Got a cat crisis, need input
 

Apparently our Egyptian Mau went ape shit a few minutes ago and attached my orange tabby with intent to kill.

These cats have lived together for almost 4 years. Mau is 5 years old, tabby is 4 years old. Never once fought before. The Mau isn't much for playtime with tabby, but prefers to play with toys on her own. She'll tolerate a little playing, then just leaves, isn't really confrontational. Slightly territorial, if he tries to get on her platform while she's sitting on it, she'll swat at him, but no hissing no poofed tail, none of that. Just a mild "this is mine, get away" type deal.

I received these messages via chat with my wife:




So yeah... out of fucking nowhere, we have a psycho killer cat.

I'm a bit worried about this now, since there's nobody home with them 5 days a week from 10am to 5:30pm, and i don't want to come home to a dead cat.

If this happens again, either she'll fuck him up bad if he doesn't fight back, or he'll go into fight-for-life mode and kill her. (He's twice her size and stupid strong.)

What sticks out the most to me is that 1) The Mau went after my wife and 2) after leaving the tabby to go after my wife, SHE WENT BACK FOR THE TABBY in the other room.


What the actual fuck?

Strange. Scary almost.

I'm trying to get my siamese rescue and my short haired bw cat to not fight with each other. They are currently split up at two different houses. I can't get them to play nice.

peach shouldn't have pissed off lilah.

I mean... i could understand it if 1) She didn't go after my wife, and 2) If she didn't go back in for more after the chased my wife out of the room.

From what i understand this was wildly excessive.

Wife locked her in the bathroom for a couple minutes, she sat in there and yowled. After she was let out, she was purring and rubbing on everything, and now is back to sitting outside the bedroom door where Peach is locked into, staring and pacing.

I'll put them back together when i get home, but i have a pretty bad feeling about this.


Little backstory: When we first got Lilah, the first 2 years she was pretty standoffish, just did her own thing, didn't really have much interest in being petted or sitting on laps. About a year or so ago, a light switch flipped and all of a sudden she won't stay away from us, spends 70% of the day purring, and if anyone is on the couch, she's on the lap, period, and is very persistent about it.

Came out of nowhere, wasn't gradual just BAM! "Ok now i like everyone!"

I think she's completely fucking mental, even for a cat.

Do these cats have outside access at all?

Nope. Irrational as it was, "rabies" did go through my mind.

We do have a balcony, but since the apartment complex took down our screening and i've seen raccoons hanging out there, i don't let them on the balcony anymore.

Dey have all their parts snipped? Yeah and they have any outside contact?

Both are fixed, have been since day one. No outside access.

You chase them off with a broom?

Honestly this is really weird. Have the cat checked out.

My kitten hunts and mounts my older cat, she is a girl, he is a boy. She might grow out of it.

Going after your wife is bad.

Nah, i don't fuck with the raccoons. They just sit on the balcony sometimes and stare at us through the glass door. They aren't hurting anything.

I actually mistakenly tried to pet one a few months ago when i was taking out the trash. Saw a furry thing and some eyes by the dumpster, thought it was one of the super cute stray cats that hang around.

Kneeled down, called to it, and then thought to myself as it ran away "Man... that cat runs really weird..... oh... wait...."

Not sure if you saw my reply to you on the CR random thoughts thread. Long story short, Egyptian maus do that sometimes. I've had 3 maus, all 3 have decided they want to murder someone at random every year or 2. It passes, and then they're back to their normal, chirpy quirkiness. Been happening in my house for the last 10 years.

o_O


So.... if wife hadn't been home, would she have eventually snapped back? Or would she have just kept going until something awful happened either to her or my beloved Mr. Peach?

I hate to say it, but I think you are fucked. I had a friend who's cat did this. Flipped out, but since no one else was there, the cat attacked him. Second time, it caught him from behind, and messed him up pretty bad. Multiple stitches in the face and head. Vet's diagnosis was that the cat had snapped, and needed to be put down. After getting bitten and scratched a day or two later, he had the cat euthanized.

Bottom line, your cat has gone 'round the bend. Crazy.

Kill 'em both and let dog sort it out.

We aren't home enough to properly care for dogs.

Yup. At least in my experience. I've come home to chunks of fur and bloody noses on a few occasions, and they're still all buddy buddy. The times I caught them in the act, I chased them into separate rooms and kept them away from each other. Now I just let them do what they do.

As you know, Maus have strange personalities. I use to freak out and chase them off when they did the "shakey tail spraying" motion on things they wanted until I realized it'sjust what Maus do. I guess sometimes they just need to beat the snot out of something, and the other cats are the easiest target. I can't explain it with any degree of certainty, just letting you know it's not just your cat. Mine do it too, and have for years.

Edit: Have you had any major housing changes in you life? Moving and new furniture seem to have triggered it in my cats. Usually about 4-6 months after a move there will be an "episode".

Are they all males? All females? Mixed?

You mentioned you can sortof notice the signs as this freakout is coming, what are they? Will yours go after a human if it gets in their way as well?

My wife is really shaken over the whole thing, come to find out that Lilah got up next to Peach on her side and pretty much tried to disembowel him. This doesn't surprise me, this is how she destroys all of her toys.


We haven't moved, no new furniture. Everything that's here has been there their entire life.

The ONLY thing that's recently happened was that on Monday, we pulled out the tv stand to get to that wall to hang a bunch of pictures, and i found 2-3 of her old little toy mice that have rattle-y things in them, and she went nuts for the next 3-4 hours playing with them. Put the stand back and everything though.

cut their nails and get on with life.

All males (the maus) but they don't seem to discriminate whether they attack a male or female.

I've never been attacked, nor have my wife or kids. I even grabbed Diesel in the middle of him trying to murder Cloud and he didn't scratch me, but he struggled to get away and back to finish the job.

Warning signs seem to be increased chirping/singing at night, much more frequent sprinting/darting around the house and jumping out to surprise the other cats. They seem to start "hunting" for a day or two before they go nuts.

Ah ok, i just asked because this was a female mau attacking my male tabby.



Pretty much all those warning signs were there. Ugh. Well, hopefully this is really just a once every two years thing. I'm not going to put up with my tabby getting terrorized.