URGENT: SEVERE cat aggression (cat in danger of being rehomed)

Hi, my name is Mel and I have five cats, four of which are siblings that were given to us by a pregnant stray cat. :I Their names are Mufasa, Freddie, Lola, Scout, and Roxie. . . Since I have so many cats in a small home, I have plenty of issues with these guys getting along, sadly, so hopefully this forum can help me out a bit!

Currently, I am having issues with my cat Lola, which I am desperate to fix. . . Lola was spayed about two months ago and she hasn't been the same since! Before we spayed her, she was very sweet and shy, never one to start fights. But from the day she came home from surgery, that all changed! She started BRUTALLY attacking the two male cats, Freddie and Mufasa (who have been fixed for a long time). She's half their size but she chases them and tears into them with such viciousness, it's horrifying. The boys are covered in scabs since they just run, don't fight back. She is especially targeting Freddie for some reason; the SECOND she sees Freddie, she goes after him. They cannot be in the same room because the fight will not end until we break it up. . . She also used to attack the dog, but that seems to have stopped. Lola does okay with the two female cats, though they hiss at her a bit and don't really like being around her, perhaps because they've seen her in action? Freddie and Mufasa both hiss at her a lot, too. I noticed that Freddie hissed at her as soon as Lola came home, even before the attacks started. . .

Lola has also been much more needy than she used to be; she likes to snuggle at night now but she screams if you try to move her. She's been screaming a lot, really, and making sounds akin to when she was in heat. She also has been 'huffing and puffing', especially when she sees the male cats! And growling and hissing at them, of course. She also eats a lot more than she used to, but that's probably a normal spay symptom.

We've spent nearly five hundred dollars on various things to try and help her. We bought a feliway diffuser and refilled it already and tried a calming collar, both of which seemed to have no effect. We took her to the vet several times. . . We got an estrogen test to make sure she had no ovary tissue left and did another 'spay' surgery just to make sure. . . Nothing was found to be out of the ordinary in regards to hormones or her insides. We've tried vailum, which actually made her scream MORE, so much that it was unbearable. . . The last thing we've done is put her on anti-anxiety meds. She's only been on them for two days, though. (No different so far other than her being woozy.)

Because we cannot keep the male cats and Lola in the same room, we've been shuffling them around. We have to put her in a a large 'kennel' (re-purposed rabbit cage) for some of the day, and when we let her out, we have to put the boys in a bedroom. When she sees the boys outside the kennel, sometimes she doesn't react and sometimes she

Probably going to paste this issue over at the behavior section to get as much help as I can! I don't want to have to rehome one of my babies. :c But the house is in an uproar and she's very stressed, so if things don't change soon, that's the only option.

I don't know much about cat's being aggressive to one another...But I know you said you took her to the vet to check for problems with her ovaries and such...Did the vet do some test to make sure that she don't have an under lying health issue...To me it sounds she might since you say if you try and move her she screams...I have a female in the house that is fixed and when my male and female kittens was allowed back in the house she would hiss and growl a little but never tried to hurt them...They have been in a week now and she is running and playing with them like they have been together for ever...Only other thing I know you could try if she don't eat you up when there around is...Sit her in your lap and just have one of the males in the same room and feed her a favorite treat while petting and talking to her...I hope it helps my grandmother always had a house full of cats and never had problems like this hopefully someone that knows more on this issue will be by to help you more...Good Luck...

Check on my posts to see more details but the short story is I have one cat who went ballistic after seeing a cat outside.  She attacked her usually dominant sister viciously.  They are living together again after 4 months of separation and generic prozac.

Prozac definitely took the edge off which allowed for the slow reintroduction process to proceed.  It didn't make my cats all lovey dovey--my ballistic cat would still attack initially.  But over time, the prozac curtailed the violent aggression.  There are side effects--for my cats it's moderate to severe constipation and urinary retention.  So you have to weigh the cons and pros.  Before I spent every waking moment managing my cats' reconciliation and constipation problems.  N  Now that they are living together again--I'm constantly managing and fretting over their stool schedule.  I'm working on very slowing weaning them off the drug to see if the constipation will alleviate.  

Another option is a course of acepromazine.  We had a new cat that started attacking our resident cats.  It got to the point I was afraid to be in the same room with him. The vet suggested some ace. It calmed him down immediately.  Jake has other health issues and so it was not a long-term solution for us, but it certainly took the edge off initially so that we could handle him and figure out a plan.

