Cat became really aggressive

[HelloNingNing]

Hello everyone,

It has been a long while since I got on this site since life has been pretty good with my cats. Just so you know, I have 1 momma cat with 4 children. They're all turning 3 years old soon which is really nice.

Anyways, back to the whole reason why I'm writing this post. Mom cat has had a few redirected aggression episodes before. Probably 3. 1 triggered by an outdoor cat by the window, 2 when she had a little accident that scared her a lot, and 3 that I don't remember the reason for. Anyways, she was able to go back to normal by just separating her from other cats for a few days and giving her love and cuddles so I didn't really need much professional help.

Just this morning though, my brother was washing the dishes and accidentally stepped on one of the cats which caused them to scream. For some reason. The screaming triggered mom cat which caused her to attack her child, fighting him from the kitchen to our bedroom. We were able to separate them but it took a while. The mom was on stand by attack behind the bedroom door until she hid in our closet in the hallway.

I am very concerned because this time, she's aggressive towards us too. We can't get close to her. She would scream and start attacking the clothes in the closet when we make a noise close to the closet. And as of now, we just removed the hanging clothes just to make sure she doesn't get tangled up in them but it took forever to do so because we were scared to be attacked by her.

She screams, growls, and attacks whatever is close to her.

She did not come out to eat her meal or use the litterbox and we kind of smell poop when we opened the closet doors. She hasn't moved in a while, she might've pooped herself in fear and she's just sitting on it.

We tried giving her some of her favorite treats but she would start hitting the stick we used to pass it to her.

We rubbed some calming shampoo on her favorite toy and tossed it in there. At first she aggressively attacked it but now shes just hugging it.

We don't know what else to do.

We don't wanna call for professional help again because they might take her away from us. I'm not ready to give up another cat...

Please send some suggestions. :"((

 

[ArtNJ]

Ideally, you'd get some food/water and a litter box in there and let her isolate for 24 hours ... but its a closet, is there room for that? It may be that the "least bad" option is to grab her with a blanket or big towel and relocate her to a proper room with the essentials and let her isolate for at least a full day. Grabbing her like that will be a setback, in addition to some possibility of getting scratched, but your kind of in a tough spot.

 

[FeebysOwner]

We don't wanna call for professional help again because they might take her away from us. I'm not ready to give up another cat...

Would it help anyone here on this site to know more about this - should the history of it all mean anything for what is going on with this cat?

 

[HelloNingNing]

She was a stray before we took her in and she was about 4-5 months old. I'm not sure what her life was before us. When we did general checkups at the vet, she was said to be healthy.

 

[HelloNingNing]

I think the calming shampoo helped her a little. My younger brother was able to pet her earlier and she didn't attack him but growled after touching her.

She now left the closet and is hiding under my side table in my room.

 

[HelloNingNing]

Update:

Since momma cat moved to our bedroom, we hoped that she would just relax while were asleep.

I just woke up now to find her sleeping and purring beside me. And I was just massaging her in my sleep lol.

We will keep her seprated from her kids for at least 1 more day before we introduce them again.