Frightened Kitty

[kismet7]

Rusty is about 10 months old now and I've had him since last Summer.  He's always been very attached to me,  at the beginning he had separation anxiety and would cry when I went in the shower or left home but now seems OK.  Yesterday some construction workers came to our building to install new windows,  I thought it would be better to take Rusty with me to my mom's house so he wouldn't escape the apt. or get scared with the strange people and noise.  My mom has been to my apt so he knows her and has never shown any signs of aggression, he even let her pet him.  Well we got to my mom's house so I let him out of his pet carrier, he came out and immediately started walking around and sniffing but then something strange happened, his tail got very puffy almost like the tail of a fox.  And when I approached him to pick him up so I could take him out to the yard to play he hissed at me and tried to get me to put him down.  I took him out anyways in case he had to pee or poop since he hadn't used his kitty litter in the morning after I feed him.

Once outside he started walking around inspecting but then he started to pant like he was agitated, my mom went inside to get him some water and something to eat and then he relaxed.  He let me pet him and pick him up so I realized that he was acting that way only when my mom was around which I couldn't understand since he knows her.  There's no pets in the house so it couldn't be that he smelled another animal and felt threatened.  I've taken him to the veterinarian before and he didn't act that way.  I  figured that maybe he thought I was trying to get rid of him by taking him there (he's a very smart and sensitive kitty)  So to avoid stressing him out even more, I put him in his carrier and took him back home.  The workers were still there so I waited in the car outside the apt while they finished, he stopped panting and seemed to relax as if he knew he was finally home.   Is this normal behavior for all cats when taken somewhere they haven't been to before?

 

[mservant]

Sounds like classic very stressed taken out of their usual home behaviour to me: both my cats were very similar when I took them to a friend's place to stay for a few weeks.  I was having work done on my place and none of us could stay there.  One cat completely freaked out, fluffed up and headed for the closest dark space and didn't come out for a few days, and the other one fluffed up, sniffed every corner of the house and then spent the rest of the day pacing from one end of the house to the other, walking past me each time eye-balling me and growling in this really scary tone the whole time.  She only let up when I turned the lights out and went to bed that night at which point she lept up on my bed and cuddled in.  They knew my friend, they had my sofa there, they had their faviourite things there, my friend's daughter was there who they usually adored, and I was there.  I would not go near either of them as couldn't predict how they would react that day, and I was cautious for several days afterwards as well.