Why is my cat growling at me
8 Types of Cat Aggression Explained!
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what is up my kindly cat mojo tears it
is your friendly neighborhood ever
loving cat daddy jackson galaxy here
with you today
i'm being over the top friendly because
today's topic is
aggression i think aggression is
something that we have to talk about
when it comes to cats
not because it happens with all cats and
not because all humans will experience
it
but it can happen and when it does
happen i want you to be
as well informed as you can be so that
you can find the solution
so it's all about taking the fear out of
cat aggression from the human standpoint
and trying to get you to be the best cat
detective that you could possibly be
for the benefit of your cats and you
cats are
prey predator animals straight in the
middle of the food chain
when they are out in the wild that fight
or flight mechanism
is paramount to their existence in their
survival
they always have to have their head on a
swivel in order to survive
a lot of their wild still exists within
them and sometimes it comes
springing out in different ways if you
remember this
that whether it is from an emotional
standpoint or just the raw cats
standpoint or territorial it is
about a degree of suffering within your
cat that causes them to lash out
keep that in mind that it's not about
just saving your pants
uh or any other part of you but it's
also about making your cat more well
adjusted and happy
and as that goes so goes a safer home so
let's get going
so today i'm going to tell you about the
eight different types
of cat aggression that's right eight
different types
if you look in different references you
will see different
names for what i'm about to describe or
more or less than the ones i'm going to
list for you
this is what has worked for me over the
years based on my research
and my experience so there you have that
so the first type of cat aggression that
we're going to talk about today
is play aggression play aggression is
basically when
the hunter in your cat don't forget play
equals prey in the mind of a cat
so the idea of attacking something in
the course of
play is very much built into them you're
walking across your dining room floor
and all of a sudden
your cat springs out from under the
table and attaches themselves to your
ankle
you're working at your desk and you're
moving the mouse around and suddenly
there's a cat glommed on to your hand
it really may hurt a whole lot and
that's why you guys come to me and you
say
my cat just attacked me it's not it's
play aggression
and there's one surefire way to sort of
get that done with and that is to play
with your cat
if you've got a cat that exhibits play
aggression if that sounds familiar to
you what i just described
then if you play with your cat on a
daily basis and you try to coordinate
that play
with the times of day when your cat is
more or less likely
to just pounce on your ankles or pounce
on your hands
then you will drain that energy that
hunter energy out of them in a
constructive way
give them what i call the appropriate
victim and that way you're not setting
both of you guys up for failure don't
forget
your play aggressive cat sleeps because
they're gearing up for the hunt
and then they go ankle could equal
squirrel as far as they're concerned
and the way we move across the floor and
if they're sitting there under a table
yeah you get it i know you do so anyway
that's play aggression very common and
very easy to deal with number two on our
cat aggression hit parade
is redirected aggression so look at it
like this okay i'm gonna set up a little
scenario for you
you've got these two cats and they're
sitting there just you know sitting next
to each other
looking out the window watching the
world go by and
suddenly in the window up pops a
squirrel and one of your cats who might
be more reactive
goes oh my god and in the course of
going oh my god
just redirects that aggression onto the
other cat who then goes
what the hell why did you and then a cat
fight happens you will see it happen to
you sometimes you want to hear a double
redirected aggression squirrel or other
cat pops up in the window oh my god says
one
whacks the other one the other one's
like what just happened then there's a
cat fight
now you come into the picture pick up
one of the cats to get them out of the
room
now they redirect on you why in the hell
did you just attack me
you know i was just trying to help and
you attacked
me because your cat doesn't know who you
are in that moment
you are the next thing they have to
fight off they are in fight or flight
it's all about survival for them and i
know that sounds weird because they're
in your comfortable house in your living
room
but don't forget it's all about the raw
cat so what do you do
with with uh redirected aggression in
that case i would tell you that you want
to have a more vertical place for your
cats to look out the window
if they were elevated a little bit
watching out the window
they would see that whatever it is from
a hundred yards away
and and that's how cats hunt more
effectively if they can see something
far in the distance when it comes to you
just remember this
if they holler let them go don't try to
pick up your cat
when they are in that highly agitated
state you are taking a chance it is like
sticking your hand in the trash disposal
and hoping it doesn't turn on
so in that case you're just going to try
to use what i call a sight blocker
something that you can put in between
the two cats i mean you can even use a
couch cushion i've used flattened
cardboard boxes that i just have at the
ready just in case something happens
like this
and in that moment what you're doing is
you're breaking that visual contact
and you're better able to sort of guide
one of them
into a safer place this is that time for
a time out
when your cat's temperature from an
energetic raw cat standpoint
is through the roof then what you want
to do is get them into a
quiet even dark place let them sit it
out for just
