My sympathies etc, but is there any chance your kitty had some sort of brain injury/tumour? When you mentioned he was hissing even at inanimate objects, it struck me as not so much just a behavioural but more an organic issue. Please mention this to the shelter.
And all the best, you’ve done the right thing. Oh, and GET THEE TO A DOC TO INVESTIGATE THOSE WOUNDS. Right Now! 
Judging from how high I’ve seen several doctors jump when they heard that, it means “go see a doctor”.
I’ve been googling, looking around at shelters, made a few calls (most are closed today, so far no responses) and I’m generally feeling pretty miserable about this. What are the odds anyone will adopt a cat with a history of aggression toward its owner? I suspect there are going to be long wait lists just to get him into shelter, whatever happens.
Am I overreacting? Maybe my vet can refer me to a behaviorist. Can you train a cat out of this sort of thing?
He’s not going to understand anything that’s happening. I don’t like any of this at all. 
The woman who took in my EvilKitteh took her with full awareness of a very extensive history of aggression toward her housemates (me, the better half, and the other kitty). Mostly toward the other kitty, but she absolutely didn’t hesitate to bite or scratch my other half; me much less so because I was her person. Once the other cat was removed from the equation, the attacks pretty much stopped (she still sometimes has her moments, primarily when she’s startled by something, but I get like that too).
The day before we discovered the bladder stone in the other kitty that proved to be the last straw, we had a behaviorist come out to the house (to the turn of $450 for several hours). She worked with both cats and seemed hopeful, but we were never able to fully take advantage of her advice due to the stone and resulting surgery. The other kitty was the one urinating all over the place, and I’d tried literally everything over the 1.5 years (the behaviorist was actually hard pressed to come up with a plan that didn’t include something I’d tried) to fix it.
I know exactly what you are going through, and what you’re thinking. I spent an afternoon at work crying hysterically through multiple phone calls to rescues (who couldn’t do anything because it was kitten season). I managed to talk the other half into giving me enough time to give Facebook a try, and although I was definitely bumping up against his deadline, it ended up working. Maybe you can see if there’s a local yard sale, rescue, or pet page for your area so you can have some control over the process? Be completely up front about the issues and insist on a home without other cats. It worked out for us; maybe you’ll find similar success.
Is there any chance he could be going blind? Long shot, I know.
I’m sorry you’re in this situation. He may need to be in an only-cat situation. I’ve seen a number of kitties who have misdirected their aggression towards other cats onto their owners, and actually, I owned one. This behavior doesn’t necessarily mean he’s doomed to a bad future. My cat we’d gotten as a kitten and he’d grown up with other cats, but when he was an adult he attacked any new cat that came into our home. To this day, we have no idea why this started happening. If I were holding a cat, he attacked ME. I had injuries like yours only not so severe. I don’t know what I’d do now, but this was back when we still let our cats outdoors. He loved it outside so he turned into an outdoors-only cat and lived to be 17 years old. He would’ve been fine as an only cat inside. He loved people and the entire neighborhood knew him. He was quite the conversationalist and always helped neighbors with their yard work. But other cats…Even when he was frail and dying of cancer, I’d brought him to live inside and he still tried to attack my other cats.
You know, Merlin has been stressed out and spraying everywhere, and it just occurred to me that the spraying could be stressing Mina out, too. And I know he hates being excluded from the bedroom, but Merlin needs some private space. Maybe the simple reality is that these cats were not meant to live together.
I’ve calmed down, a bit. I do intend to call my vet tomorrow. It might seem weird, but I have a good relationship with them, they are cat specialists and even the front desk staff tend to be very knowledgeable. They are the kind of place you can drop by on short notice. I think part of my stress is not understanding what Mina’s options even are, realistically. I just need someone who knows what the fuck they are talking about to explain my options. If I can actually get hold of a shelter tomorrow, I think that will also help, at least to give me a sense of how long we might have to wait to get him placed somewhere safe.
Mina is his perfectly normal pain in the ass self today. I’m still a bit afraid to touch him but we cuddled and took a nap together.
