Need Help With Cujo Kitty Before Baby Arrives-Redirected Aggression Towards Dog

CaityCatAttack

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For the last three years my tuxedo, Ollie, and my bully breed mix, Bella, have been quite literally best friends. For the first year after we first brought Ollie home he would literally suckle on Bella's jowls like he would nursing on a mama cat and in every other way as thick as thieves. They always have rough housed, Bella stopping when Ollie lets out a hiss. Two years ago, we adopted our grey kitty, Roscoe, who immediately bonded with Ollie and despised the dog. Ollie has been fine with both animals, never showing a real preference to either one and has always been the coolest laid back cat I have ever met.

That is, until about 2.5 weeks ago. Ollie was acting as watch cat, like most days, and spotted a strange dog in the yard. I took note and noticed the dog in our yard a second and third time, and went to go provide a leash to the owner and let them know their animal was not welcome to my yard. Went to open the door and the dog came waltzing behind me to see what I was doing, accidentally stepping on Ollie in the process. Ollie turned and slapped Bella, making Bella jump backwards (accidentally) onto Roscoe. Roscoe yowled at the dog and slapped her, triggering Ollie to turn against the dog full force. Both cats ganged up on the dog and latched onto her face, giving her some pretty nasty gashes on her face. Since the dog was bleeding everywhere, I removed her from the cats to stop the bleeding and the cats turned on eachother. Fur flying, yowling, all completely out of character for both cats. As soon as I got the bleeding to stop, Bella was put in her cage. Got the cats separated and locked them away in separate rooms. I checked Roscoe for any injuries and he seemed fine, just a bit shaken up. He calmed down in less than an hour of being in his own dark room. Ollie also had no injuries besides a few minor scratches (non bleeding). However, my normally cool as a cucumber kitty was still wound up 5+ hours after being put away. We decided to let Bella stay at my dads house a few days following the incident in order to protect her from any lasting rage from the cats.

Roscoe was let out to roam the house that night and was 100% normal. Ollie (let out when Roscoe was away later that night) acted pretty spooked as he scoured the house for signs of his imagined attacker. He spent that night in his room. The next night Ollie seemed fine, and was allowed to sleep with us and Roscoe since they (under strict supervision) were back to normal with eachother all that day. Roscoe slept curled next to me, like always, and Ollie randomly attacked Roscoe in the middle of the night (slicing me up pretty bad in the process). Again, Ollie was banished to his room and plans were made to take him to the vet the next day to make sure no underlying conditions were triggering him.

The vet told us it was a case of redirected aggression and Ollie's attacks were due to basically kitty PTSD. We got him started on a regiment of fluoxetine and shen calmer, along with feliway plug ins. We started introducing Ollie to Roscoe first, over the course of a week slowly increasing the time they spent together. Today marks the second full day theyve been together with zero incidents or otherwise unfavorable behavior between the two.

The problem lies with the dog. Roscoe has (surprisingly) been fine with Bella since this all happened and he used to hate the dog! Ollie, however, cannot get over it. When Bella is gone from the house he sleeps in her kennel (which reeks like dog) for hours. When shes here (locked in kennel) and the cats are out, he sniffs her through the kennel grate and walks away. Once the dog is out of the kennel though? No way. He locks eyes with her and moves stiffly towards her, hackles raised. Even if shes restrained tightly to my side. We put her back into the kennel before anything amounts from it, but you can tell the dog is distraught her buddy hates her now.

In addition to the stress of all of this, I'm nearly 9 months pregnant with our first baby. I wasn't stressed at first considering the time I've had off with Covid, and could spend lots of time with training and reintroductions. But I go back to work June 1st until the baby arrives, and with how small a space our current house is, it isnt feasible to keep rotating the animals like I have. We're going to need access to the nursery and other rooms without fear of the cat getting out and starting another fight with the dog. The only time Ollie is spooked now is with the dog and never any other time. I do have a family member that can take the dog until we buy a house later this year, but I would really prefer not to do that as I doubt that will fix the problem, but simply move it for us to deal with at a later date. Getting rid of the cats aren't an option, as they are totally fine when the dog isnt here and this is the first time we have had any trouble with them whatsoever. Im feeling so stressed and lost here, help!
 

