New member here looking for some answers. My mother was a vet tech for years and I grew up in a house that had anywhere between 3 and 20 cats at any given moment, so interacting with a variety of feline personas is not new to me. I even use to help her donesticate feral cats (as close as domesticated as they ussually can get). Now fast forward 15 years...
My girlfriend has lived alone with her two cats for quite a while and now that I am coming over there all of a sudden, there are some agression problems occuring. While the current events are the issue at hand, the cat in question apparently has a history of aggression.
The cat in question (named Georgie), was adopeted as a kitten (6 weeks old or so). At that point, it was just my girlfriend and the kitten. As he got older, he started to display aggression towards her (in addition to large amounts of affection) (will update this early aggression once I confirm, but will go with petting agression/posessiveness for now). She then adopted another cat (named Cosmo) to see if it would help...and it did.
Georgie and Cosmo get along and Georgie stopped displaying any aggression towards my girlfriend so long as it is only those 3 in the house. Whenever any form of company comes over, Georgie gets very agitated and she ussually has to lock him in a spare room for the duration of the company being over. This has been the mode of operation for the last few years.
Georgie immediately displayed the standard dose of aggression towards me and my girlfriend did the usual, locked him in the spare room. Once we went to bed, we locked the bedroom doors and let Georgie out of the spare room. When Georgie realized that I had not left after a few hours (like most previous company), his aggression towards me when we would encounter each other escalated.
Occasionally, Georgie and I come face to face (door wasnt closed all the way, etc) and he starts showing the usual aggressive behaviours. He comes after me, circling me trying to get into a blind spot to attact from. The usual hissing and tail jerking around while marking his territory (by rubbing his facial glands) on the walls/furniture. If my girlfriend trying to intervene, he usually ends up attacking her. If she doesnt intervene, I either get attacked or keep him at bay by not letting him get into a blind spot as I back out of or into a room with a door to seperate us.
I have never seen this kind of behaviour before. It seems like a combo of seperation anxiety, possesiveness and territorial aggression. My girlfriend's arms and legs are riddled with wounds at this point and it is emotionally burdening her to keep him locked up whenever I am over. We have even gotten to where if I am over for two days, I will lock myself in a room (take a nap/use a laptop/etc) to allow her to let Gerogie out of the spare room for a while.
She like many cat owners, sees these cats as if they were her children. I am looking for ways to work through this so that she, Georgie and I can all interact safely...
I did read the sticky on aggression and there are some great ideas in there. I plan to try the Feliway spray and/or the vicks rub trick as well as carrying alt toys to maybe distract him (not sure if that one will work). I have noted, that if I open a can of moist food and he knows I am going to feed it to him, he will not attack me as his focus is on the food at that moment.
An idea that I had seems like it should help logically, but logic and cats rarely go hand in hand, so I wanted to get some feedbck from the community. I will be moving into a new apartment soon and I thought that maybe if we brought Georgie to my house and let him stay there for a while, it might help. I understand that initially it would severely increase his stress and anxiety, but maybe taking him out of the element that he is used to and putting some distance between him and my girlfriend (for a bit), might help.
Thoughts?
My girlfriend has lived alone with her two cats for quite a while and now that I am coming over there all of a sudden, there are some agression problems occuring. While the current events are the issue at hand, the cat in question apparently has a history of aggression.
The cat in question (named Georgie), was adopeted as a kitten (6 weeks old or so). At that point, it was just my girlfriend and the kitten. As he got older, he started to display aggression towards her (in addition to large amounts of affection) (will update this early aggression once I confirm, but will go with petting agression/posessiveness for now). She then adopted another cat (named Cosmo) to see if it would help...and it did.
Georgie and Cosmo get along and Georgie stopped displaying any aggression towards my girlfriend so long as it is only those 3 in the house. Whenever any form of company comes over, Georgie gets very agitated and she ussually has to lock him in a spare room for the duration of the company being over. This has been the mode of operation for the last few years.
Georgie immediately displayed the standard dose of aggression towards me and my girlfriend did the usual, locked him in the spare room. Once we went to bed, we locked the bedroom doors and let Georgie out of the spare room. When Georgie realized that I had not left after a few hours (like most previous company), his aggression towards me when we would encounter each other escalated.
Occasionally, Georgie and I come face to face (door wasnt closed all the way, etc) and he starts showing the usual aggressive behaviours. He comes after me, circling me trying to get into a blind spot to attact from. The usual hissing and tail jerking around while marking his territory (by rubbing his facial glands) on the walls/furniture. If my girlfriend trying to intervene, he usually ends up attacking her. If she doesnt intervene, I either get attacked or keep him at bay by not letting him get into a blind spot as I back out of or into a room with a door to seperate us.
I have never seen this kind of behaviour before. It seems like a combo of seperation anxiety, possesiveness and territorial aggression. My girlfriend's arms and legs are riddled with wounds at this point and it is emotionally burdening her to keep him locked up whenever I am over. We have even gotten to where if I am over for two days, I will lock myself in a room (take a nap/use a laptop/etc) to allow her to let Gerogie out of the spare room for a while.
She like many cat owners, sees these cats as if they were her children. I am looking for ways to work through this so that she, Georgie and I can all interact safely...
I did read the sticky on aggression and there are some great ideas in there. I plan to try the Feliway spray and/or the vicks rub trick as well as carrying alt toys to maybe distract him (not sure if that one will work). I have noted, that if I open a can of moist food and he knows I am going to feed it to him, he will not attack me as his focus is on the food at that moment.
An idea that I had seems like it should help logically, but logic and cats rarely go hand in hand, so I wanted to get some feedbck from the community. I will be moving into a new apartment soon and I thought that maybe if we brought Georgie to my house and let him stay there for a while, it might help. I understand that initially it would severely increase his stress and anxiety, but maybe taking him out of the element that he is used to and putting some distance between him and my girlfriend (for a bit), might help.
Thoughts?
