cat attacking dogs

[pnance]

I was wondering if anyone had any advice. I inherited my brothers ~12 yr old neutered male cat, MC about 2 yrs ago. He's really sweet, but has a few "issues" which we've been dealing with since we got him. The one thing I can't figure out how to deal with is him attacking the dogs. I have 4 dogs the smallest being 60 lbs. MC will out of the blue charge one of the dogs whose walking by and latch onto their back. I don't know how he does it but so far he hasn't drawn blood or caused damage even though he's hanging on with both teeth and claws. I have to give the dogs credit on this, they tend to just look at him a little startled but so far haven't injured him, which considering their size and strength could do a lot of damage! He's never had any issues with dogs, in fact he grew up with my terrier mix before I moved out. It's usually not the same dog and not the same spot, nor is it consistant. Most of the time he's fine with them. He'll even lay on the couch with his head on the back legs of one of the dogs to sleep. The only thing I can say is that it seems to occur more frequently when the dogs are playing. He's not in the middle of it and they aren't even paying attention to him, but he seems to get really agitated. Although that is definately not the only times. I usually pull him off the dog he's hanging on to and put him in his bathroom for some cool down time, but that doesn't seem to be working. In fact he seems to be getting worse. My fear is that one day he may injure the dog he's latched onto. The dogs have never shown any aggression to any of the cats, but if he actually digs those claws or teeth into their back I'm not sure they won't grab him just to yank him off if nothing else. :(

http://us.f3.yahoofs.com/users/42a5d7a8z29c211a8/fa94/__sr_/bb73.jpg?phun1ADBojr8u.2m

[barncat]

You said he did this mostly when the dogs were playing?

Is it possible he is playing too?

One of my old cats (Lily-bell who came to me as an adult and lived with me 14 years) became less tolerant of noise and random movements as she got older. Kids playing were fine for awhile but after just so long she would go an slap them (she came to me de-clawed). She also would slap the window when neighbors were too noisy too long outside.

Maybe, as my Lily-bell, your older cat demands peace and quiet. Is there a space where the cat can get away from the commtion? Could the dogs be encouraged to play somewhere away from the cat? Lily-bell had the dogs she lived with trained to back down at an evil look... but I would bet she would have disciplined a strange dog if he offended her noise rules....

[pnance]

It looks like this is more aggressive than playful for him.


I hadn't thought of the noise issue. Except for the bedrooms (he'll go in and spray in the closets/rooms if he gets in those) he has the run of the house + his own room which is an extra bathroom which has his food, litter box, bed etc., so he could easily get away from the noise/dogs if he'd like. I can try keeping them in the other room when they play, but I'm not sure how much luck I'll have since they usually are running back and forth chasing eachother with toys, etc. I might just try to trade off, they have to be in another room or outside when playing some of the times, and other times I'll try to put him in his room during their play sessions. Thanks for the advise. :)