Lost my temper with my cat :(

[kutubira]

Well it's been about a week. I wish to report how we're doing.

You know Sakiz is a free cat, doing whatever she wants and going wherever she feels like. I'm also free, and I mind my own business. But she prefers to keep close to me. Sometimes I think it's because she loves me. But sometimes it feels like she's trying to keep her enemies close to her. 

Only one big incident happened during this period:

Out of nowhere, she attacked me brutally. It was like she held all the anger inside for one big attack and she released it. Because this was her first attack since I posted the previous message. I took her on my hands, and while she was working on my hands (biting and scratching them, I have two open scratches on my hand), and put her out of the room. And after 3-4 minutes, she opened the door! This was a first. I always thought her weight was not enough for the door to open, but it seems she just did not want to open the door until now. She sat across me, and started to blink her eyes slowly. I could only hold myself for 10 seconds or so, and then I returned the favor. 

If I'm not mistaken, that is a sign of affection. But she just attacked me brutally? 

After we did this, I tried to do what she did after I beat her (The OP). She tried to approach me, and I crawled to the further spot in the room. First she enjoyed it and played with me like I'm her prey. But then she felt bad. She slowly blinked her eyes while she was approaching to me. I still escaped from her. Then she lied down in the middle of the room, looking away from me. I took this as a "No threat here" gesture. I got into my bed. She waited until I felt safer. Then she came and lied near me. This was a great thing to do for me. I understood how trapped she feels sometimes. And let's be honest, it's hard to read the intentions of the others while you're afraid of them. 

Other than this one, she was calm. So was I. Like I said, she stays in the same room with me. She plays around. She got vocal in the last 4-5 days. I think this is because I started to talk to her more often again. Like, I try to warn her when she bites me. "Stop or I'll put you away." This rarely works, and I just put her away. She stopped reacting to her name though, which is sad because I went out to look for her twice thinking she somehow got out of the house. It's cold outside. But she was just hiding somewhere, watching me getting worried.

Her aggression seems to be decreasing. Because she did not attack me out of nowhere except for one time. She lies on my lap, I pet her and then she wants me to put my hands away. If I approach her to pet her, she has very short tolerance about this. I touch her, and I get the look "That's enough for now, human". 

I made some experiments to establish some lines, so that we can move forward from there. Either we try to improve things, or we accept that the limit should stay there.

I tested her a couple of times to see if she'd just move away or attack. When she sat on my lap, I started to pet her until she got bored of it. Her first move is to just put my hands away with her paw. If that doesn't work, she exposes her claws and tries to put my hand away. If that does not work, she has a warning bite, a soft one. Sometimes instead of a soft bite, she tries to get away from me. I did not go further because her next move is too obvious

If I hold her, she just waits for me to release her. If I don't, she makes a move to my face, with her claws open. There's no warning here. She gets fed up and just attacks me. If I don't release her, she aggressively bites me, as hard as she can. So, I'm trying to guess the time of her attack on my face. If I can't, I release her after her move to my face. There are no other areas to experiment on, so we'll work on these from now on. I think she could find softer warnings with this.

Here's how I'm dealing with her aggression now: If/When she attacks me or hurts me, I first make a loud sound, if that does not work, I put her out of my room and she stays there for a minute or so, then she starts to meow. I open the door, she rubs herself to my feet and she finds herself a good spot to sit. If she hurt me much, she stays there longer. I think she started to understand that she is going to stay alone if she bites or scratches. Because while we experimented to establish her limits, she was somehow apologetic with her bites, like she was saying "You made me do it, dude.", which is a nice thing in my opinion.

She started to come to my bed before I sleep again. Starting from our move to a new house, she used to wait for me to sleep, then she came to the bed. Now, probably with the help of cold weather, she just jumps in my bed as soon as I get in. Sometimes I try to put her under the blanket. She stays there most of the times. 

I hope you guys found time to read this post so far. I miss the bond between us, it is not here yet. Any tips would be appreciated. There are some actions of her which makes me think that she loves me. But I don't feel that it's the same as before. Maybe it's my guilt, I don't know. I feel like she's rarely happy, and I'd like to make her happy more often. She doesn't have to adore me, but she has to feel safe and happy. That's what I'm trying to achieve. And I'm hoping that with that safety and happiness feeling, she might adore me. 

