Advice needed with aggressive cat

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Hope you can help. Our 4yo family cat has become extremely aggressive. But strangely only with my children and husband.

She’s always been very nervous but has recently started hissing and now attacking the kids. They’re 21 and 15 so not young boisterous kids running around.

Ds has always pretty much ignored her. She’s very much my dds cat. Until recently. She scratched and bit her on both legs and hands yesterday ...jumped at her from behind ! Sadly not the first attack but definitely the worst.

Only thing that has changed is my dd isn’t in the house as much any more.

They now have to call me if she’s near so I get in between them so they can go come in/leave the room.

Hisses and makes very strange noises. Even hissed at ds while she was happily sat on my lap and he was sat at other side of room.

Have got feliway being delivered today.

She’s had full vet check with nothing found. She’s an indoor cat. Tried to let her outside over the summer (under supervision) as wondered if it’s boredom. But she wont go out even when I left the door open all day.

I’m really at a loss.

Do they smell of anything? Not implying they don't wash btw, but eg if one has started hanging about at a friends with a dog or cat, or a smell connected with a job/ hobby?

Reason I ask is because one of mine hates a neighbour. We thought it was just down to not being very sociable to start with. Until we realised it was the smell of the neighbours cat she hated.

Also had a feral that originally came from a scrap yard. Took me two years to be able to touch it. But it was all over a mechanic on first sight, I always presumed because he had the same smell as the people that had fed him and gained his trust prior to rehoming

Dd smokes, only one in our family who does, so that’s a possibility I guess. I know I can’t stand the smell ! She has also been training with other animals. But the cat has been vicious before then.

Not sure why she’d be going for ds though. He’s very clean for a teenager

Something else to think of though, thank you.

Is she spayed? This is typical behaviour of unspayed, indoor only female cats - it's normally starts around age 3 to 4.

I'm pasting below the comments I made on another thread about an unneutered indoor only female cat suddenly becoming aggressive at around age 3: (of course if your cat is already spayed OP then I've got nothing!)

The three problems caused by not neutering an indoor only female are:

1. Pyrometra.

1. Injuries from trying to escape, including a lot of deaths from throwing themselves off balconies or from high windows.

1. (and this is probably the most common) a sort of psychosis. The constant coming into heat and not being able to ovulate sends them mad. This manifests itself in sudden extremely aggressive behaviour (I've known a few that managed to put their owners in hospital) and a totally personality change (for the worse). This normally shows itself from about three years old, but can be sooner or later. If the cat is neutered then it will return to it's normal self within a couple of weeks.

The worst case of this I saw was when a family had had to barricade themselves in the living room in fear of the cat, which had already caused extreme injuries to one of it's owners, and it took four of us, being very brave (!) and with a lot of specialist equipment, to catch it. And it was indeed like a thing possessed. After about three weeks she was a sweet loving cat again, but the family had been so traumatised that they didn't want her back. They had also no idea that it was necessary to spay an indoor only cat.

And another incident I've previously posted about:

One of my first ever cat rescue jobs was to 'rescue' a woman from her unneutered, four year old female flat cat that had turned 'psycho'.

It was Summer, and a heatwave, and when I got there the woman was wearing boots, a full length coat, a hat and gloves, all to protect herself from the cat that was launching attacks on her. She said to me 'the cat's in there' pointing to her bedroom. I expected her to come in with me to help me catch it, but instead she opened the door, pushed me inside, and slammed the door behind me grin. I managed to catch when it attacked me and I lifted it up with its teeth clamped round my finger and sort of swung it into a top loading carrier.

After being neutered and given a few tranquilisers the cat reverted back to her sweet, loving self and went home. My finger took longer to recover. In fact I swear it's never been the same since.

I'm guessing that she is already spayed from careful reading of your post. In which case yes, Feliway is a good idea. I've heard that the spray (direct onto her bed for example) tends to work better than the diffuser - but both are worth trying.

It's odd that she won't go out. Have any strange cats appeared in the garden/at the windows that might have spooked her?

She was spayed at 4 or 5 months from memory.

There is a cat funnily enough who has recently come calling. They stare at each other through the patio doors. But she doesn’t seem to be bothered too much by him. But she has always ran when door is opened...apart from when she was a kitten hence me getting her spayed and chipped ASAP. I keep them in until they’re a year old in the hope they’re a bit more sensible on the road.

She’s always been very timid. My other cat is too. Both rescues. No idea why as all our other cats have been crazy.

I’ve ordered a second diffuser today for upstairs. Hadn’t even considered the spray so will get that ordered now too thank you.

Thanks for the reply. It’s almost nice to know that if you’re stuck for answers then it’s ok that I’m at a loss .