# My super-nervous, aggressive cat... love her, what to do?



## nekomi (Nov 23, 2005)

I just don't know how to deal with my cat, Shade, anymore.  I want what is best for her, and I want her to be happy and relaxed. This is a long post, but I hope some of you will read it and have some advice!

First, a little background. Shade was my first cat, and the absolute love of my life. I adore this cat so much - she is gorgeous, incredibly smart, unbelievably sensitive, and a talker. She was raised by herself - I didn't know the benefits of raising kittens together when I got her 4 years ago. 

Because she was raised singly, I'm certain that my Shade never learned how to "be a cat". She didn't learn kitty etiquette, body language and "rituals" from littermates, and as a result, she seems perpetually unable to communicate with the other cats. She is simply terrified of them and seems completely unable to read what they are "saying" to her when they approach with a friendly upright tail or a slow blinking gaze. She usually growls or attacks in response to such friendly initiations. 

Instead, she chats with me constantly and uses vocalizations as her main communication method. I don't think this is out of nervousness, because she has always been a very vocal cat, ever since she was a kitten.

Shade is the most aggressive and nervous cat, though, that I have ever known. She is not only nervous around other cats, but around people as well. She shows an immense fear of strangers and nowadays, will bolt as soon as the doorbell rings. In fact, when my brother came to visit the first time when she was an older kitten, as soon as he walked in the door, she stood in the hallway, hissing at him, before he even had a chance to meet her.

She started out completely "normal" and loving as a small kitten, but shortly after her spay surgery at around 5 months, she began becoming more and more aggressive. I never played with her with my hands (only toys), so she never learned play-aggression. I have always been completely loving, gentle, and polite (in cat terms  ) with my beautiful girl.

Despite the issues that she and I have, she is still my favorite cat, and I still believe that she is bonded to me strongly. She follows me around from room-to-room the whole day, chirps hello to me every time she sees me, and every night, when I take her into our bedroom for a quiet, stress-free sleep away from the other cats, she curls up on my stomach and purrs and kneads, chirping and chatting with me. We play fetch a lot too, and other games, when she is in a calm mood. When I'm away from home for a weekend and come home, she seems to have seperation anxiety - she will pace and cry at the doors when I leave for a split-second, almost as if she's worried that I'm leaving again. My voice is the only one she will respond to, even though my husband and I raised her together.

Anyway, her aggression seems to be mostly of a nervous type, though there are times that I feel she is asserting her dominance too. Here are some examples of her behaviors to better illustrate what's going on. 

Towards the other cats:
-Cowering
-Making a wide berth around them
-When "trapped" at the end of the hallway, bolts past the other cats at top speed, hissing and swatting at them as she runs by
-Constantly watching them nervously and has a tense gait in the house, ears always listening to-and-fro, stealthy walk

Towards myself:
-When I sit down next to her on the couch (she's on one cushion, I'm on the other one), she starts to stare aggressively at me, swishes her tail angrily and sometimes begins a low growl or yowl, sometimes attacks unprovoked while I sit calmly near her
-When I reach out to pet her, she swats my hand hard - I'm talking about times when there is no warning (no change in pupils, no ear flattening, tail swishing, or tensing, no whiskers flattening), and I approach her for a friendly pet briefly as I walk through the house
-Other times, she acts loving and arches into my hand for petting, but after two or three strokes, attacks me strongly and hisses, running away
-Sometimes, all I have to do is look at her or approach her from far away, and her tail starts swishing and she tenses up. She gets "that look"
-Once, when I absolutely had to move her (she was perched on a stack of very unstable boxes), she became so angry at my picking her up, that after she was set down safely on the floor, she "charged" me - stepped forward a few steps in a threatening stance, staring right at me and giving aggressive bursts of growling and hissing (sounded like the equivalent of "You wanna piece of me?!" LOL) - she has since done this on 2 other occasions to express her displeasure at something I did

I can't pick her up without fear of getting an all-out, vicious attack, nor can I help her when she gets a claw stuck in the furniture, or safely put on or remove a cat harness. When there's a weather emergency, I have to pick her up wrapped in towels just to carry her to a safe place (and I usually end up with lacerations anyway). 

I want to also stress that I've repeatedly asked my vet about these issues, and she assures me that a medical cause can be ruled out. She thinks it is a severe form of petting aggression, but I really think there is more to it than that. 

I just don't understand why my poor girl is so unhappy... to me, she acts like she has been abused. Yet, I've had her since she was 8 weeks old and have treated her the same as my other cats. My other 4 cats are all perfectly well-adjusted, happy, calm, and friendly. 

Any advice, suggestions, or even prayers are appreciated!! Here are pics of my baby... that second pic is actually her "play face", not her nervous face! LOL!


----------



## nekomi (Nov 23, 2005)

Also wanted to add that I am as respectful of her boundaries as I can be, but it seems that despite my best efforts to be nothing but positive and non-threatening to her, she continues to widen her circle of "personal space". Some of her behaviors show that she trusts me, while other behaviors seem to say the opposite...


----------



## Heidi n Q (Nov 22, 2006)

She does seem overly sensitive to stimulation. Since yourvet has ruled out a medical-physical problem, perhaps you could speak to the vet about a calming type of light sedative or mood-altering pill?
Or try feliway? That is a product like a plug-in air freshener that releases a pheromone scent that cats respond positively to.


----------



## doodlebug (May 13, 2006)

I think what you're seeing is a combination of fear aggression and over stimulation. A consultation with a cat behaviorist is probably the most useful thing you could do, but is rather expensive.


----------