Here's a photo of her while I was writing this post. 

20150118_222100.jpg

• kutubira
• Jan 18, 2015

 

[misterwhiskers]

Id say you're doing very well!!

 

[kittywhiskers]

You say that Sakiz has become very vocal lately, how old is she now and has she been spayed? If not then she might be in heat. If she has then I would say she is doing this out of boredom and asking you to play with her.

If she attacks you again then rather than trying to grab her and put her out of the room I would just stand up and walk away from her, you will get less damage this way.

I personally don't think it's a good idea to "experiment" to try and figure out what she is going to do next. Like P3 and The King said before, sometimes we just don't know why cats do certain things and you will drive yourself crazy trying to figure it out.

Just relax, keep talking to her in a soft voice while you go about your business and give her LOTS and LOTS of playtime. This is key to a happy cat!

Sakiz sleeps in bed with you and snuggles on your lap, this to me looks like she loves you very very much indeed!

 

[jiskefet]

I think we may have the answer to her behaviour.

You say you got her at 4 weeks, and, like KittyWhiskers pointed out, she was too young to have been socialized and learned good manners from her mother and siblings. Just like a baby or infant, she does not know how far she can go, when she is actually hurting someone. Mother and siblings would have told her by screaming out, and she would have relented, but this learning is most effective during the period when their behavioural patterns are being developed, which is between 4 and 12 weeks old.

During this period, you allowed her to play with your hands, so she has no concept of this being wrong. Kittens attack each other and their mother, not just in play, but also to hone their hunting and killing skills.

I don't know exactly how long you have had her, but she still looks like a kitten to me, 6 or 7 months at the most. Which means that, if you haven't had her spayed yet, she is now a teenager and her hormones are raging out of control. When she suddenly started to attack you, she probably just came into heat for the first time. A cat in heat can get very loving, even clingy, but she can also get very agitated and aggressive. She is looking for a mate, and one minute she may perceive you as a mate, and the next she may see you as standing between her and her chance of finding a mate. She is far too young to have kittens, and even if she wasn't, I would advise against it. Allowing your cat to mate and have kittens may cause a lot of problems, and high vet bills if something goes wrong, and unspayed cats run a high risk of infections and breast cancer,which increases with every time they have kittens. But if she does not mate, she can come into heat very soon after the previous time, which is not good for her, either.

So it would be best to get her neutered as soon as possible, for her health and well-being as well as yours.

If she has indeed not been neutered yet, you will see that once she has been spayed, her mood will become more balanced and there is a good chance she will never display any really vicious attacks ever again. Those attacks aren't really her, it is just her hormones playing up (a bit like a woman can get really catty and irritable just before her period)

 

[kutubira]

Hi, I'm here to report how we're doing since the last time I posted here.

First of all, the attacks are now gone. In the last week, she did not even think of attacking me, or any other guests.

She still loves to be around me. In fact, one time I was in the same room as her, as always. She was sleepingAnd I got up and went to the other room to grab some books. I stayed there to pick a book and I saw she came to the room and started to sleep there. I then went the other room and she again woke up and followed me to that place. She doesn't necessarily need to be very close to me, but she tries to be in the same room as me. 

And I think we made some progress with using teeth as a game play method. When I pet her, she only touches to my hands with her teeth, not bite, and I just stop petting. The same thing goes for when she did not have enough of petting. She just grabs my hands with her paws, if that doesn't work, she tries to bring my hand back to her neck using her teeth. 

When she showed aggression, I just separated myself from her. Sometimes the aggression came from the desire to play, I could tell. But I did not play with her until she forgets about it. I was trying to prevent her from making a connection between aggressive behavior and getting to play with me. Also, I stopped paying attention to her after her aggression. Again I didn't want her to think that aggression = attention. 

She and my mother who visited me for a week had an interesting connection. My mother looked at her and talked, and when my mother stopped talking, she started meowing. They were having conversation. Now I'm trying to do the same, and she answers me whenever she likes. She looks at me all the time I'm talking though. Maybe I'm not saying anything worthy to her meows, huh

She stays longer on my arms. I hug her, she stays there for a while and then demands to leave. Again, to prevent her from thinking aggression = being released, I am releasing her immediately if I feel she has other things to do.

