Is there any hope for our psycho cat?

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A male cat, previously confined for six months, exhibits aggressive behavior towards other cats while being affectionate with people. The owner is trying a pheromone collar to alleviate territorial issues, as previous attempts with a diffuser were unsuccessful. Discussions suggest that finding him a home as the only cat might be the best solution if the collar doesn't work. There are also mentions of potential medication options like Prozac, but the owner is hesitant to pursue that route. Recent signs indicate some improvement in Jack's behavior, raising hopes for a more peaceful coexistence with the other cats.
  • #31
Ivan Seeking said:
Yes, this is quite a surprise. The diffuser didn't seem to affect him at all. The collar may be a much more effective delivery method, which isn't surprising I guess. And I didn't like the idea of filling the house with cat facial pheromones, indefinitely.
I wonder if you rubbed one of these vigorously on someone's shoes they would be followed down the street by every cat in the vicinity.
 
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  • #32
KingNothing said:
http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/funny-pictures-gif-cat-bear-viasp.gif

http://gifs.gifbin.com/012010/1264682426_cat-attacks-dog.gif
 
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  • #33
zoobyshoe said:
I wonder if you rubbed one of these vigorously on someone's shoes they would be followed down the street by every cat in the vicinity.
Ok Ivan,

You have an experiment challenge, how about giving it a go and report back, who would have guessed that a certain pheromone could totally relax a cat's behavior, pretty cool.

Rhody...
 
  • #34
ThomasT said:
Can Jack freely roam outside and inside? Just curious. I don't know if that freedom would help in your situation, but we've had cats before and allowed them that freedom and never had any problems of the sort you're describing (just that they would get killed in traffic or whatever periodically).

Sorry, I had missed this. Yes, they are all come-and-go-as-you-please, indoor-outdoor. And they have five acres with their own forest and pasture. They really couldn't have it much better!
 
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  • #35
I heard one little skirmish with Zoobie, but so far so good. He is even noticeably less aggressive with his scratching post. Now he just stretches instead of attacking it with a fury.

I guess the real test will be whether the effects last long enough to establish a new pattern of behavior. We are trying to be smart about using a lot of positive reinforcement to aid in the process.
 
  • #36
rhody said:
, how about giving it a go and report back, who would have guessed that a certain pheromone could totally relax a cat's behavior, pretty cool.

Rhody...

There are signs that Little Tyke was affected in one way or another. When she was lying by Jack, she looked unusually relaxed; esp considering that she normally runs and hides from Jack. He has terrorized her mercilessly. I don't know if she was responding to his demeanor, the collar, or both, but her behavior was also unusual for the situation.
 
  • #37
Ivan, my friends have several cats, and were obliged to bring in one more. (The new one had lived with large dogs before) It was extremely aggressive toward any cat within a 20 foot radius.

It was however, quite affectionate with humans.

Now, after a couple of months, everybody gets along just fine. You'd never have known it was the same cat.

May or may not help, knowing that at least some cats who start very aggressively can learn to get along once they feel they're not threatened.
 
  • #38
DaveC426913 said:
Ivan, my friends have several cats, and were obliged to bring in one more. (The new one had lived with large dogs before) It was extremely aggressive toward any cat within a 20 foot radius.

It was however, quite affectionate with humans.

Now, after a couple of months, everybody gets along just fine. You'd never have known it was the same cat.

May or may not help, knowing that at least some cats who start very aggressively can learn to get along once they feel they're not threatened.

That has always been our experience as well. Unfortunately, it has been three years now and his behavior was getting worse. We assumed that like most cats, he would calm down with age, not get worse.

For a time, until things improved with age, we had one male that would rape the other male... at least he was doing his best. We could hear the cries for help in the dark of the night but we chose to ignore them.
 
  • #39
Three years. Wow. That's a cat that needs your help.
 
  • #40
My dog has a gay admirer down the road that always wants to engage in foreplay, and then try to mount him. Duke is a good boy, but he will only tolerate so much, and needs to assert himself. At first, I would try to intervene so as to avoid them getting into conflicts, but eventually I figured out that he needed to take care of his own preferences. Max got the message pretty quickly. Duke wouldn't knowingly hurt Max, but when he gets fed up, the "jaws of death" and that linebacker body turn the tide pretty quickly.
 
