Vet said the only thing left is behavioral euthanasia and I can’t bring myself to make the appointment 🥲
I have always believed that one of my cats was given to me too young and missed some important socialization skills. He has always been a biter, but his behavior has never been anywhere near this severe.
About a week before I gave birth in February, he suddenly started attacking our other cat. These were full-on fights with rolling, fur flying, claws, scratching, and biting. They had lived together peacefully for six years and had never had any issues with aggression toward each other before this. I assumed the behavior was related to all the changes happening in our home, especially with a new baby coming. Surprisingly, though, both cats have been completely fine around our son, and the aggressive cat has never shown any aggression toward him.
The fighting stopped for about two weeks, but then started again and eventually became almost daily. Sometimes there seemed to be a trigger, such as me telling our other cat “no” when he was chewing on plastic, but other times there was absolutely no obvious trigger. The strangest part is what happens afterward. About 5–20 minutes after a fight, the aggressive cat will often try to lick, groom, or cuddle with the other cat, even though the other cat is understandably still upset and wants nothing to do with him. It almost seems as though he completely forgets that the fight just happened.
We’ve taken both cats to the vet, and they found no underlying physical health issues. We’ve also tried completely separating them, doing slow reintroductions, and putting the aggressive cat on anti-anxiety medications with feliway all around the home. Unfortunately, none of these things have solved the problem. They fought again only three days after their most recent reintroduction.
After that last fight, which was about two weeks ago, we decided to keep them completely separated. It isn’t fair to our other cat to continue exposing him to attacks, but we also know that keeping both cats confined and separated indefinitely isn’t a realistic or fair long-term solution.
Unfortunately, the aggression has now started extending to people. He has attacked my boyfriend three separate times while my boyfriend was simply refilling the food and water dishes. We are extremely worried about the safety of our six-month-old baby and my boyfriend’s mother, who lives with us.
We have been to a behaviorist and a neurologist. Neither was able to identify a clear trigger or underlying reason for the behavior. The neurologist essentially told us that this isn’t our fault and that we’ve done everything we reasonably can. We’ve also contacted every rescue, sanctuary, and organization we could find in our area, but none of them are willing or able to take him.
At this point, the vet has recommended euthanasia and I hate it. I feel like a killer. We love him and don’t want to give up on him, but we also can’t risk someone getting seriously hurt, especially with a baby involved now.