure what else to do with him.

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I live with 3 bottle orphans and this is exactly what is happening. Of the 3, Koko has the worst behavior in terms of aggression, and she takes most of her aggression out on the other cats, which relieves me from getting the brunt of it. It's not that she is aggressive, I just failed to teach her the manners that her mom would have.

Koko turned 5 this past April and has mellowed a lot in the last year. Before that, to distract her from the other cats, I would use up her energy by playing with toys like Da Bird with her so that she had some focus to her energy. When we had full play sessions, she was easier on everyone else.

For discipline for her (when she directed her energy at me), I had to resort to "mom" behavior: give her a hiss and do a light scruff to hold her still until she calmed down. Call it a time out.

If you get another cat, don't adopt an adult, nor a very young kitten. An adult cat won't tolerate the behavior and a very young kitten can't handle it. Get a kitten old enough to hold their own. You will probably need to intervene to tire him out.

My housemates and I once adopted an older feral kitten and he never really warmed up to people. He was terrified for days and would not come out from under the bed. I had to lie on my stomach and hold out pieces of cooked chicken. Pretty soon he bonded with me, at least in the sense that he saw me as his source of food and he would come to me when he was hungry and meow and rub against my legs. However, he didn't like to be held and would usually scratch or bite if I tried to pet him. He was always frightened of strangers and could claw you pretty badly if you tried to get friendly. Overall, I have to admit that Timmy was not a great pet. He was not good about using the litterbox and after he ruined several rugs, we decided to let him be an outside cat. It was a very quiet neighborhood and he was not a wanderer -- he spent most of the day under the deck in the backyard, so that was okay. He rarely even tried to climb the fence. When I moved out, my housemate (the owner of the house) kept him and as far as I know, the cat continues to live under his deck to this day.

Maybe some feral cats can never be completely domesticated. Of course, yours was young when you got him so maybe with time his behavior will improve.