Can anyone explain this behaviour?

[GorgeousLadyofWrestling]

I have two sister cats who are four. For three years running, one of them around Feb/March/April time will randomly start attacking dogs for about a week. Not even small dogs but bigger dogs as well.

We’ve just been woken up on a Sunday morning to screaming outside our house. Ran out to see my poor neighbour with her large Cockapoo freaking out and squealing as my two cats were tag teaming attacking it. The dog ran in the house in a panic and my other cats were freaking out. Just total chaos and panic. Got the dog out and my neighbour was upset saying they just came out of nowhere and started attacking her dog.

I’ve seen this happen with my own eyes twice before. It’s always one cats that instigates it and then her sister winds up getting involved. It lasts for about a week with her just randomly attacking dogs and her sister wading in to help because I guess she perceives it as her sister needs help? The first time it happened I thought the dog was attacking them, I couldn’t believe a cat would do that.

It’s now become a pattern of a week of violence against dogs and then stops completely until the next year.

How strange! I haven't come across this before, but can only think that it's hormonally driven because "kitten season" is spring/summer in UK so female cats may start coming into season at around this time. Are your cats neutered?

I wondered if it was a hormonal thing too but they’re all neutered.

I’ve had cats my whole life and never experienced this before. All four cats are now completely on edge and freaked out because the dog got in the house and I guess they can smell it.

Are they Bengals or part-Bengals?

No - they’re sisters but one is a tuxedo and the other is a massive fluffy Norwegian forest looking cat. The tuxedo (the one doing the attacking) is quite vacant a lot of the time. Her sister is territorial but doesn’t start the attacking - she just hears the commotion and runs to back her sister up.

My previous cat (a tuxedo) used to spend time sitting on the pavement at the front of our house, where she would studiously ignore any dogs that walked past. At the age of 14, her attitude changed and she started to scare the local dogs by hissing aggressively at them and chasing them up the road. I don’t think she actually attacked any dogs and the neighbours thought the dog chasing was hilarious. In retrospect, the aggression was an early sign of the dementia that was to afflict her but as your cats are much younger, I doubt that this is the case with them. From what you say about the aggression and being ‘vacant’, I think it’d be worth taking the tuxedo to the vet. There may be an underlying physical cause here.

Could it be that the hormones are coming from the dogs?

Don’t know why that would bother them, but ….. cats be very strange sometimes.

Why do cats do anything - it's for shits n giggles. My tortie girl has spent the morning defending the back garden from the massive bengal shit next door, who wasn't even in the garden. Then she came back in only for her stupid brother to jump out at her, so she smacked him one then went to find our other cat to smack that one too. She could have just stayed asleep on the sofa like #3 cat, but she got up and went out looking for trouble.

My Norwegian Forest cross suddenly started stalking our dogs and swiping at them one evening a few weeks ago, it hasn’t happened again. The dogs had been digging in the flower bed and I wondered if they had come across another cat’s poo and smelt of that, it was the only thing I could think of.

I honestly had never seen a cat behave like that with dogs it lived with before and I have had both for many years.

Neutering just involves the removal of the ovaries and uterus to prevent pregnancy. It doesn’t seem ( experience here😸) to stop hormonal behaviour. So it is quite likely that your girl is in a hormone driven rage. One of my cats effectively went into season every now and then, although neutered. The behaviour was unmistakable.

@Allthegoodnamesarechosen hormone driven rage is something I can relate to! That must be it, I guess. It only happens once it starts to feel a bit spring like. It’s a bit early this year but it’s been more spring like recently so maybe that’s triggered it.

I feel like I ought to put signs up - aggressive cat, will attack your dog. They’re not small dogs either, last year she went for an Alsatian who was yelping and crying because my cats were basically taking it in turns to do these crazy attacks. The dogs are usually on a lead so jumping about trying to get away but they can’t, the owner is usually shrieking and sometimes getting scratched trying to protect their dog - it’s a right commotion and I feel very bad it’s all because of my odd little cat who, apart from one week of violence a year, mainly keeps herself to herself.

Genuine question.
Spaying removes the ovaries, so what hormones are we talking about as the ovaries that produces the female hormones are gone?