An article from a qualified veterinary surgeon. My cat has suddenly become aggressive and frightened of me or my other cat.
One of my clients recently asked the following question : “ I have a fixed female cat around 5 years old. She is the sweetest and most affectionate cat. She was playing on the floor with a plastic bag from the super market. I noticed she went from the living room into the bedroom. When I approached her she went totally vicious. Growling, hissing, clawing at me. This is totally not her. “
This something I have dealt with from time to time as cats are my favourite pet and as a vet I have spent many years treating them. My answer was along the following lines.
1. The situation is this, cats recognise people and other cats for that matter not just by visual appearance alone but by a number of other clues such as smell, sound, body language and posture for example. There must have been some subtle change in you to make her recognise you as a stranger and act accordingly.
2. The best thing to do here is to do nothing just ignore your cat and go about your daily routine { cats are comfortable with a fixed regime and do not like changes } Do not confine her as this will cause more stress, just leave her as normal she will come round, it may take her a day or so though …
3. In a very few { And I mean a very few } cases this change in personality could be due to some brain condition or other so if she does not recognise you are her friend in 48 hours have your vet check her over just to be on the safe side.
I was confident to give the above advice because I have frequent personal experience of just this type of situation.I have a very nice affectionate house cat called Peter, normally he is great and is in fact sitting on my desk here as I type this. My wife like many ladies normally just wears jeans and casual clothes in the house and Peter dotes on her.
But .. now and again, say once a month my wife and I attend official functions such as dinners. Of course for those occasions my wife dresses up and when Peter sees her coming out of the bedroom in her formal clothes, hair up, smelling of perfume and clacking along on her heels he goes absolutely ballistic, his hair stands on end and he is petrified. This as I said is because something out of the norm has happened in wife’s appearance, and Peter just not recognise her.
I always joke with my wife and tell her the cat does not approve of her dress sense! The next day however he is fine …
It is not only people that cats sometimes do not recognise, they can sometimes fail to recognise and be aggressive with other cats as well, meaning cats they may have lived in the same house with for many years. A classic example is when one cat goes to the vet’s surgery to have an operation and when the poor thing comes back all stressed and glad to be home again, it’s “ friend “ promptly puts it’s hackles up thinks they are a stranger and attacks them at once, just what you need when you are recuperating.
The situation here is much the same as my client’s question, the cat coming back from the vet clinic looks just the same of course but will have an antiseptic vet clinic type smell and this alone is enough to make the other cat fail to recognise it.
I this case the remedy is just the same, just leave the cats to gradually get used to each other and as the vet clinic smell fades they should settle down as friends again but this could take a few days.
Cats! You got to love them …
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