  • #41
Ivan Seeking said:
Haha, look at that bottle-brush tail!

Turns out Feliway doesn't make the collar for cats. It is another brand but the same thing. And I said hormone, but I should have said pheromone - the facial pheromone.

I put it on and don't notice a difference. Maybe I should try putting it on the cat?
Ivan,

I have a friend a work who has a similar problem with one of his cats, exactly what collar did you buy, and where, a link would be nice. I want to let him know about it.

Rhody...
 
  • #42
Here you go, Rhody. We got ours from the Vet but they are widely available. They are available for dogs as well but I have no idea how well they are supposed to work.

http://www.google.com/products/cata...X&ei=QoPzTp72DYGPigK-wOm7Dg&ved=0CJYBEPICMAQ#

Keep in mind that our success with Jack is only preliminary. The effects may not last.

The Feliway brand diffuser definitely had a big effect on another stray male that we took in about three years ago. The problem with the diffuser was that Isaac still wanted to spray in rooms without the diffuser.
 
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  • #43
Thanks, I passed on the info, if he decides to try one and has success or failure I will report back.

Rhody...
 
  • #44
We haven't had a chance to evaluate the situation with Zoobie yet, but last night Little Tyke got a little fiesty, just playful, and Jack ran away! Apparently he didn't want to deal with her energy level. WOW! That qualifies as "shocking".
 
  • #45
Ivan Seeking said:
We haven't had a chance to evaluate the situation with Zoobie yet, but last night Little Tyke got a little fiesty, just playful, and Jack ran away! Apparently he didn't want to deal with her energy level. WOW! That qualifies as "shocking".
That's a nice development.
 
  • #46
Ivan Seeking said:
We haven't had a chance to evaluate the situation with Zoobie yet, but last night Little Tyke got a little fiesty, just playful, and Jack ran away! Apparently he didn't want to deal with her energy level. WOW! That qualifies as "shocking".
Hmmmm. You've turned your cat into a clockwork orange.
 
  • #47
Glad the collar is working! Otherwise, I'd have agreed with Zooby, and probably Zoobie too, that seeking a new home where he'd be an only cat might be the best option. One of our office staff just adopted a sweet kitty who was kept in a cage his first 5 months. If she has similar problems, I'll let her know about your success with the collar. I'm not sure if she has other cats or not. I'll ask and caution her about possible problems with multiple cats. Then again, maybe Jack was always a bit psycho and that's why his previous owners kept him confined out of lack of understanding how to handle him...never know.
 
  • #48
Moonbear said:
Glad the collar is working! Otherwise, I'd have agreed with Zooby, and probably Zoobie too, that seeking a new home where he'd be an only cat might be the best option. One of our office staff just adopted a sweet kitty who was kept in a cage his first 5 months. If she has similar problems, I'll let her know about your success with the collar. I'm not sure if she has other cats or not. I'll ask and caution her about possible problems with multiple cats. Then again, maybe Jack was always a bit psycho and that's why his previous owners kept him confined out of lack of understanding how to handle him...never know.

Indeed. Tsu caught Zoobie and Jack relaxing in mutual territory today. So day by day things seem to be improviing.

We know that he was kept in a room because of a large aggressive dog [something about a daughter moving back home with her parents, I think...] but apparently Jack was pretty aggressive from the start. Of course, thats' not unusual for a very young male, so yes, hard to say. By the time we got him he was a holy terror! But only with time did it become obvoius that he was a real problem. As I said earlier, his behavior has gotten worse with age. Now we have established patterns of behavior, with increasing aggressiveness, that are simply unacceptable. That is, up until now! I am really blown away by this so far. I may get one for all of our cats and get a pheromone suit for Jack.
 
  • #49
Ivan Seeking said:
I am really blown away by this so far. I may get one for all of our cats and get a pheromone suit for Jack.
Oh God, check this out: Pheromones – The Secret Weapon of Attraction
In a similar study twin brothers were used in the testing. Only one of the twins was sprayed with the actual pheromones. Women found one twin brother who had the actual pheromone on more sexually attractive than the other. Now, remember these were twin brothers both looking exactly the same, but the twin wearing the pheromones was found more attractive. This experiment was conducted on the national TV show ABC 20/20.

