We have a problem. My elderly mother adopted a 2yo cat from a rescue. All was well for the first few months but then my mum had quite a few injuries but she always said that she'd startled the cat. The cat was brilliant company for my mum and followed her everywhere, really gave her a focus. Mum adored her.
It was always agreed that one day the cat would come to me as we knew she would outlive my mum.
Mum sadly died just over a year ago and cat came to live here in January 2018 while mum was in hospital. All was well for the first few months but now the cat is showing a very vicious side again. She started off attacking if you stopped stroking her. So almost the opposite of petting induced aggression as it only happens when we stop stroking her.
She's getting worse and worse. She now attacks within seconds of being stroked. Nearly always at bedtime when she follows us up, settles on my husband while he reads in bed then sinks her teeth in 20-30 seconds later whether he strokes her or ignores her!!! She gets a real mean look about her - ears back, eyes huge and in a pounce position. Quite scary.
We can't understand it. It's been going on a year now. I suspect it's why she was in a rescue in the first place but she was simply dumped at the vets so no one can be sure. The rescue had no clue as in both mum and our case the cat was fine for the first few months so this didn't show up in the rescue. Then when she got her confidence she seemed to start the attacks.
The vet has found no reason. We have Feliway which hasn't helped.
She's only gone for our DD12 once so she seems to know that DC are out of bounds. She visits various neighbours as she's quite friendly and they all say how sweet she is so obviously not doing it to them (yet). Don't want to exclude her from the bedroom really as I fear without the contact she'll go feral. She loves being with us and purrs and rolls around but we can't trust her.
She attacked me yesterday for moving her!
Any ideas?