ArtNJ

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Normally, cats get over redirected aggression pretty quickly, within a day or so for the most part. Unless there is actual fighting, which you had. When there is fighting, its like the original scare becomes irrelevant, and its the memory of the fighting. Like if you and your spouse fight, and they say something hateful, sometimes it doesn't matter what started the fight anymore, it is a lasting problem because of what was said. Same kind of thing. When this happens, you have to treat the cats like strangers and do a reintroduction process. Maybe it can be shortened a little bit, but in a severe case it could definitely require a pretty fulsome process of a week or two -- or more if it seems required. So what surprises me here is that the vet was so quick to go to medication, and didn't recommend a longer separation and reintroduction.

If you do a full reintroduction process and it fixes the issue, I don't know that you need to worry about the baby. I mean, yes, certain cats can be prone to redirected aggression, and this could recur. Its possible. However, this seems like it was very much a freak thing, and I don't know that it necessarily means that you are in for a repeat of this nightmare if you drop a dish when they are in the room, or step on a tail. Maybe yes, maybe no. You'll have months before you put the baby on the floor and turn your back for even a second, so you'll have plenty of time to see if this is a serious recurring thing. I don't think it will be, but you'll have to see.
 
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CaityCatAttack

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Thanks for the helpful links, I'll be sure to read them this afternoon. There are a few details I left out for sake of not having the original post be unbearably long. Ill add them now just to make sure it doesnt sway any of the advice you guys have provided :)

Since the last fight (between the cats in the middle of the night) Ollie gets randomly spooked by things. Not in the sense of "oh crap hes going to attack me right now" but to the point of his tail being full fluffed, eyes big as frisbees, rigid stance and that any further stimulation would probably set him off to a possible attack. This could be from anything as simple as when he knocked a stuffed animal off of the dresser (which happened about 1 week ago) to something undetected by myself, DH, and Roscoe (the night of the last attack). The initial attack I could 110% identify the trigger and block access to the trigger (window blocker). The last attack was in a dark, quiet room where everyone was sleeping and no noticable triggers could be identified. In hindsight, maybe we let him sleep by us too soon and it was something very small that set him off. Not only was it super random, but the amount/depth of the cuts I recieved all along both arms until I could move away from him and Roscoe (as its super hard to get out of bed being super pregnant so it took a short minute) were enough to make me have a mini panic attack at 2am. The spook attacks he got declined and ceased completely within a week of his medication (.5mg, ear solution, the shen calmer is an herbal supplementary calming agent we mix with shredded turkey and gravy).

Like I said in the post, the cats are totally normal now to eachother. The week of being apart and week of slow reintroductions went super well and is not my concern at all. However, doing the same approach with the dog has made absolutely 0 progress. The dog is typically super mellow too, but does have her moments of running crazy through the house for 30-60 second intervals before passing out for a few hours. This isnt allowed when hes out, but will inevitably happen once all animals are out in the house. It's just super weird to me that he's fine with her scent (sleeps in her kennel) and seeing her through the kennel, but goes on edge the instant they have the chance to be face to face. We have baby gates we can stack in the hall and try to show them eachother, but hes also a ninja cat and can/will scale them in the blink of an eye to try and get the dog. We have the vertical surfaces (cat trees, tables, shelves, tall chairs, ect) he can escape her from but instead chooses to eyeball her and use them as a way to ambush her. For example, last night we tried it again, Bella leashed next to me, kept very close. Ollie was let out of the room and had 2 gates to keep him and Bella apart (one on top of stairs and one at bottom) to make him feel safe. Instead, he weaseled around the top gate, jumped onto the cat tree next to the stairs and came walking up in the spooked stance I talked about earlier in this comment. I could tell the dog was getting nervous and if any other stimulus occured he would attack her, so I gave her to my DH and he put her away to prevent another attack, furthering the regression.