Just in case you need a substitute for the acepromazine, you can use lorazepam (generic Ativan) 0.25 mg. for a normal sized cat.  I learned this last year when treating Grey Boy.  The first time I took him in, the vet had given me a dose of acepromazine to put in his food.  Evidently it has some taste to it and only about half of it got into him.  A friend told me that lorazepam is in the same chemical family, and it has next to no taste.  The vet had not heard of lorazepam being used in cats but he looked it up and saw it was fine, so he calculated the dose for Grey Boy was .25 mg. to calm him before transporting him on the days he had to go get his dressings changed.  That was just a quarter of a 1 mg. tablet so small volume plus no taste meant there was absolutely no problem getting him to eat it in food (actually I crushed it and wrapped it in a piece of turkey bacon, which was one of his favorite treats).  So if you have a cat who is difficult to pill, you might mention this to your vet.  He can write you a prescription for it I think.

Another thought -- I'm not sure why she started this, but I have a similar situation here with one of the spayed rescue moms from last year and my poor little Siamese mix Alabama.  She is a bully in general, now that she has been merged with the general population, but the others stand up to her.  Alabama runs the minute he sees her and so she chases him.  He acts like prey, so she treats him like prey.  My solution is just to keep them totally separate.  She and her grown kittens have a room that they grew up in, and they eat in there and don't mind being shut up in there as it was always "their" room.  Alabama is included with my bedroom cats, who are my own permanent non-rescue cats (even though he's a rescue and will be up for adoption) and the door is always kept closed. None of the rescue cats are allowed in there so it is a safe space for my senior cats and my grumpy flame point Siamese mix (who was a rescue too several years ago and is now permanent).  The other rescue group also has their own room at bedtime, also the room they grew up in, and that keeps the peace.  I just accept that there is no way Taffy and Alabama can co-exist in the same space so I don't expect them to.   They will both be adopted some day I hope, but until then, they both live here and cannot be together.

Hm, I haven't tried Prozac yet so I'll keep that in mind if these anti-anxiety pills don't work. . . It took four months for them to get along, huh? That gives me hope that there's still a chance for Lola, then, since it's been just shy of 2 months. I'm really hoping that some kind of med will at least make the attacks more manageable, since she's just uncontrollable. . . I understand that they'll be some side effects, but that's worth it to me if I can keep her! Thank you~

I don't know much about cat's being aggressive to one another...But I know you said you took her to the vet to check for problems with her ovaries and such...Did the vet do some test to make sure that she don't have an under lying health issue...To me it sounds she might since you say if you try and move her she screams...I have a female in the house that is fixed and when my male and female kittens was allowed back in the house she would hiss and growl a little but never tried to hurt them...They have been in a week now and she is running and playing with them like they have been together for ever...Only other thing I know you could try if she don't eat you up when there around is...Sit her in your lap and just have one of the males in the same room and feed her a favorite treat while petting and talking to her...I hope it helps my grandmother always had a house full of cats and never had problems like this hopefully someone that knows more on this issue will be by to help you more...Good Luck...

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The vet checked her over but didn't find anything, though it was an intense check up. I was worried that she might be in pain or something, causing this misdirected anger. But she only really screams when you disturb her when she's trying to sleep on top of you, so I feel like it's more of an aggravation that you're moving her when she wants to be as close to you as possible! Whereas she was never so needy before unless she was in heat. . . But it does seem like female cats have a habit of getting grumpy after being spayed, since her sister had an aggression streak too for a month. . . It just wasn't so bad! 

I have tried sitting her on my lap and showing her the male cats, but she gets so mad when she sees them that she turns around and bites whoever's holding her! Misdirected anger again, since she isn't aggressive toward people otherwise.  She draws blood so it's too dangerous at this point. But thank you for your suggestions.

betsygee said:

 
Another option is a course of acepromazine.  We had a new cat that started attacking our resident cats.  It got to the point I was afraid to be in the same room with him. The vet suggested some ace. It calmed him down immediately.  Jake has other health issues and so it was not a long-term solution for us, but it certainly took the edge off initially so that we could handle him and figure out a plan.

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Hmm, I'll keep that in mind, thank you! I can't recall the name of the anti-anxiety meds we just put her on, so she might already be on ace! I'll have to look at the name of them when I get home. "Taking the edge off" is exactly what I need from a med at this point.