even a few minutes really sometimes
it'll just take a few minutes
and it almost sort of allows them to
reconnect with their skeleton
just sort of come back down to this sort
of even plane where energy and body
are just and it doesn't take long think
ahead
do not pick up your cat when they are in
the middle of a fight or
agitated like that and then think about
timeouts after the fact
so number three on our aggression hit
parade today often it's just called
petting
induced aggression now i will take that
and i'll say yes petting induced
aggression but i will
make it a bigger category and call it
over stimulation aggression
sort of one of the same as far as i'm
concerned so let's start with petting
induced over stimulation there are
certain cats who
can be pet all the live long day you
just sit there watching tv
you and chester's sitting there
chester's purring along turn along
there are some cats where you pet them
three times and they bite you
but the signs start becoming their back
starts to quiver a little bit what i
call back lightning
or their ears start to flatten or their
tail starts to flick
and get to a kind of wagging point and
then one extra touch
and over stimulation is is a physical
phenomenon and it has a lot to do with
hair follicle receptors and a lot of
stuff we won't go into right now but
after a certain amount of petting and it
depends from cat to cat
their nerve endings just start to
register
pain instead of pleasure look for the
signs know when your cat is telling you
they're getting agitated
and just back away and the safest thing
at all times with cats who
have established that they are subject
to petting induced over stimulation
is to just hang out here hang out on the
cheeks
hang out on the head hang out on the
neck right around this area
once you go past the shoulders into the
middle of your cat and their tail in
that area
if they're prone to this kind of
aggression that's when they're going to
manifest it so just
don't take the chance petting induced
aggression is
part in my book of a much bigger thing
which is
over stimulation aggression it can also
just be
i'm sitting in a house with all of this
yelling going on
uh you know the the humans are fighting
or we have
uh kids that are running through the
house or i just got
chased by someone or it's just this this
thing where the entire
energy that's around me is just too much
and then the next time someone comes up
to me i bite just like with the petting
induced overstimulation
aggression you just want to watch your
cat's signs
it's just i always talk about that cat
energetic balloon
that as they go there's just more and
more air in that balloon
and either we let air out of the balloon
or it pops the best thing that you can
do
is just get air out by getting them to
run around and
chase an appropriate victim and kill it
you know
kill something and of course i mean a
toy as opposed to your leg
take the over stimulation and and
constructively
bring it on down and you can do that and
it will prevent a lot of over
stimulation aggression
so number four of the different types of
cat aggression
is pain induced aggression and i coupled
this
with over stimulation aggression and
petting induced
aggression uh so basically if your cat
is hurting they're going to be more on
edge let's say
that you just spent a little bit too
much time in the sun yesterday
and you're walking around with a wicked
sunburn today now of course nobody can
see that sunburn because you're wearing
a shirt
and you're already kind of ugh because
every time that shirt rubs up against
that sunburn you're already on edge
and you got a friend and that friend for
some reason has to be that friend that
every time they walk by you
they gotta slap you on the back hey
what's up jackson
how are you how you doing buddy and with
that sunburn
what's gonna happen you've all been
there i think you get slapped
and it's not just you go oh that really
hurt okay maybe you'll do that once or
twice but at some point they're gonna
slap you back and you're gonna be like
chuck could you not slap my back
and that's what your cat could be
experiencing so for instance let's say
your cat is arthritic especially older
cats
would experience this and you wouldn't
notice it that petting
is going to feel like nails into their
skin
and that will cause a reaction and
oftentimes it's that just
instant bite or scratch i have seen this
over and over again
especially when i worked in a shelter
there were cats that would come in and
they were
absolutely fractious i mean it would get
to the point where we're like
we don't think that there's any way we
can put this cat up for adoption but on
closer
veterinary inspection something was up a
bad
tooth actually caused a cat to act like
they were
just jekyll and hyde this cat had an
exposed nerve
in their in their mouth or maybe it's an
abscessed wound because they were out
there they got into a fight and they
have an abscessed one which
makes you feel like you're on fire so
number one thing when you're dealing
with something that sounds like your cat
go to the vet
by all means go to the vet and it's not
just about doing blood work
and or your analysis or things like that
that we're used to seeing
but it's also about your vet touching
and making sure
that i can touch hips or back i can open
their mouth i can look in their mouth
look at everything to make sure that
you're not
running behavioral circles around
yourself when your cat has been raising
that red flag
and saying ouch and shut up human
okay folks number five on our list of
types of cat aggression
is status related aggression and status
aggression belongs
to the world of the cat that i call the
napoleon the napoleon complex cat the
one who
just feels like i don't feel like i own
anything around here i don't feel like
anything belongs to me so i'm gonna take
it and i'm gonna keep taking it from you
even if you tell me go ahead and take it
i i don't believe you so i'm gonna have
to take it anyway
so let's say that you've got that cat
the one that i call the beach dweller
