What a Very Bad Kitty Taught My Family

We are a family of cat people. If not quite cat whisperers, we’ve taught our cats to come when called and stay off the dinner table. But some years ago, a cat came along that made us question how much we really did know about cats, especially when he started terrorizing our ten-year-old.

Aggression in cats can be tricky to solve. First, you need to rule out a medical problem or fear. If neither of those applies, it’s time to start sleuthing.

Our bad kitty had been left in a cardboard box outside a veterinary practice. Not much bigger than a wad of lint scraped from a dryer vent, he looked more feral than friendly. His teeth were tiny needles, and his claws protruded from oversized paws like small grappling hooks. His blue eyes glittered fiercely, as though he were part bat or Tasmanian devil. But my 10-year-old daughter was smitten, so we brought him home. She named him Juno.

Juno’s full wildness soon emerged. He fought when picked up or held. He hissed at our 15-year-old male tabby, who outweighed him by a dozen pounds. At night, he patrolled our hallways like the Secret Service, hunting for trouble. Sometimes he would corner our daughter in the stairwell, arching his back and growling. What kind of demon creature did we have here?

Friends urged us to rehome Juno. But we are proud animal people who believe a pet is for keeps. (Also, who would even want him?). The Vet suggested hiring a cat behaviorist to root out the cause of his aggression, to the tune of hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Since that wasn’t going to happen, we knew we had to try to crack the case ourselves.

A little research revealed that cats with a long feral history, including multiple generations of feral ancestors, have a greater genetic predisposition towards wild behavior. So, even with a very young feral kitten, you may not be able to train the wild out of them. That certainly tracked with our boy.

We also noticed that Juno only went after our sweet older daughter, not her bossy little sister. And he usually acted out when I – Mama – was nearby.

One day, while filming an audition tape of my daughter singing and dancing to Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend, Juno kept leaping at her flouncy dance skirt, ruining each take. Between our gales of giggles, I had a sudden epiphany: Juno wanted the attention on him, not her. More specifically, he wanted my attention! He wanted to one-up my daughter in the family hierarchy and become chief kid. Given that he’d been orphaned at two weeks old, he probably didn’t even know he was a cat!

The solution turned out to be simple: my daughter learned to use more assertive body language (confident walking, no retreating) so Juno was less likely to challenge her. And if he did, a spritz of water from a strategically placed spray bottle quickly put an end to the confrontation. Eventually, he settled down.

I sometimes wonder what our lives would have been like without our Very Bad Kitty. Our daughter would have missed out on a priceless lesson in self-confidence, which helped her with friends and at school. And we would have failed to teach our kids that pets truly are members of the family. Even when they’re Very Bad, you hang in there. You work it out.

Today, Juno is 15. He’s mellowed a lot, though he still hates being picked up and still patrols the house like the Secret Service. He’s also the funniest, quirkiest, and most human-oriented cat we’ve ever known. He sits in a chair at the dinner table and is the first to introduce himself to guests.

Amanda, now 24, credits Juno with helping to shape her into the self-assured young woman she is today. She’s also the only one who can get a collar on him without a scratch.

If you observe aggressive behavior in your cat, know that, like us, they have their good reasons. Watch closely, and with luck, you just might be able to help turn a naughty pet into a treasured lifelong companion.

Feature Image Credit: Slava Dumchev, Shutterstock