Help! Our New Kitty Is Extremely Hyper And Aggressive

[BUU]

Hi everyone,

My husband and I recently (5 weeks ago) adopted our new kitty Oliver. We immediately loved how sweet and calm he was, and for the first 2.5 weeks he remained that way. He was high energy from the start, and liked to play a lot (like at least 10+ times a day) but I work from home so I thought I'd be able to keep him calm by playing with him frequently throughout the day. After the 2 and half weeks though he randomly and viciously attacked me. He wasn't scared, he wasn't playful, he was simply lying beside me as I worked and then suddenly hissed and launched himself on me. He bit me extremely hard, tore up my leg, and cut open my foot. It was really bad.

I tried to remain calm but it was challenging since it was so painful, so I definitely screamed which I know isn't good, but then I tried to calmy redirect his energy to play with his toys. I thought that maybe he was just extremely bored and so he attacked me over that. But he had zero interest in the toys and launched himself onto my arm. At this point I separated him from me by putting him in the bathroom for some time. I called our vet and they said that was the appropriate thing to do until he calmed down. After a while, I let him out again, and he seemed completely calm. He was lying on the bed as I put away my laundry later that night and he did it again - launched himself onto me, bit me viciously, and cut up my arm and back. I ended up having to go to the hospital this time because the attack was so bad.

Since then, he hasn't attacked me viciously like that, but he has begun stalking me often, and when I work he becomes extremely aggressive about playing. He will pounce, swat, and attack my ankles until I give in.

There are a few issues here for me:
1. The shelter we adopted him from clearly lied about multiple things we asked about. We were very clear that we have a very open concept house so separating an animal constantly isn't really an option for us. We really tried to stress that we were looking for a non-aggressive animal, and would be happy if the cat was older and therefore calmer. They said since Oliver was a year old he would be calmer than a kitten. I honestly thought a year old was still quite young so I asked further about his temperament and they said he was extremely calm, a total lap-cat, and his previous owners (yes, I should mention for the first year he lived with another family who then surrendered him because they said they didn't have time for him) never mentioned high energy or aggressiveness. I asked if we could contact the owners to see if this behaviour was ever noticed by them, and they said: "uh yeah we can give you their number or something". Also, Oliver had eye issues when we first got him, and the shelter promised they would cover his first vet visit since he clearly had an infection of some kind - and then they decided they didn't want to.

2. I cannot play with him constantly throughout the day. I need to get some level of work done, and right now I can't even begin to focus on my tasks because I am genuinely fearful of ignoring him.

3. His aggression is completely unprovoked and therefore I can't predict when he is going to suddenly become vicious towards me. This makes me extremely nervous, and I feel I can't trust when he comes near me now. I am genuinely scared when I watch a movie, eat dinner, or put away laundry. Anything that distracts me from his whereabouts puts me on edge.

We have tried natural calming supplements, Feliway, and have invested a ton in engaging cat games and toys. My vet is now saying we should try medication but I would be so sad to have to put him on supplements so young.

I truly am at a loss of what to do. I would be so heartbroken to take him back to the shelter, he seemed so sad and confused there, but I am also scared that his aggressive behaviour will increase over time. Any suggestions are welcome, we are seriously desperate to find some kind of solution for Oliver.

 

[maggiedemi]

Has he had a checkup at the vet? I feel like it must be something medical if he's attacking you when you aren't even touching him. Even my two former feral cats never scratch me unless I'm trying to pick them up or if they don't feel good. What is his diet like, is he getting any canned food? Is everything okay in the litter box?

 

[BUU]

Has he had a checkup at the vet? I feel like it must be something medical if he's attacking you when you aren't even touching him. Even my two former feral cats never scratch me unless I'm trying to pick them up or if they don't feel good. What is his diet like, is he getting any canned food? Is everything okay in the litter box?

Yes, he has been to the vet twice now. They said he is in perfect health, aside from his eye issue which is being treated with eye drops. We are supposed to go back this weekend to discuss medication options He does eat canned food daily, he drinks lots of water, and he is totally normal when it comes to the litterbox. I am just so concerned that maybe we aren't the right home for him, but it really kills me to think of him going back to the shelter - he was seriously so sad there. They aren't a kill shelter thankfully, so they would care for him until he found a home, but I just hate thinking about leaving him

 

[maggiedemi]

What eye issues does he have? Does he act aggressive after using the eye drops?

 

[BUU]

What eye issues does he have? Does he act aggressive after using the eye drops?

He basically just has a bacterial infection in his eye from being in the shelter. The vet thinks he must've gotten dust in it so it's irritated. He isn't aggressive at all when we give him the eyedrops, or after. Honestly, the things you think would provoke him don't, his aggression is completely random and unpredictable.