She's less vocal nowadays. She only meows loudly if she's behind a door. I mean if there's a door between me and her. She also meows whenever I get home. Like I said many times, I always find her on the desk near the door, waiting for me to come in. And I think these instances are natural.

I'm trying to think of what I have done differently so I can ask you about this, but I think that's pretty much it. She's smart enough to realize that aggression now means cold shoulder from me. I might finally start trying to clicker-train her. I think we need to build up our mutual trust a little more. 

@KittyWhiskers

@jiskefet

I want to correct something, I got her with me when she was 2 months old. I know I said 4 weeks, but I must have confused this somehow. She was with me when she was more than 2 months old. 

I don't plan to allow her to mate until she's 2 years old. I know if I don't spay her, it will be stressful and full of aggression for her and for me. 

But here is the thing, I don't want to take her chance of being a mother away. I feel like she deserves to be a mother. Of course if we look at things from that angle, I happen to take her freedom, predator instincts, chance to mate and many other things she'd have if I did not adopt her away, but this is where I would like to draw a line. I'm not sure if I would change my decision after encountering other problems with her, but this is where I stand for now.

I really think I should not decide that. But I'm not sure what to do about this. 

 

[kittywhiskers]

This is all great news!
It's lovely that your mother had a conversation with her. Cats LOVE to be spoken to and its such a good bonding tool.

Unless you are a breeder you really ought to spay your cat. Giving her the chance to be a mother has no benefit to her whatsoever and there are already so many unwanted cats and kittens in the world so why add to the problem. Not having her spayed will most definitely lead to more aggression. Please rethink.
Here is an article for you to read that explains: http://www.thecatsite.com/a/spay-and-neuter-your-cats

Well done for the progress.

 

[smokem]

So great to hear something worked to modify her aggresion.

Especially in a small space.

Yeah there is a lot of info on neutering,you could research that for days on end.

Seems most people think it is the best route for the animal.

Glad your housemate settled down.

 

[kutubira]

I got to give it to the community,you people helped me and Sakız a lot. That's why we are friends again now. Instead of getting angry, you people tried to help me, that was something I thought I wouldn't do for a person who hurt his pet, until I did it myself. Although our situation here doesn't have any effect on you and you could just walk away and trying to help doesn't cost you anything more than some time, you can't imagine how appreciated your help is. Thank you.  

About spaying, after reading the article, my main concern is now gone. If she does not care about being mother as much as I thought, then I might feel better about spaying her.

Although having cute tiny Sakızes around would be definitely fun, I'm not type of person who would stay with more than 3 cats. That would mean I'd have to give kittens away. That's a big problem. The guy I took Sakız from felt the need to get to know me better before he gave her away. Also my friend who has the sibling of Sakız told me that the owners have harder time than the mother when the kittens leave the home. 

I think I'll have the surgery done as soon as I become financially more secure. But that's still not decided.

 

[mani]

Thank you for your warm words, @kutubira

I'm sure you know that we would all love to see Sakiz neutered.  Please do keep us posted.

 

[seaturtle]

Glad to hear things have improved/ but it's possible she got calmer because she wasn't in heat. Please do spay her. If she has 8 kittens,. what would you do? And she is not happy, obviously, when she attacks. For her sake and yours, get her spayed and I think your chances of having a wonderful relationship with her are very good.

Cats do not attack for no reason. And they are never to blame. They are instinctual creatures, doing the only things they know how. The only other possibility that occurs to me is that she might have a tumor in the brain which a vet wouldn't have picked up, or a seizure condition.

I cannot emphasize enough the importance of a spay. You seem a caring and compassionate man, so give her and yourself the gift of a comfortable life together.

You are wonderful to have stuck it out this long with her. Many would have just abandoned her.

 

[kittywhiskers]

Thank you for your warm words, @kutubira


I'm sure you know that we would all love to see Sakiz neutered.  Please do keep us posted.

May you have long and happy lives together!

