hand raised bad catty

I hand raised a abandoned kitten that was 1 day old when I found her. She is now 3 months old and very aggressive and nasty. She lives with my husband and I and a dog.she HATES strangers she hisses and bites and attacks. I have been babysitting 2 girls today and I can't control her. She is out of control..What can do ? she is striking very nasty scrathes and bites all day. I have put her in the bathroom almost all day. She calms down then I bring her out and she is loco again.. She attacked the vet last time I took her in to get shots.I don't know what to do. If I can't get her under control I will have to have her put down.I am broken hearted about this whole thing I have put lots of love and money into this kitten.

When did this behavior start? When cats behave this way it is usually out of fear, something may have happened to cause her to become aggressive especially towards people she is less familiar with. Usually when a cat hisses or behaves aggressively it is a result of something. With children sometimes they will behave unpredictably, something like picking the cat up when they don't want to be picked up or grabbing them a certain way might cause a problem. I would make sure that she is not around children that you are babysitting if you are worried about her behavior. But it is important to be aware that she may be stressed out in some way and that may be contributing to her behavior. Have you taken her to see a vet? Could it possibly be a medical issue?

So she was just born when you found her and she's had no training from any other kitty since?  I think that's the problem.  Sounds like she really needs to be put in her place by one of her own kind.  It's too bad she couldn't have nursed with a foster kitty mama and learned her manners.  

It's almost like she's spoiled and used to getting her way and now she's kind of getting close to adolescence and the attitude is on!  Have you tried hissing at her to stop unwanted behaviors?  I read that just today.  Has she been spayed yet?  Maybe that would help calm her down too. 

Its not too late but you are going to have to teach her what you didn't teach her at 6-8 weeks, and it begins with you being alpha cat.  There are many good threads here on the subject.  Go to the search bar at the top of the screen just under the brown bar and type in something like "my cat attacks me" and you will see a list of other threads already going on the subject. 

Excerpted from another thread I wrote this in:

Since she was raised as an orphan, she didn't get the training in proper play behavior that she would have gotten from her siblings and her mother, so you have to do that.  Seven weeks is exactly the time the little orphans get aggressive and they need to be trained by their human momma cat. You are a little late.  First, you need to get her a toy about her size with 4 legs that you can use as her wrestle companion.  She needs to learn to attack the toy, bite the toy, wrestle with the toy, and NOT with you.   The most important thing with these orphan babies is to regain their respect, teach them where they end and you begin, which means they need to lose some battles, get popped once in awhile when they attack (no harder than the mother cat would pop them, but enough to kind of bowl them over on the carpet, i.e. when they attack you, they lose).  Again and again.  But when they attack the toy, they can win when you let go of it.  Pretty soon he focused more on the toy than on me, but it took a lot of time of putting the toy between us. This is very normal.  If orphans are not taught these things, they can become very difficult when they get bigger.  They have to learn NO BITE the human.  NO CLIMB the human!  And you can play tag with her also, at this age they love to run away from you, catch me if you can!  This little black boy was super fierce!   We called him Huey Newton because he was a little Black Panther.

What is cute when they are little is not so cute when they are bigger.


This is a rainbow zebra, a dog toy with a squeaky inside,  that worked perfectly for that 7-week-old aggression.  We started him at 4 weeks with the sock full of rice that we heated to be his bed companion as an infant.  Eventually he grew and played with it and then ripped a hole in it, scattering rice all over.  Got the Zebra toy and he liked it a lot better.  I spent hours playing with him with the toy, wrestling with him on his back, defending every jump and attack by using the zebra in front of me.  I made sure his claws were cut, and we played very hard between feedings.  I would play with him until he dropped over from exhaustion, like he would have if he had litter mates (he was an orphan we got at 10 days of age).  He would jump me, spring at my face, try to bite my face, leap on my back, even growl at the Zebra when it played rough.  Sometimes he would get through and land on my bare skin and he got  a very loud shriek and he would get pinned by me, mouth held shut, unable to bite or move, until he would relax and surrender, then I would let him go.  No different than a bigger cat does.  By the time he was 8 weeks and went to his permanent home, he was ready to play with the resident cats in his new home.  The girl wanted to wash him, the boy wanted to chase him and wrestle.  It all worked out, but I warned his new family that they might have to crate him from time to time.  He was used to that and very tolerant.  Crate meant sleep or rest time.  Out meant play and rowdy, then bottle made him sleepy and off to bed in the crate.  Fortunately he has two other cats to play with now, the rowdy boy and the loving girl.  He will learn to be a cat from them.  Charlotte will learn to be a cat from the cats you have.  At first she will probably be the best toy you ever brought them (that's how the cats in this little guy's home acted.)  She may hiss and spit and arch but she will also most likely run and they can catch her.  You need to have taught her how to surrender when pinned, even if you have to scruff her to do it, but that's the beginning of learning the rules.  She's quite normal for a 7-week-old orphan kitten.  She is just discovering her mojo.

Good advice Red Top Rescue!  I am glad to know I was on track here!