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- Nov 14, 2015
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Hi - I'm new to this forum, searched it out due to being at a loss at how to handle the situation I'm in. So, some background first - I live with my mother, we had a cat for 17 years that passed away last year. She was the best cat, so loving and affectionate, so in tune with us completely. After she passed, we thought we would have liked to get another cat eventually, and we always check out the cats for adoption, wondering when we should or if we're ready.
Well - the decision kinda got made for us, as 5 days ago, a kitten showed up on our doorstep during a rainstorm, freaking out and crying, wanting to come in. My mother wanted to take it in because we're both animal lovers and didnt' want this poor kitten panicking outside. We put it in a big cage that we had, and for the rest of the day, keeping it in there, getting to know it. It was very sweet and affectionate, letting us pet it through the cage and wanting to rub up against our hands.
The next day, we started letting it out in our house for an hour at a time (very small house by the way, just two rooms for her to run in for now). But she's absolutely crazy when she's out of the cage. Like a completely different cat in and out. She's in a frenzy running throughout the rooms, she runs at us and tries to attack us, but then at the same time, is scared of us. I figured it's just because it's a kitten and it'll be fine when it tires itself out. But it absolutely refuses to be petted or picked up. We try to pet it, and it just goes after us. And it doesn't calm down by itself either. It just keeps going and going, getting more frenzied, until eventually it just outright tries to attack my mother's legs without stop, and we're forced to put her back in the cage, which apparently is a good thing for her because then she calms down immediately in there.
So literally - inside cage: good, sweet and affectionate through the bars. Outside cage: frenzied and crazy, that hates hands and attacks.
I don't think this is a born wild stray, as it's familiar with humans, and tried to get into our house out of the rain. So I'm assuming it lived somewhere before. I'm trying to figure out why it's behaving like this. Maybe it was a house with kids and it's used to fleeing from people and hands/ and perhaps playing directly with people's hands?
So regardless of how it got this way - we are at a complete loss at how to start changing it's behavior. We're taking it to the vet on Monday, they will see if there is a microchip. But if it doesn't have one, we were wanting to keep it, but now we're not so sure we can handle this cat if it doesn't stop this current attacking and frenzied behavior. It would be hard to willingly give it up because we get attached to animals very quickly, and it's so sweet when in the cage.
We try to get it desensitized by petting it a bit and holding it right out of the cage before letting it play and get riled up. We make sure to firmly say no when it's attacking our hands and redirect it to a toy, but I'm not sure what more we could do. It doesn't calm down outside the cage so far - it gets more and more frenzied until we have to put it back in.
When we remember back to when my previous cat was a kitten, we remember that she was of course very playful and had to be careful with teaching her about hands, but she also would be capable of calming down outside of a cage, she would cuddle up with us and let us pet her... so, we're at a loss with a kitten that we can't touch at all when it's out. I think it's too stressful for us to just keep a cat that wants to attack us all the time. So, any advice on what to do to help with her? My mom is really unsure about keeping her because she wants an affectionate cat, while I feel we should at least give her a chance and see if she can improve, but I'm not sure how long we should try before saying we can't keep her either.
Any help or advice would be MUCH appreciated.
Well - the decision kinda got made for us, as 5 days ago, a kitten showed up on our doorstep during a rainstorm, freaking out and crying, wanting to come in. My mother wanted to take it in because we're both animal lovers and didnt' want this poor kitten panicking outside. We put it in a big cage that we had, and for the rest of the day, keeping it in there, getting to know it. It was very sweet and affectionate, letting us pet it through the cage and wanting to rub up against our hands.
The next day, we started letting it out in our house for an hour at a time (very small house by the way, just two rooms for her to run in for now). But she's absolutely crazy when she's out of the cage. Like a completely different cat in and out. She's in a frenzy running throughout the rooms, she runs at us and tries to attack us, but then at the same time, is scared of us. I figured it's just because it's a kitten and it'll be fine when it tires itself out. But it absolutely refuses to be petted or picked up. We try to pet it, and it just goes after us. And it doesn't calm down by itself either. It just keeps going and going, getting more frenzied, until eventually it just outright tries to attack my mother's legs without stop, and we're forced to put her back in the cage, which apparently is a good thing for her because then she calms down immediately in there.
So literally - inside cage: good, sweet and affectionate through the bars. Outside cage: frenzied and crazy, that hates hands and attacks.
I don't think this is a born wild stray, as it's familiar with humans, and tried to get into our house out of the rain. So I'm assuming it lived somewhere before. I'm trying to figure out why it's behaving like this. Maybe it was a house with kids and it's used to fleeing from people and hands/ and perhaps playing directly with people's hands?
So regardless of how it got this way - we are at a complete loss at how to start changing it's behavior. We're taking it to the vet on Monday, they will see if there is a microchip. But if it doesn't have one, we were wanting to keep it, but now we're not so sure we can handle this cat if it doesn't stop this current attacking and frenzied behavior. It would be hard to willingly give it up because we get attached to animals very quickly, and it's so sweet when in the cage.
We try to get it desensitized by petting it a bit and holding it right out of the cage before letting it play and get riled up. We make sure to firmly say no when it's attacking our hands and redirect it to a toy, but I'm not sure what more we could do. It doesn't calm down outside the cage so far - it gets more and more frenzied until we have to put it back in.
When we remember back to when my previous cat was a kitten, we remember that she was of course very playful and had to be careful with teaching her about hands, but she also would be capable of calming down outside of a cage, she would cuddle up with us and let us pet her... so, we're at a loss with a kitten that we can't touch at all when it's out. I think it's too stressful for us to just keep a cat that wants to attack us all the time. So, any advice on what to do to help with her? My mom is really unsure about keeping her because she wants an affectionate cat, while I feel we should at least give her a chance and see if she can improve, but I'm not sure how long we should try before saying we can't keep her either.
Any help or advice would be MUCH appreciated.