 

[kutubira]

Thank you all for your help again, and thank you for your kind words and wishes. 

Should she attack me again for a reason that's not obvious at first, now I can be more patient with her. I think I'll be encountering her not-so-adorable moments again until I spay her but at least now I know how to deal with that without dealing harm to me or her.

 

[BonitaBaby]

I'm glad you are trying to provide the best care you can for your Sakiz. I didn't read through all the posts so apologies if I'm repeating things that have been said. Sorry for the long post too.

1) Get some Comfort Zone with Feliway for your cat to help her with the stress over the beating that she still remembers. If it works on her, it will be very helpful for future incidents. You'd spray it every day on the things around, not her. If it has an effect on her, she'll become calmer. After everything that happened, it would help her a lot to keep one plugged into the wall in your bedroom and change it every month for at least the next few months. Since funds are a problem, just your bedroom should be fine. You can order them on Amazon for a good price: one spray & a six month supply of plug-ins unless you go to the store to buy a spray first to test if it works on your cat, which is what I did.

2) Any "random" attacks from Sakiz now are probably no longer random. She may be remembering when you beat her. That would explain her "suddenly" attacking you. That's all she would remember from the incident: that you "suddenly" beat her. That's her perspective. You need to win her trust back, not the other way around. She may be coming over to "attack" you to see how you react...will you beat her again or can she trust you? This could take a long time. Weeks or months.

I lost my cat's trust recently when I had to pick her up to shove her in her cat carrier to take to the vet because she wouldn't go in even with treats inside it. I know that incident will bother her for a long time and I have to patiently wait for her to "forget" about it. Whenever I pick her up now, she tries to attack my ankle after I put her down and turn to walk away. I understand she's a little afraid when I pick her up now and I'm waiting for it to stop. I turn to face her, say "baby!" in a pleading tone and she stops, but I expect this behavior to go on for a long time, especially as I have to take her back to the vet again next week. She's obviously associated me picking her up with being shoved in a carrier and taken to the vet. If I tried to "discipline" her for trying to attack my ankle, I'd be in the wrong and I'd be escalating the incident into a real attack. My cat probably tries to attack my ankle to "teach" me to never pick her up again to put her in a carrier and/or take her to the vet. It's the only way she can try to communicate that to me.

3) Get your cat spayed like the others suggested. Sakiz doesn't feel any need to be a mother and won't unless she becomes pregnant. Call around to your local shelters/animal organizations to find out if they will either cover the cost or cover part of it. Even if they don't have a program, they might be able to help you. You said finances are a problem, if Sakiz had kittens and you kept two, your pet care costs would triple and it sounds like you can only afford Sakiz for now...Cats can become pregnant very young.

4) If you're able to freeze in place after Sakiz attacks or yell, "Oww!", in a pained tone or a panicked-sounding, "Nooo!", then she might freeze and stop. When my cat suddenly turns to bite when I've just started petting her while she's laying on me, I just freeze. She's alert then waiting for my reaction. I don't react, so she relaxes and then I relax and everything's fine. I do start getting upset for a millisecond until I reason it out that she just doesn't want to be pet and that biting is how she communicates. I have a little biter who bites my hand sometimes, but I keep Comfort Zone with Feliway plug-ins to stop the random biting & scratching that starts when it's time to change the plug-in. The other times she bites, I know she's communicating like cats would communicate to a "retarded" cat who doesn't pay attention to the other cat's body language. From my experience, it'd be just one bite unless you don't react properly, which will lead to your cat thinking you want to fight. Fortunately, I'm able to just freeze when my cat bites to think about why it's happening and I always realize my cat's not doing anything wrong, so she never gets punished.

5) Play with your cat a lot! She's young still. Have lots of short play sessions each day to tire her out if you're not already doing it. They can be study breaks. Get a Da Bird wand toy and let her leap to catch it, put it away after she's tired after the leaping around. My cat super loves me after I got her one and now play with her daily with it. My cat's finally ready to play with a wand toy like it was designed to be played with. Make sure you put it away so she doesn't eat the string and then need surgery to remove it.

6) Stop thinking thoughts like where you stated in a post that your cat might be trying to keep you close because she views you as an enemy. This kind of thinking leads to trouble.

