Need Advice About Cats (Help)

13 October,2002 | Myself

[M.K. Borders]

I just returned from the Local Emergency Room with my 14 year old daughter. She was savagely attacked in her sleep by the family cat! She sustained several deep puncture and slash wounds. When we got to her she was covered in blood, as was her bed.

The beast has had it's rabbies shots, it has been "fixed", it is never allowed outside, all the proper things. This is all apparently the result of a cat fight that was occuring outside the house, somewhere in the nieghborhood. Our cat frenzied in response to that fight.

What I would like is too hear from others and get their thoughts on the matter. Has anyone ever heard of such a thing?

My preferred method of dealing with a problem such as this is 22 Stinger. However, I am wondering if I should wait. What says the forum?

[balrog666]

This type of incident has never happened with any of my cats. Ever. But I have never had an indoor-only cat.

However, while the procedure disgusts me, I suggest that you may want to consider "declawing" the cat. The procedure removes the front knuckle from each front toe and the claws cannot grow back. Friends of mine with indoor-only cats have often done this to prevent damage to the furniture (particularly with Siamese cats). It works. Not all vets do it. And I have no idea what it costs. But it's an option.

[Swordmaker]

You are wasting your time asking this question here. None of us are vets. Your veterinarian is your best source of information on what might cause a cat to do such a thing... and he or she is also the person to handle putting your cat down.

If your cat may have some disease that caused this, then the Vet can recommend quarantine and observation if that is indicated. If not, then the animal can be euthenized quickly and painlessly, ending your potential for future injury.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Years ago, one of my cats had been having a minor spat with another of my cats, and then stomped off to one of my college student boarders' beds in a huff. Said boarder then tried to pet the apparently calmed-down kitty on the head, and kitty very instinctively snapped at the approaching hand, driving a fang all the way down to the bone of her middle finger. Emergency room visit, and several courses of antibiotics were required. However, the 3 boarders who were in the house at the time (including the wounded one), all agreed that the cat immediately realized it had made a mistake and began acting sheepish. The cat died of cancer about 8 years later, was much loved and snuggled in the interim, and never launched a real attack on a human again. My "Rules for Boarders" handbook was modified to include a paragraph about steering clear of cats who have been in altercation mode within the past few minutes.

Try to figure out the details of what happened. If the cat really attacked your daughter, beyond a single instinctive bite or swat with claws, it should probably be put down. Possibly, though, the cat was provoked by the noises from outdoors, sprang over your sleeping daughter with claws out (on its way to another part of the house, another windowsill, etc.), and your daughter's instinctive reaction was such that the already ornery cat reasonably believed it was being attacked by your daughter. As another poster said, this type of scenario makes a repeat highly unlikely.

See how your daughter feels about it in a week or so, and how the cat is behaving towards your daughter and other members of the family. Accidents happen, and it sounds like this may have been an accident. I'm glad my mother let me stay in the household, after I sliced her cornea with a playful arm-flailing when I was a year old :)

Also, if the cat seems to be high-strung by nature, ask your vet about prescribing an anti-depressant. I had one of my cats on an anti-depressant for a couple of years, and it worked wonders; as he got older he calmed down and didn't need it any more. It was an inexpensive generic (amitryptiline, I think).