Hey everyone, hope you can help us with a difficult situation.
My sister has a cat that's just recently become very violent towards her. The backstory is this: I found a cat with 2 kittens in my backyard last summer. We caught the mama cat and did a spay and release on her, then we caught the 2 kittens and gave them to my sister. They were obviously scared, but my sister has had lots of experience with cats, and took good care of them.
Throughout the past year, one of the kittens (Jeannie) has adjusted much better than the other (Scuttle), even though Jeannie still gets skittish when humans approach. Scuttle is in a state of constant fear, he'll hiss whenever anyone so much as walks by, he's always hiding somewhere. He's sometimes too scared to eat. My sister is still constantly trying to relax him. She'll wrap him up in a towel (the same way she's been doing since he was a kitten) and hold him and pet him until he relaxes.
Well last week, she tried to pick him up, and he bit her out of fear. She was wearing 2 thick gloves, one on top of the other, and the bite still went through and infected her whole hand. Now just yesterday, she noticed that he's been hiding places and peeing and pooping on himself, so she tried to give him a bath to at least get the poop off of him. He bit her even harder and this time, he actually held on and shook his head back and forth. We're waiting to see whether this bite will be infected as well.
She's at her breaking point and is thinking that he will just never change, he'll always be scared and now he knows that biting works. She's mentioned the possibility of putting him down a couple times now, even though it breaks all of our hearts to think about it.
One thing is, he hasn't been neutered. But she's just thinking, if he really is this terrified, and his behavior continues after getting him fixed, then is it really worth it?
My sister is a very good cat owner, she put up with all of his scratches but she's just never encountered this level of aggression from a cat. If anyone has advice for us please let me know.
My sister has a cat that's just recently become very violent towards her. The backstory is this: I found a cat with 2 kittens in my backyard last summer. We caught the mama cat and did a spay and release on her, then we caught the 2 kittens and gave them to my sister. They were obviously scared, but my sister has had lots of experience with cats, and took good care of them.
Throughout the past year, one of the kittens (Jeannie) has adjusted much better than the other (Scuttle), even though Jeannie still gets skittish when humans approach. Scuttle is in a state of constant fear, he'll hiss whenever anyone so much as walks by, he's always hiding somewhere. He's sometimes too scared to eat. My sister is still constantly trying to relax him. She'll wrap him up in a towel (the same way she's been doing since he was a kitten) and hold him and pet him until he relaxes.
Well last week, she tried to pick him up, and he bit her out of fear. She was wearing 2 thick gloves, one on top of the other, and the bite still went through and infected her whole hand. Now just yesterday, she noticed that he's been hiding places and peeing and pooping on himself, so she tried to give him a bath to at least get the poop off of him. He bit her even harder and this time, he actually held on and shook his head back and forth. We're waiting to see whether this bite will be infected as well.
She's at her breaking point and is thinking that he will just never change, he'll always be scared and now he knows that biting works. She's mentioned the possibility of putting him down a couple times now, even though it breaks all of our hearts to think about it.
One thing is, he hasn't been neutered. But she's just thinking, if he really is this terrified, and his behavior continues after getting him fixed, then is it really worth it?
My sister is a very good cat owner, she put up with all of his scratches but she's just never encountered this level of aggression from a cat. If anyone has advice for us please let me know.