Things became great with me and my cat after I decided to just not care whether she was trying to establish dominance over me. It really bothered me at first from what I'd read online until I decided to ignore it. I'm glad I never tried to hiss at her, buy a spray bottle to spray her with water, or hold her down to show her who's "top dog/boss" like I read others have done online. No human can try to replicate cat sounds & actions properly anyway. The cat probably just thinks you're mean and crazy and evil sometimes. I think if you mistreat a cat, many will keep acting out, so you're just prolonging, exacerbating, and escalating the behavior you're trying so hard to stop.

Good luck and be patient.

 

[kutubira]

Hi @Bonitababy  , I often find myself writing long posts while I only wanted to say "Oh yes, that's correct.", so that's not a problem

Since it seems I and Sakız worked things out for now, I'm keeping this thread as a future reference to see what I thought back then (now). So I'm going to reply in same manner as you did. 

1- I'm not in the US and I'm not sure if I can get that product. I took a short look and it is not available in Turkey. But I'll dig deeper. She's calm now, but I might keep it for her not so calm moments.

2- It's funny and a little comforting to think from that perspective. We test each other. I stopped testing, she seems like she stopped too, but you never know, right? 

Funny thing with Sakiz, she likes to get into her carrier and the vet is the only place she goes with it. She hates the vet, she hates me and the carrier after the vet, but she jumps in every single time. Maybe she sees the carrier as a safe place, where she can stay away from the vet. 

3- I'm leaning towards spaying her. I'll graduate next year, and the finances won't be a problem after that, maybe even the latter months of this year. But probably time will be a problem. Maybe I could justify not spaying by saying "She won't be alone while I'm gone", but a) She'll need my help during pregnancy and after the birth, b) 4-6 kittens too much for me and probably for her. c) Who will control the kittens when they are old enough to mate? d) How can I trust someone with one of her kittens to give away?

4- I think freezing was recommended to me before, because that's what I am doing now. She either finds me "not fun prey" or "boring" and she leaves me. 

There were some more tough attacks from her after my beating. When she did that, I got out the room or take her out of the room depending on where we are. After one of these attacks, I tried to act like I'm scared to death from her. She first enjoyed that and chased me. But after one minute or so, she started to feel bad and slowly approached me and put her paw on my leg slowly and looked at me. I then repeated this after every attack of her. In every instance, her joyful moments decreased and she started to feel sorry that I'm running away from her sooner. 

I think that caused a sense of equality between us. Also I sometimes do this if she somehow gets overstimulated or has a puffy tail. That seems to calm her down and she gives her attention to me. I'm not sure if that is going to hurt our relationship in the long term (I fear that she might start to enjoy scaring me), so I only do this when she attacks me or I feel like she's going to attack me. 

5- I have something similar to that product which I made myself. She indeed loves to chase it. I got some ping pong balls and tennis balls, she plays with ping pong balls alone and she lost almost all of them. With tennis balls, I throw them and she chases. She doesn't fetch it like a dog though, so that's a good sport activity for both of us lol. Sometimes I put a paper on the ground and play with it. That gets her attention very quickly and we play with it together. Sometimes a crumpled paper works too. And there's the nylon bag game. I open the bag and put something out on the bottom. She jumps in the bag and tries to get it. I think we have plenty of games. Oh and she loves it when I toss a small pack from one couch to the other. She doesn't get tired jumping from one to the other. And there's the "something under the sheet" game. 

6- Well, there was a time when she set up traps for me She waited near the doors and jumped at me while I was passing there. Not sure if game or revenge though. Anyway, that thought is now gone. She still sets traps, but less frequently.

I tried high volume but it did not work. She was like "Shut up or I'll make you shut up". I quickly came to the conclusion that hissing or some other measures won't work with her. So... 

Actually the behavior I've been observing with Sakız is something I adore in cats. They don't submit to you. They don't care how big you are, they don't care if you're the one who feeds her. When they have enough, they let you know that. They might fear from you, but that doesn't stop them from attacking you if they feel threatened. Same thing goes for their love. It doesn't matter if you return the favor or not, if they like you, they like you. At least that's how Sakız lives her life lol. 

