Agression - Cat taking offensive with visitors

Had the strangest experience this weekend. Had a couple of friends over and one needed to use the facilities. I showed her where it was and then went out into the yard. My 3 year old domestic short hair cat was apparently not pleased with her being in the house.

He waited outside the bathroom door. When she opened the door he was making this growling/meow. She tried to invite him into the bathroom and reassure him it was ok. He continue to make noises and then lunged at her. She closed the door and could see claws coming under the door. She opened the window and called me in to remove "attack cat" before she would come out of the bathroom.

While this was funny, I don't understand what happened. The cat has always been weary of strangers, but normally just goes and hides until he is comfortable with the people in the house. Worse case, they want to pet him and get too close. Then he's hiss and run away. This was the first time he's ever taken the offensive.

He's had his regualr checkups and is not sick. I've never seen him act like this. What do you think is going on here? and how should I have handled it? I'd like to correct the behavior and not worry about whether I need to lock him up when someone comes to vist.

Thoughts?

Not sure about the bottle feeding or history. I adopted him when he was about 5 months old from a shelter. At the time he seemed well socialized. In fact, my only criteria when I asked them to suggest a kitten was that it want to be near me. I didn't want a cat that would only come out for feeding, but one that would want to play, enjoy being pet etc.

I think some of his issue with visitors stems from the fact that I was living/working out of state for the first 1 1/2 years thatI owned the cat. Since I didnt have a big social network there, I rarely had visitors at the house. I think he got used to it being just us. When someone did visit me, the cat would immediately bolt into my bedroom and hide until they were gone.

I moved back into the area where I grew up and attended college about 9 months ago and have people coming by the house on a more regular basis now. The cat had the same reaction here, but has become comfortable with some family members and regular visitors.

I'll definitely put him in a room if I'm having a group of people over because I don't want a group to stress him, but if I lock him up every time someone visits am I just adding to the problem and preventing him from acclimating to new people? or is he old enough (3 yrs) that the behavior/reaction to new people is already learned and won't change.

While I would prefer he be unphased by new people in the house, I'm actually fine with his going into the bedroom to camp out until they leave. Going on the attack, however, is a different story.

I'll definitely try the "bribe his affection with treats" approach and let you know how it works out.

Thanks for the info. I've always had dogs and this is my first cat. Their behavior isn't as easy to interpret/influence as dogs.

In reading the aggression thread I also found yet another influencing factor that is, to an extent, beyond my control. The neighborhood has a very large stray cat population and one of my neighbors feeds the strays. I'm sure my cat is seeing them acrossed the street and passing through my yard which is likely triggering his territorial instincts and adding to my problem. I trapped some of the strays before they went into heat and learned animal control had taken more than 40 cats out of my neighborhood in a 2 month period so there's A LOT of cats wandering around outside my windows. Stopped trapping when I saw another 8 kittens in my neighbor's yard and realized I was fighting a losing battle.

Jennifer - Thanks for your reply. So nice to know my Kitty's not the only bathroom guard / attack cat out there. Seems to be the exact same behavior. Similarily, my cat "cannot be won over." He hasn't bitten anyone (yet) but the harder they try the more weary of them he becomes. The people he tollerates well are the one who have left him to his devices with the exception of an occassional treat. The one's who are determined to "win him over" cause him to hiss and do what I can only describe his "crazy cat meow." It like a loud screachy meow.

Ducman69 - At one point, 3 neighbors were feeding the strays and the stray population exploded. No exaggeration that animal control took 40+ cats out of here before they went into heat. The reason I'd started trapping was because a pack of strays was growing in my backyard. They liked sleeping (and pooing) on the mulch in my flower beds. It started with 1 cat, then 2, then 4...when I started to trap them, there were, at least, 8 cats sleeping in shifts of 3 at a time in my yard. I know my neighbor thinks she is "helping" the cats by putting out food, but the reality is, she isn't altering them and is just drawing more strays into our neighborhood to reproduce and compete for increasingly limited resources. At this point I'd say, a conservative estimate is 12-15 cats milling around. I guess its time to put the traps out again. I don't like doing it, but I don't enjoy cleaning cat poop from the lawn/flower beds, the constant threat of flea bites, and now knowing my cat is being provoked by the strays reminds me I need to police the borders