My hand is fine. I’ve been monitoring it for swelling or redness but so far no problems.
It’s time to let him go, Wease. Mina needs a one-cat household, and maybe Merlin does too. (Or maybe he’d be fine with a laid-back cat.) Somewhere out there is a home where he’ll be happy. Maybe he was born to be a mouser in a farmhouse, or to rule the roost in a hipster flat.
Who knows? But this is not working, and you’ve put enormous effort into it. You can walk away with your head held high knowing that you absolutely tried everything. It’s time to end the suffering, for all of you.
I’m so sorry. It’s certain that no amount of love was going to fix this, because I know you gave him tons of it.
{{{{{Spice Weasel}}}}}
Thank you. Truly. I needed to hear it. I might have to post it on my mirror in the coming weeks.
Well, I did call the shelters. They are all full.
However, I called the vet, who is familiar with Abomination, and she talked me down. She said he was likely so scared he didn’t know who he was biting, and that the groomer shouldn’t have had me hold him while she did the trimming. She said the clinic will do it for the same price and the vet technicians will be the ones to hold him and take the risk of being bitten. She didn’t think it was a big deal, though she understood my upset, and told me to watch for any behavioral changes that might indicate he is sick.
The Humane Society is scheduling at least four weeks out for pet surrender appointments (per their website.) I’m thinking of trying to work on the play aggression stuff in the meantime, and maybe we can find a good home for him in the long-term… or maybe the Zoloft really will help. I dunno.
I’m confused.
Are you trying Zoloft? I missed that.
I think you are right to make the appointment at a good shelter 4 weeks out. You can always cancel it. Using a community Facebook page to try to place him yourself is a good idea too.
In the meantime, you can try other things at home and see how it goes.
I think pursuing both paths will give you the most options and best choices for Mina.
Yes, both cats are on transdermal Zoloft per vet recommendations. They thought it might help with Merlin spraying and general inter-cat-lational conflict. But they’ve only been on it about ten days, which is too early to see any results.
I think the vet may be right about the scratching (you) incident, but may be down playing your other concerns a little too much. I had to practically put on full armor to help my mother bathe our cat when I was younger (two sweatshirts and gloves). When a cat is upset, they can and will injure anyone, including people they love. I do think the vet may be right that the attack is not a reason to be concerned.
The other issues you’ve mentioned are, though.
[sidebar]Have you considered not trimming their claws? I stopped about 20 years ago. I supply appropriate scratching surfaces, which we attract the cats to if needed with cat nip. The result was a lot less stress and strife (no wrestling matches, more feline trust) AND a lot less damage to my furniture. If their claws are dulled, then they feel impelled to fix it and scratch a lot more often. IME, FWIW. Ending the claw clipping might help them both feel less stressed. One less stressor can’t be a bad thing. [/sidebar]
I hope things improve with the Zoloft. I think you really are trying everything. The only additional thought I have right now is to ask about hiding places/cat spaces. Do they both have access to enough cat spots? I mean places like bottoms of closets, boxes under beds, the back of dressers, tops of bookcases, the pushed in chair in the dining room that no one ever uses (it’s a secret, shh, don’t look at the cat), the top of the fridge, behind the curtain, the open box in the middle of the floor, and so on. My cats even crawl into my dresser drawers if I’m not careful. Cats like to have small places, or high places, to den in while sleeping. I know you’ve gotten the cat trees recently. Are their other such places around the house where one or the other could retreat when needed? You can try creating even more of them but putting out towels, or old t-shirts, in a few places that seem likely. Maybe a few more dens would help?
Let’s see. Merlin’s got: the top of the freezer in the laundry room (for some reason Mina won’t bother him there), and in my bedroom he’s got my bed, the bottom shelf of the walk-in closet (behind my husband’s shirts, on top of his overnight bag, hehe) and the bedroom window. Merlin also knows how to open the kitchen cabinets and goes in there occasionally.
They both have the top of the fridge and the top of the cabinets above the fridge. Sometimes they just curl up there and go to sleep. Then the cat tree, which is situated by the living room window so they can look out as well as observe us little people when we have guests over.
