u/Candid-Foundation978

Hi all. Posting here as a last resort / any help I can get.
I don’t want to overstep and take her to the vet without the owners permission.

Age: 25

Location: USA

Vet not accessible

TLDR; Major behavioral change & repeated sneezing-esque noises

Age of Cat: 7-8 months

Gender: Female Fixed

Afford: Not my place

I have been doing a long-term Rover situation for this kitten for the past month and a half-ish. Before that I would have her for weeks at a time as her owner is a lady keen on cat rescue. I had her at 3 days old when she was very sick and snotty and got her back to life. She is now the most cuddly and affectionate cat ever! However, she does hiss at her owner now but they have lots of cats there.

Today she had jumped up on the bed and snuggled up into my arm in a little curly que like she does and was licking and purring. I was petting her and it was like a switch flipped. She got really wide eyed, started hissing, end of tail twitching, growling/grumbling, and making a sneezing noise like 5 in a row. She has done the noise on its own before, as she has allergies, but never reactionary. I left the room and gave her some space in case something hurt her physically and came back a little later with food. She ran over to me like normal for a sec then tried to take a bite, spit it out, went crazy hissing and ran under the bed.

The owner knows we have multiple animals in and out of the house but the kitty always has her own space in our room or the guest room upstairs. Basically, dogs downstairs and cats upstairs. We have an orange boy cat that got here two days ago that is acclimating in the bathroom, so potentially could have something to do with that. However, she has gone up to his crate and sniffed and acted completely NORMAL for the past two days with him in the bathroom. Like walking up to him! So I just have a hard time believing that. He is not fixed yet, but so timid he has not even moved from his corner. The other reason I have a hard time believing it’s territorial or due to smell is because we had 2 male cats last week. They were kept in our room and she was in the guest. They rolled around EVERYWHERE. Used HER litter box. No reaction when she got back in the room!

I’m just very scared and I have obviously formed a bond with this cat as I have had her for a great chunk of her life. Her breath / saliva is particularly stinky too which I have brought to the owners attention. She is a BLACK CAT, so it would be hard to tell if there is a physical ailment.

Could this just be territorial? Scared? Or is she in pain? I can upload a video of her when she first started doing it if needed.

The owner was notified immediately upon symptoms and I offered to take her to the vet twice (it’s a Saturday so $$), but the owner declined. She is now in the guest room hopefully decompressing. Eating like ?Normal? as in eating but still spazzing and tweaking by out / hissing during. She is my best little buddy and even pushes my husband away with her paws when he gets too close lol, so something is definitely bothering her for her to act that way toward me. I don’t want to overstep and take her to the vet without the owners permission.