the one that is
laying in the middle of the floor
oftentimes
right in the middle of a doorway and in
order for you to get
from your bedroom to the kitchen or more
likely from your kitchen to the bedroom
you have to cross that line you have to
cross by that cat and more often than
not
they get a little upset with you when
you try to do that
that's status aggression right there um
and that can go for
your cats just trying to claim a piece
of furniture
for the other cats if they walk up to
that chair and another cat is there
they will chase them away it can go for
things like food
or or dishes or anything like that
anything that symbolizes
you know something of importance within
the home
they can do something really annoying
like that and when i say annoying i mean
they could really lash out it could be
very aggressive
now whether it's human related status
aggression or
cat related status aggression or
anywhere in between another sort of
surefire way that i've been able to
approach this over the years
is to add more stuff is to make sure
that that your napoleon
feels like there's enough things to go
around that they
don't have to argue over resources they
don't have to
guard certain areas if your cat is
guarding the doorway to your bedroom
one of the reasons is because you spend
a whole lot of time there
and your scent is really strong in there
so let's create another
area like your living room there's more
spaces there you can
you know invite your cat to hang out on
the couch along with the bed
and also another thing you can do is put
your scent around different places in
the house a nice thing that i like to do
is to take a t-shirt that's already been
worn and put it on your cat's tree
the more places that they have to lay
the more beds the more cat trees
um spreading out food supplies so that
there's not just
bowl on top of bowl right if you if you
have three cats and you have three bowls
right next to each other then that
little spot becomes really hyper
important for your napoleon cat and
they're gonna
they might guard it and there's no way
that he can try to defend or she can try
to defend
all of those those little spots at the
same time so increase the peace
by just increasing the catification
increasing
the environmental enrichment that's sort
of a sure-fire way
of getting your status-related napoleon
cat
to just relax a little bit number six
in the cat aggression hit parade would
be
territorial aggression now i know that
there might be sort of a skinny line
here between
status and territory but let me try to
widen that line just a little bit
territorial aggression
by now everybody knows that cats are
territorial animals that is just
something that is just
baked in uh to their evolution over the
years they protect what they have
fiercely
you know by and large from a historical
perspective
to protect their food supply to say i
know
that i can hunt in this area right here
and by the way i can reproduce in this
area i can own this area this is mine
and if somebody comes in here
there's going to be hell to pay and and
that in in its very essence
is the root of territorial aggression
now how does that play into our cats at
home
so for instance let's say that you have
got um
feral cats who uh feed around your home
who and and i know we we do this in a
very well-meaning way
but we feed those cats right outside our
home on our front porch or something
like that
those cats their scent becomes
incredibly strong in that area a lot of
those cats will pee
around that area because what are they
doing they're marking what now they
perceive as their
territory you know oftentimes there will
be a cat outside your window
your cat inside the house goes tearing
towards that window
or the screen door or whatever and just
starts ramming
that thing if i if it's put to me
jackson what about
this what about if cats are peeing
territorially on the perimeters of the
house
hmm jackson you're right i hadn't
thought about that should i actually
classify that as aggression
i don't know i kind of think you might
want to well right then after i've
conferred with my better half
i would say that you could even look at
territorial peeing around the house as
being
aggression in a way it kind of is it's
showing those
interlopers the barbarians at the gate
the ones who
are threatening my very existence that
this might be my castle
but this is my moat let's move on to the
other part of territorial aggression and
that happens often when there's a new
cat in the house
and your cat may just perceive that this
new cat
is just there to take everything away
from them to
absolutely take apart the sanctity of
their territory and that's where
these incredible fights happen and and
i i know that a lot of you guys who have
introduced cats not the right way
have seen these ridiculous fights
because
uh it's a stranger there's a stranger in
my house who smells like cat
and and if they come into the area that
i'm in and it smells like them
i am going to go into this primal fear
that everything is going to be taken
away from me
whoever tells you that the way to
introduce cats is to just bring them on
in and let them work it out
they have not had enough cats in their
lives and they'll say to you
oh yeah you know i've done this a
hundred times before and i've never had
a problem i don't know what the cat
guy's talking about
that's what i say introduce cats the
right
way do it carefully because what you're
trying to
to really impart to your resident cat
is that nothing is being threatened that
every time
they see or smell this other cat
actually good things are going to happen
positive associations need to be built
instead of this let them work it out
cats are fiercely territorial if they
feel like something is being threatened
from a territorial perspective
they are going to go to war more times
than not it's aggression
it's aggression territorial aggression
damn it our seventh type of cat
aggression is something that we've
talked about
at length before again take a look at
the video over my head right here