As for nail trimming, Mina had been long overdue but he causes serious damage with his claws. Leaving aside all of the property destruction, he gets allergies which in the past have caused him to dig up his face. The only way to prevent it appears to be trimming his nails. I’m confident the vet techs will do a good job moving forward, I just have to get off my lazy ass and get him there more often. I didn’t know they even provided that service and would rather have them do it than the groomer.
Merlin’s front paws are declawed (I didn’t do it!) so he’s much less of an issue, but sometimes his back claws get so long he damages himself when scratching. This is probably at least where some of the conflict stems from - Merlin can’t defend himself as readily as Mina can.
I agree Mina’s general play-and-petting aggression problems are concerning, but the reality is I’ve been trying to fix Merlin’s spraying problem for months now and as a result Mina’s problems have probably not been given my full attention. This weekend (before the incident) my husband and I put together a tracking sheet for cat-related maintenance behaviors to help with this, including three play sessions per day and consistent meal and medicine times. This is the fun of living with a behavioral psychologist - once I accrue the requisite number of points, he’s buying me a video game. He’s calling it: Operation Cat Cuddles. Since Operation Cat Cuddles will be about providing more positive interaction and consistency to both of them, hopefully it will help with both sets of behavioral problems.
Mina is doing really well today. We had our first play session, I gave him his Zoloft, immediately rewarded him with breakfast, and now he’s sleeping in the cat tower.
Do they each have their own litter box?
Between them they have three litter boxes, one of which only Merlin can access. Mina tends to use the one on the far end of the house (laundry room) so I guess that one’s ‘‘his.’’ We bought a third litter box for the living room to encourage Merlin not to spray all over the place, and they both use it. I don’t love having a litter box in the living room but it beats having cat piss everywhere.
Are you seeing the extent to which this is taking over your life? I’m exhausted just reading it all.
I’m late to the party, but…our experience with a feisty ball of feline sharpness was greatly improved by the advice of TV personality Jackson Galaxy. I recognize he flacks some products on his site, but just watching his show without buying anything worked for us. First and foremost, he recommended improving a cat’s environment. One litterbox more than the number of cats in the house, plenty of access to heights overlooking the cat’s domain, and really the bare minimum of toys and treats.
We added two six-foot cat trees and access to the top of the living room bookshelves (with a cat bed and scratching pad up there), a spot on the balcony (which he’s never jumped down from), and a second litterbox. Over time, the transformation was amazing. Lefty’s still demanding – he is still a cat – but he’s easy to handle and friendly now, and all we really did was give him some cat furniture. Personally I think it’s the altitude that fixed his attitude – the first time he saw one of the new cat trees, he climbed to the top and literally hugged it for a long time. He’s so much happier now that he can look down on us literally (he was already doing so figuratively, of course).
That seems too simplistic to work for you, and you may have already tried it, but if not, it’s a lazy person’s way to a cat’s heart. You might want to try it.
I hate to be a downer here, but I’m not sure a no-kill shelter would actually take an animal with a history of unprovoked attacks on humans. Such a cat is going to be extremely difficult to re-home, which means living out the rest of her life in a too-small cage at the shelter, until disease exasperated by too many cats living too close together does her in.
Or, if they do take her, it might be a sign that they’re not planning on disclosing her issues to her new owners, and you don’t want to do that, either.
I do see it. I have a lot of cat-related stress, and I don’t know if it’s because of the cats themselves, or because I take everything that happens with them so goddamn personally. I could stand for a little more equanimity regarding this subject. I’m certain that whatever the existing problems, my stress makes them worse.
Our Katiecat was adopted/rescued. She grew up sharing a home and hoomans with another cat. One day she got in a fight with the other cat. The other one needed to be sewn back together and Katie was put up for adoption with a notation “no other cats”. Rooms adopted her and he was her hooman. When I moved in she’d run and hide under the sofa at the sight of me. After 3 years, she warmed up to the point that she’d glare at me as she slowly left for under the sofa or Rooms’ bedroom.
I just figure cats can change on you.