 

[cryptic]

That is truly unfortunate. I'm guessing he's fixed, as almost all shelter cats adopted out are. He could just be having some trouble adjusting. I'd give it a bit more time, and perhaps look into seeking help from a behavioral specialist.
My friend had a giant Maine Coon with aggressiveness from kittenhood - the whole litter struggled with it, may have been genetic. Manically aggressive, like pacing at the windows ready to attack any new person who entered the house. I think they tried medication and got some advice from a specialist. Truly sorry about your little guy, that has to be rough.

 

[nekomaui]

Hi BUU,

So sorry to hear about your problem. Is he the only cat in you house? Do you know how he is with other cats? My first cat had similar behavior when he was the only cat/animal in the house. We also let him have the whole house, and though not as agressive as yours, he would hide behind a door and attack my ankle suddenly. Things changed when we found two kittens on the street and took them home. He became the big brother and took good care of them. He never let us hold him for longer than 30 seconds, but he really calmed down. Guess he was a cat's cat rather than a people's cat. Sorry for not having any concrete solutions. Hope things turn out ok. Keep us posted here.

 

[Mama to the crew]

When he attacks by chance is it with in an hour or two before he due for his next dose of meds. I just wonder if his eye issue could be causing pain or if it's effecting his vision. If it is then he might be over stimulated at times. It's going to sound weird but maybe try a little catnip in his food or water. When we have aggression issue I'll fix a bowl of catnip water or mixed in their food. It really helps to mellow them out. Talia has issues with hypersensitivity and we swore she was bipolar. She would go from completely content and relaxed to attacking out of the blue. I'm talking biteing scratching without provoking. It's taken a lot of trail and error to figure out what she needed. We had to go to the basic teach her how to be a cat as we believe she was dump with a feral colony but she was human raised. We had to show her that she wouldn't be kicked out over her behavior but bad behavior wasn't going to work either. We also had to learn to read her eyes and body language which usually gave to different messages. Always go with the eyes that's the true mood. Over time and a system established of positive vs negative (bad behavior means you get put down or you to the cat room until you cool off while good behavior means you get all the attention you want) and reading her she not truly bitten for a while but as Ally a love nipper Talia will imatate her she still swipes but it rare she uses claws. His constant play could be his fearfulness of him being left again so he once to know where you are at all times.

 

[thesunabsolute]

I have a cat that does the same thing. She seems to target my live in girlfriend who also works from home on some days. I want to start of by saying that all cats are different and all situations are different, so please take what I say with a grain of salt as your situation may vary...

You should start off by isolating any possible triggers in your immediate vicinity. You mentioned hissing, does he also growl or make yowling noises during his attacks? If so, then our situation is very similar and you may be dealing with fear based aggression. Over months and months, and multiple behaviorist visits, and multiple vet visits we've deduced that our cat suffers from a probable mental illness. In other words, the environment isn't triggering the aggression, it's some deep seeded trauma that she is reliving from her past. Our cat Billie did not exhibit ANY aggression or ANY fear for the first 3 years of having her. Once the fear button got pushed, there was no turning it off.

I want to stress that this problem WILL not go away on its own. We have a similar living situation, where confining our cat after major aggressive episodes is very difficult and very draining. We lose nearly half the apartment to keep her away from seriously injuring herself or one of us. It tapers off after a few days, and we may get a week or two of peace before another violent attack.

I held back for WEEKS on giving her prozac. Weeks. I wanted to exhaust absolutely every possible option before medicating her. The final straw was when Billie went from sleeping peacefully in her cardboard box a foot away from me, to waking up and viciously attacking my girlfriend who was returning from another room in the apartment. This was after nearly a month with zero incidents.

It's been little over a week since we started the prozac, and I'm not noticing much a difference in her behavior aside from some lack of appetite. She still plays, and still is active. So it's not like shes "drugged" up or sedated. No incidents yet, but the drug takes over 2 months to kick in. So if your vet recommends it, I would start Oliver on the meds ASAP.

Good luck! We're right there with you trying to work this out, so know you're not alone. Not many people believe that a cat can just "snap", they always try to blame it on something in their environment, or something you're doing. 9 ouf 10 times they may be right. Sometimes, it really is mental problem that can only be addressed with medication.

 

[BUU]

Hi BUU,

So sorry to hear about your problem. Is he the only cat in you house? Do you know how he is with other cats? My first cat had similar behavior when he was the only cat/animal in the house. We also let him have the whole house, and though not as agressive as yours, he would hide behind a door and attack my ankle suddenly. Things changed when we found two kittens on the street and took them home. He became the big brother and took good care of them. He never let us hold him for longer than 30 seconds, but he really calmed down. Guess he was a cat's cat rather than a people's cat. Sorry for not having any concrete solutions. Hope things turn out ok. Keep us posted here.

