Partners Cat is Mental

gettingready

Horizon81 wrote: »

To all the women who'd pick their cat over their man, fair play to you for finding such a pushover/poor excuse for a man.

That is YOUR opinion.

And you are entiled to it.

Same way as I am entiled to think you nothing more than a bully.

Horizon81

gettingready wrote: »

If anyone offers the cat a home from THIS forum though - it is unlikely to be a bad ending as just in case you have not noticed - this is pet lovers not haters forum.

In all likelihood, that is probably correct, but you never know. A cynic would say if you wanted a free cat to torture then you'd masquerade as a cat lover on a cat lovers forum!

And it's lovely to repeatedly hear I'ma bully. Does that mean the majority of her friends and family are bullies too for having suggested she get rid of the cat for years?

gettingready

For years? And she had not? Let me think why....

Horizon81

gettingready wrote: »

For years? And she had not? Let me think why....

Cos she's a procrastinator like most people? She's said she'd never let it near children - hers or anyone elses. And she's held that mindset long before I came along. And now I've seen the way it can behave and hiss at strangers with no provocation I agree with her.

But as mentioned 50 or so posts ago, we're starting off with letting it into the garden. Obviously when the time comes to re-home it, it would be better if it was used to the great outdoors.

gettingready

How much more "provocation" do you expect?

Strange person in the CAT's house is enough. For the cat.

gettingready

Horizon81 wrote: »

when the time comes to re-home it, it would be better if it was used to the great outdoors.

Not true, there may be an indoor only home available.

Celli

Horizon81 wrote: »

But as mentioned 50 or so posts ago, we're starting off with letting it into the garden. Obviously when the time comes to re-home it, it would be better if it was used to the great outdoors.

Glad to hear that, hopefully his ott behaviour will calm down if he has an outlet for his hunting instincts.

Your also absolutely right on the Daniel Craig front, Id be off in a shot :j

gettingready

jungle_jane wrote: »

I am dying to see a picture of this mad cat OP....

I have a feeling we will sooner see a photo on OP... on pre-loved

calicocat

OP, I am curious....how old are you.?

If someone on here has offered to take the cat and you feel they may not be up to the job or want to use it for torture/dog fights instead you could always set up a home visit/check. This doesn't have to be yourself as charities will sometimes do this on behalf of a third party, or your girlfriend could if you are too busy.

I think you wouldn't accept an offer on here due to it meaning you would have to put yourself out and trying to push the cat into a local rescue centre is easier for you.

I also wonder at the letting it outside, and suspect that you are just hoping it will nash off and leave you without the problem.

NervousHomeowner

Firstly, please forget putting the cat down for now. Even if you took a similarly aggressive dog to the vets, they would first probably do a number of things to rule out other causes for the aggression. Then if the behaviour continued after that, I expect that they would put the dog down. At this point in time though, it sounds like the cat is not actually causing any 'real' damage & the behaviour is not escalating, so the chances of your vet just agreeing & putting the cat to sleep without any further inquiry is quite unlikely.

Horizon81 wrote: »

Hilarious. Who says I'm chasing it. It's like Chinese whispers on here. I said the cat ran upstairs and I ran up after it. She says every time in 4 years that it's bitten her it has run away and she has just left it be. Clearly this is a formula that is not working. So this time I thought I'd follow it upstairs. And there it was hissing away with the angriest face I've ever seen on a cat.

Your partner is right that something needs to happen and you are right that she can't keep ignoring the problems. However, your decision to run after the cat was not the right thing to do either. Let me ask you this, what were you expecting would happen when you ran after the cat? Because from my POV, you reacted out of anger and weren't actually hoping for anything positive to come from running after him.
Just for future info, chasing (Or 'running after') a cat who is being aggressive will make you appear threatening to the cat which will only make things worse.

Getting a behaviourist in should be your next step. You say the cat is insured - depending on the cover your partner has, she may be entitled to a certain amount of help from an approved behaviourist. Your partner needs to call her insurer ASAP and find out if she qualifies for this, then she needs to contact her vet to get some recommendations for behaviourists.

Until you can get a behaviourist to visit, you can do a couple of things to help make things better/minimize the damage:
Listen to everyone else & get a feliway spray or collar. Your partner should be able to get these from her vets or her petshop. They give off natural chemicals which will help calm your cat down.
Secondly, both of you should try and practise reinforcing good behaviour. For example, if the cat comes over and sits on your lap and is being nice, give it some treats and some praise. If it starts biting & scratching, either make it get off the sofa or, if that's not possible, get up & leave the room. You don't want to do something like chase the cat or hurt it when it does something bad, because that could actually lead to making the behaviour worse or causing other bad behaviours forming.
Also, set the cat up to succeed. When you ran after it up the stairs, you were setting it up to fail because you had backed him into a position where he had to be on the defensive. Instead, you should have left him to calm down & then tried to reinforce good behaviour instead, when he was in a better mood.

Horizon81 wrote: »

This cat has had a lot of love and attention from my partner historically, but it's obviously not made a blind bit of difference. My appearance has not made things any different.

Just to come to this point - love and attention are great but they do not a well behaved cat make! In fact, it could be possible that your partner has inadvertently reinforced this behaviour by being overly affectionate, without even realising that she was doing so. Your appearance won't make a difference either, I'm afraid! If you truly want to make things better, you and your partner need to get pro-active & start tackling these problems in ways that will actually help to fix them.

Good luck to you & your partner with your cat