Maybe I'm just worrying about nothing, and time will fix it. I guess im worried itll be so much harder to drop everything to quickly put him in his safe room when I have my hands full with the baby. Plus the new sounds/smells that we aren't sure how he'll react to. Ive been conditioning him to the sounds of the baby toys and such, with lots of great progress, so it absolutely is possible im just being anxious about something that just needs time.
 
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CaityCatAttack

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UPDATE: We had another episode today after thinking the medications and rotating animals were helping. Ollie was out in the living room for his free time in the animal rotation and a dog started barking outside. He started growling and sit up on his hind legs staring very intensely in the direction of the sound. We put Roscoe away since he was coming up behind Ollie and we didn't want to risk an attack. How are we to even begin to reintroduce Ollie to the dog when he gets so triggered by even the sound of a dog? Baby will be here in two weeks. Between this and stress caused by my own family and the world around me in shambles I'm reaching my breaking point. My animals are such an important role in my life it's killing me to think we will have to find Ollie a new home. Especially since he's my husband's first pet that he's loved so very dearly. There's no way we can keep at the rotation of animals with a newborn in our small house, its pretty difficult already.
 

di and bob

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I would suggest asking your vet for advise, maybe for some kind of calming aide that is stronger. This has gone on too long. I think time is the answer, but you don't have a lot left before the baby. You may have to keep Ollie kenneled or separated in another room for a time. They need to see each other to get used to each other again. Maybe swap blankets they have slept on too.
 

ArtNJ

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Well lets hold up and think this through. Growling at an outside dog is not the same as an actual non-recognition aggression attack. Sure, if there had been another cat that had got too close, you might have had an attack. Or might not. I mean, I had a cat that would growl at the front door if it was raining outside. Doesn't necessarily mean much. As far as I can tell, you had one episode of redirected aggression, and its better now. You might have a problem with recurrences, or you might not.

Again, you aren't going to be putting the baby on the floor without supervision for many months, and most cats avoid babies anyway. IF there is a problem with frequent recurrences, there is time. Lets not count evil chickens before they hatch. And start being...um, evil? You had one evil chicken and ... uh, eventually caught it. And cooked it. With the rabbit. So that is done . . . hopefully.
 
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CaityCatAttack

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There was more than the one incident. The initial incident, the night he was allowed in our room and got spooked by nothing obvious (cutting up myself and Roscoe who were sleeping), and the very close call when we tried to reintroduce the dog. His body language spoke louder than the growls, he was so stiffened, eyes were huge. Every single aspect of his body language was the same as the initial attack.

As for yesterday, you are correct in saying that there isnt a way to know if he actually would have followed through with the attack had we not removed ourselves and Roscoe from the situation. But I thought if we stayed and it did happen again it would have undone what progress we have made so far, if that was the wrong move and we should've let it play out please let me know so I don't screw it up again next time. Ill call the vet and see if theres a different calming medication that might work better, but rotating them in room is not going to work for more than maybe another week. Ill look into kennel training him but itd what kind of solution is drugging him up and locking him away? I have found a feline veterinary behaviorist, requested information last night and am awaiting a reply. So hopefully if all else fails, theyll have an answer that's a little more outside the box or something maybe we havent thought of originally.

Im so desperate to keep this cat, my own childhood beloved cat was the reason I met hubby in the first place and I have guilt lingering over her death shortly after we started dating (complications related to diabetes, she crashed really badly and at the time I was a teenager and unable to afford the thousands to save her). My husband is the one thats getting fed up with it, he's taking it all so hard since we've never had such a problem with him or any of our other pets. Its so sad to see him start to resent his special little buddy.
 

ArtNJ

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So on re-read, the attempted reintroduction that went bad was 5 days after the first incident. Remember, the first incident was BAD with actual fighting. So I think this was pretty clearly linked to the first incident. It certainly wasn't a separate incident of non-recognition aggression. I'm not saying you won't have repeated problems, some people do. Just saying, get them good and maybe they will stay good.

It would help if the damn dog stays out of your yard. Thats a pretty powerful stressor that would trigger a fair number of cats.
 
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