Men apply it to themselves in business to gain additional trust & respect thereby appearing more dominent or intimidating and sales people have found it highly advantages in their dealings with customers. Furniture companies have been known to use it in their showrooms to attract attention to a difficult-to-sell couch or chair. Think about that the next time your shopping...
I will never look at furniture in a furniture showroom the same way after reading this... :redface: :blushing:

Rhody...
 
  • #50
rhody said:
Oh God, check this out: Pheromones – The Secret Weapon of Attraction

I will never look at furniture in a furniture showroom the same way after reading this... :redface: :blushing:

Rhody...

That last that I read, there is some anecdotal evidence that pheromones can affect humans, but so far nothing scientific. And there is no known pheromone receptor in humans.

Some years ago there was rumor that scientists had found a receptor but I don't think that ever panned out.
 
  • #51
At this point it seems to be indisputable: Jack's behavior has changed significantly. I think it is even fair to say that he was affected by the collar almost immediately - within minutes. This has been amazingly effective.

I was just up at the house and found he and Zoobie hanging out peacefully in the livingroom. For me, that is definitive.

"Big Bad Jack" is now known as "Kinder Gentler Jack".
 
  • #52
Ivan Seeking said:
At this point it seems to be indisputable: Jack's behavior has changed significantly. I think it is even fair to say that he was affected by the collar almost immediately - within minutes. This has been amazingly effective.

I was just up at the house and found he and Zoobie hanging out peacefully in the livingroom. For me, that is definitive.

"Big Bad Jack" is now known as "Kinder Gentler Jack".
That is amazing. So glad that it's working and that he is now Happy Jack.
 
  • #53
 
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  • #54
We now have calming collars on all four cats. :smile:

We've had so much success with Jack and Zoobie that I decided to work on Bun and Tyke, who were just lying together and actually touching each other, on the chair beside me! Bun has never layed within five feet of ANY cat before - up until about five minutes ago. And poor Little Tyke was so terrorized by Jack that she didn't know how to play nice to other cats. So while they got past hissing and pissing within a year or so, they were still tentative about interactions, at best.

In short, in less than a month, we've gone from a virtually umanageable situation that we've struggled with for three years, to a home with 4 happy cats. Now that's what I call a fantastic product.

One warning is that some brands do not use breakaway collars, which can be quite dangerous. I'm still not sure that this brand does either but I have seen that the collar reportedly breaks easily.
 
  • #55
So, once they've learned to get along, can you take the collars off?
 
  • #56
DaveC426913 said:
So, once they've learned to get along, can you take the collars off?

That is my hope; establish new behavior patterns and then start losing the collars. But by buying online with discounts, we can do this indefinitely for about $20 a month. For the peace of mind alone, it would easily be worth it.
 
  • #57
DaveC426913 said:
So, once they've learned to get along, can you take the collars off?
Yeah, Ivan,

Maybe their kitty brains have adapted thanks to plasticity, and the collars only serve to reinforce or strengthen the new connections, pretty amazing. I am happy for you, four less stressful situations to worry about and deal with.

Rhody... :cool:
 
  • #59
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  • #60
We had a rather humorous episode with my shadow, Little Tyke. Little Tyke has been at my side almost every day since she was 3 weeks old. I knew she is somewhat possessive because of the way she interacts with my other office cat, Bun. But this was funny!

Before the collars, because he had terrorized her so much, any Jack sighting put Tyke in instant fight mode. Now, when Tyke comes up to the house, Jack and Tyke do pretty well. They play and seem to spend a lot of time hunting together. From time to time, if I lie down on the couch, they both come over and jump up on the back and take a nap. They did this the other day; sitting like bookends, and facing each other.

As I often do, I reached up and started petting Jack. After a moment I heard a subtle growl from Tyke. I glanced up but didn’t see a problem. After a minute, the growls got louder. I finally rolled over so that I could watch, and sure enough, Jack was being perfectly fine. His eyes were closed and his posture was entirely non-aggressive. But the more I petted him the angrier Tyke became. Soon her ears went back, her eyes got big and black, the hair on her neck inflated, and she started hissing! LOL! Talk about a possessive! I finally reached up to reassure her, which seemed to surprise her. She instantly turned non-aggressive, acknowledged my pet with a head rub, and ran off.

How strange.
 

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