He is the only cat in the house. The shelter said he was OK with other cats, not aggressive, mostly just scared of them. I think he would do well in a home with another cat, but the shelter was hesitant to do so. I think maybe they know more about how he is with other cats than they are willing to tell me!

 

[BUU]

I have a cat that does the same thing. She seems to target my live in girlfriend who also works from home on some days. I want to start of by saying that all cats are different and all situations are different, so please take what I say with a grain of salt as your situation may vary...

You should start off by isolating any possible triggers in your immediate vicinity. You mentioned hissing, does he also growl or make yowling noises during his attacks? If so, then our situation is very similar and you may be dealing with fear based aggression. Over months and months, and multiple behaviorist visits, and multiple vet visits we've deduced that our cat suffers from a probable mental illness. In other words, the environment isn't triggering the aggression, it's some deep seeded trauma that she is reliving from her past. Our cat Billie did not exhibit ANY aggression or ANY fear for the first 3 years of having her. Once the fear button got pushed, there was no turning it off.

I want to stress that this problem WILL not go away on its own. We have a similar living situation, where confining our cat after major aggressive episodes is very difficult and very draining. We lose nearly half the apartment to keep her away from seriously injuring herself or one of us. It tapers off after a few days, and we may get a week or two of peace before another violent attack.

I held back for WEEKS on giving her prozac. Weeks. I wanted to exhaust absolutely every possible option before medicating her. The final straw was when Billie went from sleeping peacefully in her cardboard box a foot away from me, to waking up and viciously attacking my girlfriend who was returning from another room in the apartment. This was after nearly a month with zero incidents.

It's been little over a week since we started the prozac, and I'm not noticing much a difference in her behavior aside from some lack of appetite. She still plays, and still is active. So it's not like shes "drugged" up or sedated. No incidents yet, but the drug takes over 2 months to kick in. So if your vet recommends it, I would start Oliver on the meds ASAP.

Good luck! We're right there with you trying to work this out, so know you're not alone. Not many people believe that a cat can just "snap", they always try to blame it on something in their environment, or something you're doing. 9 ouf 10 times they may be right. Sometimes, it really is mental problem that can only be addressed with medication.

Thank you for this! We just put him on calming food and a medication over the weekend and it does seem to be helping quite a bit. I should mention that before his medication he was probably only sleeping 2-4 hours in an entire day which is extremely unusual. Now that he is on the medication it has seemed to help him sleep more, and I think that has helped him be less "crabby" overall? The vet thinks he may be bipolar since his aggression is not linked to anything, in particular, his sleep schedule is so out of whack, and he seems to go from being a total angel to suddenly extremely vicious.

The first day we just tried the food and it truly did wonders for him. Now that he is on medication as well he overall seems much happier. The medication we have takes effect immediately which is really wonderful. He still has moments where he seems angry or aggravated for no reason, but he isn't lashing out like he was before. He is still totally playful, too, which was my concern with putting him on medication - I didn't want him to seem drugged!

I am glad you found a solution for your kitty! I so hope that ours works out as well. We are going to continue to monitor him and make adjustments as we go so that he is happy, and we are happy. I am just so relieved that he isn't attacking us so viciously now!

 

[Espalia]

Hi BUU - I'm sorry about the trouble you're having with your new kitten. It is very hard when an animal you love starts displaying aggressive behavior.

It does sound like the shelter you adopted him from isn't the best - though because he was very sweet for the first few weeks it is possible that they didn't forsee this kind of aggressive behavior coming from him. Given the information you provided them, I agree that they should've given you an older cat (especially because kittens are usually easier to adopt out!). Anyways, they seem a little irresponsible.

I adopted a kitten that was just the sweetest, most adoring creature at the shelter (playing with no claws through the bars, purring like mad when you took him out of the cage for pets) - then once I bought him home he had a very unhealthy fixation with "playing" with my older cat and also started biting us really hard, stalking our ankles, etc. Actually, Oliver's treatment of you sort of reminds me of my kitten's fixation with my older cat. He was a similar age to your Oliver and I think he had a lot of pent up energy. My cat wasn't interested in playing with him, so he would endlessly stalk and attack her. He couldn't focus on anything else if she was in the room.

I'm not saying you should definitely do this - but it's worth considering adopting a second cat of similar age. Oliver may just need someone to play with, and even if you did have the time to play with him throughout the day it wouldn't be the same kind of rough-housing that kittens do with each other. He has a natural instinct to play a lot at this age and he may not have learned from playing with littermates that he can't bite and scratch as hard as he wants. However, given what you said about wanting a calmer, older cat this may not be the best option for you.

