We have four cats in the house. Two are neutered males, and the other two are unneutered females.
Until recently, one of the females, Cleo, was rather timid and spent most of her time in the basement. She spends a lot of time with the other female, her daughter Maggie. Maggie is the daughter of Max, who was fixed after that litter. The other male is Charlie, who was neutered when we got him.
Just in the last couple of weeks Cleo has been coming into the living room with the rest of the family. She follows Max around and he is irritated by this from time to time- but today, whenever Cleo sees Max she growls and hisses at him, and chases him through the house. We have had to use the water spray bottle to break them up three or four times already.
What would cause the cat to suddenly change its demeanor like that? She has started another new behavior- she crawls up on the couch when my wife is there and she “protects” her- attacking anyone (like me) who approaches her. She never did this before.
My first reaction is - get your cats spayed! Cats are very well known for having attitude changes when they are not neutered / spayed.
My second, more thought-out reaction is - get Cleo to a vet. I have had this type of situation happen to me twice before. The first time in my loving tabby, Gypsy. He became very nasty and aggressive towards the other cats in the house - and even towards us at times. I finally took him to a vet about 8 months after this behavior started. And the only reason I took him was because he had stopped eating. Turned out he had fatty liver disease. Unfortunately, we lost him to this disease. Had I known aggressiveness was a symptom of a sick cat, I would have taken him much sooner, as I did with another cat later on. My beautiful, loving kitty Majyk suddenly became somewhat vicious. The other cats weren’t even allowed to look at him the wrong way, or he would attack. I took him to the vet 2 weeks after this started and he was diagnosed with Diabetes. Luckily, we found it early and have been giving him insulin injections and he is doing pretty good now.
Cats have a way of telling people when they are sick. Whether they start using your bed as a litter box, cowering around the other animals, or become aggressive - they let you know.
The only other thing I can think of off the top of my head - could your wife be pregnant? This happened with my aunt. She had a very mellow cat that was never, ever a lap cat who suddenly turned into her “protector”. She found out a few weeks later that she was pregnant. That cat didn’t leave her side for the rest of her pregnancy. And funny thing, the cat then wouldn’t leave the baby’s side. Now, he’s my cousins protector
Please get your kitty to the vet and see if there is something wrong. If so, maybe you can catch it before it’s too late. As we learned, there is no harm in taking your cat to the vet “just to see”.
I know that the cats should be spayed. My wife is hesitant, and I’m not sure of the reason- it may just be the money, in which case I can do something about it now.
Cleo is not in heat now, but when she gets in heat she usually bugs Max incessantly. He seems to have forgotten what to do so he runs and hides.
My nephew’s girlfriend is pregnant, and Cleo kept making agrressive moves toward her as she sat with my wife on the couch. My wife is most definitely not pregnant (due to a bout with cancer a few years ago.)
Cleo isn’t showing any signs of distress, or any other signals that she is sick. It’s as if she decided that she was going to find out what was happening in the living room, after avoiding it for years, and she decided that she would make herself the Queen of the Couch. The only other time she spent a lot of time on the couch was when my wife was recuperating from neck surgery- she was very protective then too. I hope that none of the cats gets feline diabetes- I have type 2 adult onset and I wouldn’t wish it on them. I can just see the daily fight over the needle…
