I need an old priest and a young priest.
Help me, cat people.
My experience with cats is limited, but has been 95% positive up to this point. Most recently, I've been pet sitting for L, who had four rescued cats and an extremely old, sick, trained canine educational companion (her classroom assistant of many years). My job was essentially hospice worker for the dog (9/10ths of the job), and put out cat food. The dog has since passed on, but I continue to take care of the cats on a regular basis. Little orange and black and white hide from me, though the female is getting bolder--she will now allow me to see her, though if I approach she retreats under the bed. Big orange will now come to the table where I feed them and eat while I'm setting out food, as long as I don't look at him. He will accept a treat laid in front of him, but I cannot touch. Chocolate mackerel tabby, the outlier, snuggles up to me, begs for treats, tries to get into my bedroom, hangs out on the counter while I brush my teeth, and crawls into the air conditioner, from which I must remove him by one leg, which he seems to really enjoy (or else why would he keep doing it, and purring when I fish him out?)
This has been my entire education on indoor cats. All other cats I have known in my life have been outdoor cats, and none of them have been my own. Caring for them has consisted of putting out food and water and doling out scritches when they decide to show up.
But now I'm at DJ and Gia's, taking care of their cat for the week. Tig is half indoor, half outdoor, he's about 14, orange and white, and hates me with a passion. We didn't even start as fake friends, he hissed at me the first day we met, five years ago. Since then we've been into mutual avoidance. But now he's in my charge for the week, and things are not going well. The first night he swiped my ankle when I went past him in the hall. He showed up at my door yowling twice during the night. The next morning he drew blood when I tried to encourage him outdoors (I'll admit that I was using a dog technique, open door and encourage vocally. I have never picked up this cat.) This morning I tricked him into going out and shut the door behind him, which might be directly related to him attacking me from behind this evening and then scratching the bathroom door when I locked him out. I'm supposed to put him out again in the morning, but he may have wised up to my technique.
He does the ears down, flat to the floor, hiss and lunge. He has not tried to bite me, it's been all claws. Until tonight he was only doing it when I passed him in the hallways, then he tagged me from behind and came at me while I was sitting in the TV room. He tried the attack from behind again when I was retreating to my room for the night. I am wearing jeans and sneakers, indoors, in Texas, in June, for protection, and carrying a Dave Matthews songbook to fend him off.
My experience with cats is rather limited--I can count on two hands the number of cats I have known names of-- but I've never encountered hostility like this. This seems extremely aggressive behavior, but I won't rule out that I'm doing something to set him off. I'm not seeing any other signs that he's sick or in pain, he's just acting extremely pissed off. I've known territorial dogs, do cats get really territorial about a house? Could Tig hate my shoes/face/smell? I knew a dog who would freak out when people wore hats. Maybe Tig hates gingers? That would make him a giant hypocrite, by the way, as he is orange. Is this an aggressive-aggressive response to DJ and Gia being gone? And honestly, this 8-pound terror has me on the run. Could he be toying with me at this point because he knows that I'm trying to avoid another blood-letting? Can he smell fear? What's best at this point? Ignore? Whack him with a newspaper? Spray bottle? I need advice, we both need to survive until Wednesday.
My experience with cats is limited, but has been 95% positive up to this point. Most recently, I've been pet sitting for L, who had four rescued cats and an extremely old, sick, trained canine educational companion (her classroom assistant of many years). My job was essentially hospice worker for the dog (9/10ths of the job), and put out cat food. The dog has since passed on, but I continue to take care of the cats on a regular basis. Little orange and black and white hide from me, though the female is getting bolder--she will now allow me to see her, though if I approach she retreats under the bed. Big orange will now come to the table where I feed them and eat while I'm setting out food, as long as I don't look at him. He will accept a treat laid in front of him, but I cannot touch. Chocolate mackerel tabby, the outlier, snuggles up to me, begs for treats, tries to get into my bedroom, hangs out on the counter while I brush my teeth, and crawls into the air conditioner, from which I must remove him by one leg, which he seems to really enjoy (or else why would he keep doing it, and purring when I fish him out?)
This has been my entire education on indoor cats. All other cats I have known in my life have been outdoor cats, and none of them have been my own. Caring for them has consisted of putting out food and water and doling out scritches when they decide to show up.
But now I'm at DJ and Gia's, taking care of their cat for the week. Tig is half indoor, half outdoor, he's about 14, orange and white, and hates me with a passion. We didn't even start as fake friends, he hissed at me the first day we met, five years ago. Since then we've been into mutual avoidance. But now he's in my charge for the week, and things are not going well. The first night he swiped my ankle when I went past him in the hall. He showed up at my door yowling twice during the night. The next morning he drew blood when I tried to encourage him outdoors (I'll admit that I was using a dog technique, open door and encourage vocally. I have never picked up this cat.) This morning I tricked him into going out and shut the door behind him, which might be directly related to him attacking me from behind this evening and then scratching the bathroom door when I locked him out. I'm supposed to put him out again in the morning, but he may have wised up to my technique.
He does the ears down, flat to the floor, hiss and lunge. He has not tried to bite me, it's been all claws. Until tonight he was only doing it when I passed him in the hallways, then he tagged me from behind and came at me while I was sitting in the TV room. He tried the attack from behind again when I was retreating to my room for the night. I am wearing jeans and sneakers, indoors, in Texas, in June, for protection, and carrying a Dave Matthews songbook to fend him off.
My experience with cats is rather limited--I can count on two hands the number of cats I have known names of-- but I've never encountered hostility like this. This seems extremely aggressive behavior, but I won't rule out that I'm doing something to set him off. I'm not seeing any other signs that he's sick or in pain, he's just acting extremely pissed off. I've known territorial dogs, do cats get really territorial about a house? Could Tig hate my shoes/face/smell? I knew a dog who would freak out when people wore hats. Maybe Tig hates gingers? That would make him a giant hypocrite, by the way, as he is orange. Is this an aggressive-aggressive response to DJ and Gia being gone? And honestly, this 8-pound terror has me on the run. Could he be toying with me at this point because he knows that I'm trying to avoid another blood-letting? Can he smell fear? What's best at this point? Ignore? Whack him with a newspaper? Spray bottle? I need advice, we both need to survive until Wednesday.