Finally, thank you for your suggestions and wishes

 

[BonitaBaby]

You shouldn't be "testing" your cat as you stated above and before. You're supposed to be a stable presence in your cat's life that he or she can trust. Don't over analyze your cat and I don't think you should act as prey, retreating to the corner and cowering. I may shriek so my cat doesn't continue biting but it's a quick, second-long shriek and that ends it immediately or I freeze. You've turned it into a game that would cause her to attack you "suddenly".

Sakiz is in a very stressful environment with the way you've been reacting to her and testing her as you say. If Feliway works on her, she needs it. Not you, but her. I know you're in another country so I suggested Amazon, an online company. If not them, there's other online companies.

I didn't just say, "Yes, that's correct", because I don't think it is.

 

[kutubira]

Hmm... I thought the possibility of this thing becoming a game for her, like I said. I'll stop this then. Thanks.

 

[lcws]

This cat loves you.  Unconditionally.  I can tell by the photos.  Cats are very forgiving.   Don't beat yourself up over this.   Or her - - but I have a feeling you won't anymore.   Just learn from it.  Cats can really try your patience, believe me, I know.   lol  

 

[kutubira]

So... More than a month passed and I wanted to update this thread. I think this will be my last update.

About 3 weeks ago, she had a nerve breakdown and attacked me. Her bites got strong since the previous attacks lol. I immediately got out of the room, leaving her behind. After half an hour, I came back and she attacked me again. So I figured she had to have more time alone. I put her on another room, and checked her every couple of hours. She did not calm down. I had to sleep and left her there, I put her litterbox and water and food there. 

In that morning, first thing I did was to check on her. She was calm and she jumped on me, to pet me this time. Yes, to pet me. I took her stuff back where they were and let her out of the room, I left all of the doors open, so she'd come to her usual place when she feels ready. She spent some time in the room despite the open door. Then she came to my room. 

After this happened, she got so caring that you wouldn't be able to tell which one of us is the pet in the house. She slowly came near me, without scaring me, she slowly put her paw to my face and pet me. She did this thing from that day to now. She just pets me, and then hits my nose softly and then leaves. That's a habit now. She also started to spend more time on my lap. If I am not holding a book on my hands and lay down, she just sits on me and sleeps. When she wakes up, she does the gently petting the owner thing and then goes away. 

When my friends are over, she does not pet me (like a mother who doesn't want to embarrass her kid in front of his friends lol), but she jumps on me. And sits on my shoulder. Sometimes she just puts her paw on my head and then leaves. 

There are many occasions when she woke me up with a gentle paw on my cheek after my alarm went off. Sometimes she just jumps on me. And I think she stopped the alarm a couple of times. 

She got more comfortable with the places to sleep. She sleeps with me, she sleeps on the chair near my bed or she just goes another room to sleep. She sometimes starts to sleep somewhere else, then comes to my bed later that night. I like she knows she has that kind of freedom. 

We are doing extremely good. I was thinking I'll have it very difficult in March, since it's their mating season. But it's going so smooth. She started to come to me when I call her again (70% of the times). She understands "nope" and she either stops what she was doing, or she does it anyway but looking into my eyes while doing it. She doesn't get fearful out of nowhere.

She doesn't run from me except the times she attacked me. I think she expects some kind of response to her attacks, so that might be a game to her. 

There are still times that she gets furious and attacks me, especially to my hands. I try to play "dead hand" and not move my hand, but that doesn't work. I just leave the room, give her 10 minutes to relax and come back. And magic happens, she's the loving cat again. 

I'm not financially better than I was before, so she's not spayed yet. 

 

[jan berry]

I have a question that may seem weird. I had a cat that was abused in several ways by my ex-husband and one of the problems that occurred as a result was her resentment of our close physical relationship.

Is it possible that you have been around a girl friend when she attacks you? Could she possibly be smelling like scent of another female on your face from a hug or kiss? She sees herself as the female in your life, it may be as simple as washing up after a date or hugging a friend goodbye.

 

[detmut]

I'm not financially better than I was before, so she's not spayed yet. 

i haven't read the whole thread. but do you have a low-cost spay/neuter in your area?