Hi, around memorial day I saved an older kitten (vet guessed around 8 months at the time) from being killed by neighborhood foxes. The foxes had a litter of kits who were at hunting age and I came outside one night because of some terrible screams to find all 5 foxes in my yard trying to kill this cat so I chased them away and was able to quickly grab the cat because he was cornered (I know it was risky) and he allowed me to do so without a fight. He had injuries, mostly to his tail. When I brought him inside and took him in the bathroom and he settled down he immediately started purring and seemed so friendly that we thought he must've belonged to someone. Then we took him to the vet of course, treated injuries, gave rabies shot etc. We had no luck finding the owners so we decided to try to keep him. We got him neutered. Now I am thinking he was probably one of the ferals and that in some sort of "freak" accident maybe he decided to trust humans due to the situation we found him in? We have three existing cats. At first it seemed to go okay, but as he quickly became comfortable in our home he started pestering our other cats, particularly our senior cat who was most docile/weakest. The kitten would ambush him at the food bowl and follow him around nonstop and pick on him. Assumed he was trying to play and tried to avert his attention. Then one of my other cats went into lipidosis which was caused by another health issue and probably the stress of the kitten combined.
My aunt has a private cat rescue type situation and she has over a dozen cats currently. She agreed to take him so we could focus on our sick kitty. At first it seemed fine, but sure enough as he got comfortable he slowly started harassing her older cats. Again, he goes for the 3-4 weakest/oldest of the bunch. Males and females. They had tried averting his behavior to playing, putting him in a different room until he settles down, making a loud noise, scolding him with a firm "NO" and removing him from the situation, he doesn't even care if you squirt him with water at all either. They play with him constantly. Often times if you tell him no and try to remove him he will actually swat at/attack your hand or meow back at you in a defiant way. My aunt has had many, many cats over the years and is very experienced with them and she said she has never had a cat this "aggressive". Now they are about to try holistic remedies.
Even still, he is incredibly outgoing and playful. He seems to have very little fear of anything. He is not this way all the time. He can spend the whole day laying around/playing and being very sweet and will sleep on your lap and want to be held but then he gets in this "moods" and the negative behavior seems to be increasing a bit over time. I know its only been a couple of months and these things often take time but the poor older cats dont deserve this either. Does anyone have any solutions for this? We are kind of becoming at a loss of what to do aside from taking him to a vet that knows about cat behavior but we dont want him to have to be on sedatives or medications if at all possible. We considered that he may be best as an only cat but we would have to be very selective of who got him to make sure he was cared for properly and we will revisit that option as a last resort.
My aunt has a private cat rescue type situation and she has over a dozen cats currently. She agreed to take him so we could focus on our sick kitty. At first it seemed fine, but sure enough as he got comfortable he slowly started harassing her older cats. Again, he goes for the 3-4 weakest/oldest of the bunch. Males and females. They had tried averting his behavior to playing, putting him in a different room until he settles down, making a loud noise, scolding him with a firm "NO" and removing him from the situation, he doesn't even care if you squirt him with water at all either. They play with him constantly. Often times if you tell him no and try to remove him he will actually swat at/attack your hand or meow back at you in a defiant way. My aunt has had many, many cats over the years and is very experienced with them and she said she has never had a cat this "aggressive". Now they are about to try holistic remedies.
Even still, he is incredibly outgoing and playful. He seems to have very little fear of anything. He is not this way all the time. He can spend the whole day laying around/playing and being very sweet and will sleep on your lap and want to be held but then he gets in this "moods" and the negative behavior seems to be increasing a bit over time. I know its only been a couple of months and these things often take time but the poor older cats dont deserve this either. Does anyone have any solutions for this? We are kind of becoming at a loss of what to do aside from taking him to a vet that knows about cat behavior but we dont want him to have to be on sedatives or medications if at all possible. We considered that he may be best as an only cat but we would have to be very selective of who got him to make sure he was cared for properly and we will revisit that option as a last resort.