Red Top Rescue said:

 
Just in case you need a substitute for the acepromazine, you can use lorazepam (generic Ativan) 0.25 mg. for a normal sized cat.  I learned this last year when treating Grey Boy.  The first time I took him in, the vet had given me a dose of acepromazine to put in his food.  Evidently it has some taste to it and only about half of it got into him.  A friend told me that lorazepam is in the same chemical family, and it has next to no taste.  The vet had not heard of lorazepam being used in cats but he looked it up and saw it was fine, so he calculated the dose for Grey Boy was .25 mg. to calm him before transporting him on the days he had to go get his dressings changed.  That was just a quarter of a 1 mg. tablet so small volume plus no taste meant there was absolutely no problem getting him to eat it in food (actually I crushed it and wrapped it in a piece of turkey bacon, which was one of his favorite treats).  So if you have a cat who is difficult to pill, you might mention this to your vet.  He can write you a prescription for it I think.

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Red Top Rescue said:

 
Another thought -- I'm not sure why she started this, but I have a similar situation here with one of the spayed rescue moms from last year and my poor little Siamese mix Alabama.  She is a bully in general, now that she has been merged with the general population, but the others stand up to her.  Alabama runs the minute he sees her and so she chases him.  He acts like prey, so she treats him like prey.  My solution is just to keep them totally separate.  She and her grown kittens have a room that they grew up in, and they eat in there and don't mind being shut up in there as it was always "their" room.  Alabama is included with my bedroom cats, who are my own permanent non-rescue cats (even though he's a rescue and will be up for adoption) and the door is always kept closed. None of the rescue cats are allowed in there so it is a safe space for my senior cats and my grumpy flame point Siamese mix (who was a rescue too several years ago and is now permanent).  The other rescue group also has their own room at bedtime, also the room they grew up in, and that keeps the peace.  I just accept that there is no way Taffy and Alabama can co-exist in the same space so I don't expect them to.   They will both be adopted some day I hope, but until then, they both live here and cannot be together.

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Oh, thank you for the suggestions! Yeah, she's getting really hard to pill already, she spits it out. . . I didn't even think to crush the pill in food since I usually can get pills into an animal whole, but she's being difficult, ha ha. I'll keep that in mind! And yeah, spayed cats seem to get weird, I'm learning! Lola's sister actually was aggressive when she was spayed, too, but it was less severe and subsided after a month. But it's the bullying that's awful. . . I wish my male cats would stand up to Lola, but they run as soon as she growls at them (like your Alabama!) so she chases after them and doesn't quit til we pull her off them! Terrible. If they stood up to her, it wouldn't be so bad since she's half their size. . . She's 7 pounds, and the big male, Mufasa, is 17 pounds! Unfortunately, since our cats are permanent residents, we can't keep the separation up in my small home. So Lola will have to go if we can't fix this. . . But thank you so much for the info!

Prozac is apparently very bitter so I cut it up and place the appropriate dosage in gel capsules.  I then place the capsule in a Friskies and kibble snack.  Most of the time, the capsule is eaten up and I avoid pilling unwilling cat drama.  When needed, I pop the capsule in--I hate doing it but it has to be done.

Good point @tdonline, gel caps are extremely useful for pilling cats.  I too have used that technique, with metronidazole, which is terribly bitter (I know because I taste everything I have to give a cat before I try giving it).  I then dip one end of the filled gel cap in soft butter or mayonnaise and pop it down the throat and chase it quickly with a syringe of half & half.  One has to be fast because one bite into that capsule gives enough of the taste that the mouth fills up with foam and drool.

@finalswords, my house is quite small, 1500 sq. ft., so what I do it called "site swapping" -- so everyone does get the roam the house and interact, but either Alabama or Taffy must be closed in their individual room when the other one is out.  While I may forget and leave a door open, Alabama always checks to see if Taffy's door is closed before he exits the bedroom.  He's not brave, but he's very SMART.

I have to say, my first instinct on reading the OP was that something is amiss inside after the spay surgery. 

I would take her to another vet for a second opinion, and get x-rays/radiographs... I've heard stories of bits of cotton/gauze being left inside, resulting in a tumor-like object that could be very painful.  I'd be pretty pissy too, if something like that happened.

 've heard stories of bits of cotton/gauze being left inside, resulting in a tumor-like object that could be very painful.

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It's certainly has happened in human surgery too!

Does the happen with older female cats? By older I mean like over a year or two?  My two females were spayed at about 6 months- one is 8 the other is a few years younger, I haven't experienced this.

Thank you for the advice everyone! I'm busy with school at the moment so apologies for the quick reply, but I've read everyone's comments and I'm taking note of all your great advice, thank you so much!