Aggressive cat

[cathelppplease]

Hi

I have always been a cat owner and have never had an issue before with our pets. Our dear old cat died about 2 years ago and we replaced him last April. The issue is with our latest pet, she isn't very kind to my child. We had her from 10 weeks old and my child is the gentlest and loves animals. He is very kind and caring but the cat keeps randomly going for him. It's not even play it's properly coming up and biting and attacking him and has twice now drawn blood. My son is totally smitten with the cat but is also frightened of the cat at the same time. I have just trained to become a childminder from home and am due a baby who is one year old to come and join me from next month and although I would never leave the baby alone I am still frightened by the cats behaviour. I'm not sure what to do? Any tips? My vet recommended a water pistol to deter attacks but that has done nothing. The issue is that there is no trigger to these attacks and the cat always wants to be where we are. It doesn't even go off unless outside it wants to always be with us. I'm getting very fed up of it going for my son and there being no explanation. I've had the cat checked twice with no illness in case and also tried calming medicine on the food and plug ins to no avail. I'm not sure whether i should re-home or persevere. I'm getting very concerned that one day it will be more serious and the bite will cause an infection. As I say I'm very experienced with cats and love them but I'm at an absolute loss on how to deal with this pet. Many thanks for reading.

How much play or exercise does the cat get? A bored young cat is a recipe for trouble. She needs lotsof high places to explore or escape unwanted attention, hiding places etc. Interactive toys and toys like the dabird or cat dancer are good options. Make sure she has places she can hide away too if she wants to.

She has lots of high places like book shelves and can hide behind the sofa etc, she is played with a lot with her catching toys and also she can go outside at will which she loves. I can't imagine its boredom other than her not having another cat in the house?

She doesn't get unwanted attention as such her attacks are walking into where we are and biting or my son in the garden and attacking its very odd. She gets lots of exercise I think

At that age, my cats would play fight with each other - eventually they learn boundaries as the other one would let them know when they took it too far! So I also wonder if your cat just wants to play but hasn't learned how to "play nice" just yet (especially if you just have the one cat). I agree that giving it some dedicated playtime each day, if you're not already, might help. Ours needed a good 20-30mins a day when they were little.

Does it also have a place of its own where it can retreat to and feel safe if needed? Ideally somewhere high up or and covered (one of ours prefers a covered box built into our cat tree, while the other has a spot on top of the wardrobe).

I think that may be it, it hasn't got a play mate to teach it boundaries as we obviously are not going to hurt the cat back, so it doesn't know when it's overstepped. It has a whole room that it considers its own that we don't really use, also loves two bookshelves floor to ceiling on the top so plenty of spaces.