As hard as it is, you may also consider finding a responsible, no-kill shelter to bring him to. Make sure they will listen to your description of his behavior - sometimes shelters are wary of cats that show that kind of violence towards humans and they won't want to take him, but it sounds to me like he just wants to play and doesn't know how. He may need to be a barn cat (some shelters have excellent programs that place cats who are unfit to be pets in an outdoor living situation, where they can act as mousers but are given shelter and food by their "owner") or he may just need to be adopted out with another kitten. The shelter may be willing to try to place him in a cage with a similarly aged cat that he gets along with and insist that they be adopted together. Any shelter that knows what they're doing will not count it against you for surrendering a cat that isn't a good match. They should allow you to adopt an older, more suitable cat.

 

[BUU]

Hi BUU - I'm sorry about the trouble you're having with your new kitten. It is very hard when an animal you love starts displaying aggressive behavior.

It does sound like the shelter you adopted him from isn't the best - though because he was very sweet for the first few weeks it is possible that they didn't forsee this kind of aggressive behavior coming from him. Given the information you provided them, I agree that they should've given you an older cat (especially because kittens are usually easier to adopt out!). Anyways, they seem a little irresponsible.

I adopted a kitten that was just the sweetest, most adoring creature at the shelter (playing with no claws through the bars, purring like mad when you took him out of the cage for pets) - then once I brought him home he had a very unhealthy fixation with "playing" with my older cat and also started biting us really hard, stalking our ankles, etc. Actually, Oliver's treatment of you sort of reminds me of my kitten's fixation with my older cat. He was a similar age to your Oliver and I think he had a lot of pent-up energy. My cat wasn't interested in playing with him, so he would endlessly stalk and attack her. He couldn't focus on anything else if she was in the room.

I'm not saying you should definitely do this - but it's worth considering adopting a second cat of similar age. Oliver may just need someone to play with, and even if you did have the time to play with him throughout the day it wouldn't be the same kind of rough-housing that kittens do with each other. He has a natural instinct to play a lot at this age and he may not have learned from playing with littermates that he can't bite and scratch as hard as he wants. However, given what you said about wanting a calmer, older cat this may not be the best option for you.

As hard as it is, you may also consider finding a responsible, no-kill shelter to bring him to. Make sure they will listen to your description of his behavior - sometimes shelters are wary of cats that show that kind of violence towards humans and they won't want to take him, but it sounds to me like he just wants to play and doesn't know how. He may need to be a barn cat (some shelters have excellent programs that place cats who are unfit to be pets in an outdoor living situation, where they can act as mousers but are given shelter and food by their "owner") or he may just need to be adopted out with another kitten. The shelter may be willing to try to place him in a cage with a similarly aged cat that he gets along with and insist that they be adopted together. Any shelter that knows what they're doing will not count it against you for surrendering a cat that isn't a good match. They should allow you to adopt an older, more suitable cat.

Thank you so much for this.

We had to return Oliver today to the shelter, it's a 100% no-kill shelter, but nonetheless, I am completely devastated. I absolutely loved him and I feel so sick over this. I am going to really miss how he adored nose pets, how he surprisingly liked water (he'll run to the shower or sink and put his paws in the water if it's running), and how he loves playing fetch with hair ties. He can be incredibly sweet and cuddly at times - and wow, he was so smart -, but I think our small apartment didn't provide him the space he needs to roam and hunt. I would never have thought I would be in favor of an indoor-outdoor situation but after this experience, I really think Oliver needs to be outside at times so he can hunt, he would be a wonderful barn cat. I wish we could've provided that sort of space to him because I am going to miss him so much.

In December, we did adopt a second cat in hopes that she would be a playmate for him. So many of our friends are experienced cat owners and they all suggested that this might be a help for him. And initially, it did help. His temperament for about the first 3-4 weeks after bringing Holly home was like night and day to what it was before. He was back to being his still mischievous but very calm self that we saw when we had first adopted him.

Over the past month and a half though, he had started getting more and more aggressive and dominant again, and it got to the point over the last week that it was devastating to watch the two of them fighting throughout the day and the evening (we separated them at night always). Their fights were getting progressively worse and more difficult to break up. We would separate them, reintroduce and they would seem okay and then suddenly he would harshly attack her.

Also, he had gone back to being aggressive with my husband and me, where he would lash out at us unprovoked with claws and teeth. He has attacked me many times - mainly when I am working (I work from home and our home is a mostly open concept so I couldn't close a door to separate us) and once while I was sleeping he scratched my face and began hissing at me. I had an intense play schedule with him, tons of toys, cat trees and all and he still seemed to have these intense energetic outbursts coupled with scary hyper-vocalizations, dilated pupils, and his tail would puff up, and it would always lead to either Holly, myself, or my husband getting hurt.

I am bawling as I am writing this. There is no part of me that feels good about bringing him back to the shelter. I honestly tried everything with him - toys, games, medication, a second cat - and I wish I could've kept him. I feel horrible thinking I may never hear an update on him from his new parents, and I worry even more that the shelter will re-home him without really considering all the details we've told them. I feel totally broken that we had to bring him back and it would break my heart even more if he were returned again.