non-recognition aggression and the
example that i use
in that particular video is that you
take your cat to the vet
and you've got two cats let's say you
take your cat to the vet and one cat is
left at home you
bring that cat home and they've been at
the vet maybe they've been there for a
while even if they've been there
overnight
something like that they come back
smelling like a whole different animal
because they smell like the vet's office
and so if your resident cat the one that
was home all day smells the cat that
went to the vet doesn't recognize them
it can be game on in that moment
non-recognition
aggression if you recognize
non-recognition aggression just know
that it can be
approached it can be remedied if you
know what it looks like then you know
how to walk it back and really that's
about like i said in the territorial
aggression piece
it's really all about uh reintroducing
your cats
in a very logical step-by-step
non-threatening way
now before i get to the eighth type of
cat aggression
i'm going to have some honorable
mentions i really sincerely hope that
you're saying
and or neutering your cats because if
you don't that's when these honorable
mentions come in
for females and i mean i've seen this
time and time again and anybody who has
had a mom with kittens knows that
that mom gonna protect their kittens uh
not all of them
but because number one they're not
feeling so great you know go back to
that whole sunburn thing
and uh but it's it's a whole lot worse
than a sunburn i'll tell you that
and uh and also that they're just being
fiercely protective of their young
if you go in there and you try to pet
mom you try to do anything
then aggression will happen all mom cats
are different but it's something to
watch out for
then we've got unneutered male
aggression so it's it's sort of a
sexually based aggression these these
guys these cats have
testosterone coursing through their
system and not only is their
main objective in life to propagate but
it's also to fight off
anybody that they perceive to be a
threat to propagating
so that's why so many males beat up on
other males
out in the streets that's why so many
male cats wind up
with diseases that come from bites or
deep scratches or something like that
once your your male cats have been
neutered this kind
of of male aggression will will just
pretty much not be a factor so our final
category of cat aggression
is idiopathic and idiopathic
if you need to know what idiopathic
means well it's right here
right there there you go the magic of
video
basically idiopathic means that there is
no known cause for why they're doing it
if we go through this checklist of what
could possibly be threatening your cat
and
you go through all of them and you're
like no that's not it i could just be
sitting there and i look at my cat he
looks at me suddenly his eyes dilate and
he's on me
uh or we're just sitting there and
suddenly he springs to life and attacks
one of my other cats
none of the things are happening that
i've listed there is no threat there are
no cats outside there's no
there are no raccoons or squirrels or
anything i live in a 12-story apartment
there's nothing going on
and yet my cat is exhibiting the signs
of territorial aggression
in that case we have to remember that
cats are just like humans in this way
mental illness is real in animals
it's real suffering is real and
suffering doesn't have to be a broken
leg suffering can be
something chemically that's happening in
your cat's brain that is giving them
information that is
not real go to your vet have a real
frank discussion with your vet about
this likelihood
and consider getting your cat on some
kind of psychiatric medication
there are plenty of holistic approaches
that you can take to this kind of
aggression as well
i've seen great strides taken with
certain cats
by getting acupuncture or even cranial
sacral work
or or using flower essences that i work
with
and i'm just saying from this side to
this side and every stop in between
the solutions for your cat's well-being
in terms of medicine
um can is like this huge apple tree and
you can pick apples from anywhere on
that tree
and something is going to help so
whether that's eastern western or
anywhere in between then it's worth a
try for the sake of
your cat's well-being and the
alleviation of their suffering
all right you guys those are the eight
big types
of cat aggression and like i said at the
beginning of this my hope is that you'll
be able to identify
what might be going on with your cat or
cats just don't forget
this is about their well-being this is
about the alleviation of suffering even
if it's territorial suffering
it's still something that your cat wakes
up with and goes oh i got to do
something
and you can do something about it to
some degree or another and that's what i
hope you do
so before i leave you guys i just want
to mention i have spent
a long time working with cats working
with their humans and i'm really proud
of all the products that i've either
made or gathered up in my store
whether we're talking about toys whether
we're talking about beds that increase
territorial confidence whether we're
talking about my flower essence
solutions or my books
all of these things are available at
jacksongalaxy.com so please check them
out
i answer these questions and make these
videos because you asked me to do it so
leave me
something in the comments below uh that
tell me what you want to know about
when it comes to your cat and i will do
everything i can to shed some light on
it
if i can and in the meantime if you've
got a friend or family member
with an aggressive cat please pass this
video on to them because there's nothing
like aggression to break down that human
animal bond and we want to
stop that from happening before it
happens and uh and don't forget hit the
bell
subscribe all that you want to know when
the next video is coming out don't you
of course you do
i'm not being aggressive i swear i'm not
all right until next time you guys all
light
and all love and all cat mojo to you
[Music]
meow
