8 Types of Cat Aggression Explained!

As an autistic person, overstimulation aggression in cats has always made complete sense to me. I'm also suspicious of people who complain that their cats hate them because they don't want to be pet or express confusion that their cat doesn't want to be pet all the time. I worry that they are the same people who will accuse me of being rude when I'm not or who will insist on hugging me.

You forgot Passive Aggression. I swear to god if my cat tells me about how the neighbor cat has a Roomba even one more time, that's it.

Jackson gave a great trick in the "non-recognition agression" video: before the cat goes to the vet, take a t-shirt and get their scent all over it. When they get home, you can re-apply their own scent to mask some of the vet office smells. It works! 😊

"appropriate victim" is easily the funniest phrase I've heard in a while, and I love it deeply and unironically because it's actually perfect

My poor cat burned his paw on the stove a few days ago (luckily, it wasn't a bad burn, you couldn't even see it). We had to hold him to cool the paw and he was obviously in pain. Growled at us for the first time ever, I was prepared for him to start scratching and biting. But he didn't. Just told us he was in pain and wanted to hide somewhere. He and his sisters are the most gentle, trusting and amazing cats.

This is like my little Mouse Stella. I thought she was aggressive, she would lunge and bite. Turns out shes blind and she just needed different care, now she is so calm and learning to be a happy little mouse.

I had a cat that used to love laying down in high traffic areas (especially in the doorway between the dining room and kitchen) but he wasn't doing it based on aggression. He truly just liked having people walking over or around him 😆

As someone that grew up in Los Angeles and whose aunt threw her cat out because it was pregnant, I can tell you just how fast and how horribly this can get out of hand. Her old neighborhood is still overrun with cats and kittens. You can tell the population is too big when you're seeing all over town dead kittens, sick kittens, and cats eating kittens. Tnr is truly about improving the quality of life for the entire colony.

My previous cat used to attack me over and over when I got into bed until I pushed him off my bed... then he would realise he'd lost the fight and come back all nice and cuddly 10 min later and pretend nothing happened....

Jackson’s comments about cats and mental illness resonated with my lived experience of PTSD and my experience of having a feline companion who similarly had a trauma history. As kittens who were barely a couple of weeks old She and her siblings were dumped in a bag to die but fortunately they were discovered and taken to the local animal hospital/animal rescue service. My feline comrade came into my life about 8 weeks after the bag incident and at a time that ai was recovering from a relapse of my mental illness. Knowing myself, my symptoms and my triggers has been a real strength in learning about the behaviour of my feline comrade. Her inability to tolerate being picked up, to tolerate physical contact like sitting in my lap, her flightiness when a visitor calls into my house, and her low threshold with sudden loud sounds remind me of some of my symptomatic responses related to my trauma history. So what I sensed and had understood that through attentive observation and contemplation about what my feline companion’s behaviours was thankfully confirmed by Jackson’s commentary in this video - that is both helpful and reassuring that I am on track to responding in a restorative way to my feline comrades trauma behaviour. Jackson was even more helpful in this discussion on other aggression behaviours cats display. Never having had care of cat meant that learning and observing my comrades behaviours was a fascinating journey. Care for an indoor cat has meant that Jackson’s information and online information from the local Safe Cat Safe Wildlife program (Zoos Victoria in Australia run that program FYI - check out their website) has been invaluable to keeping my furry faced companion content, stimulated and safe. I have had information that explains things like - she has sprayed on my clothing on my bedroom floor (besides picking up after myself and keeping tidy spaces to avoid this happening) I was able to look at what I have been doing- usually not doing- and then rectifying the the causation issues - usually increasing her play time, bringing in new toys (or old favourite toys I stowed away in her toy box) for her to stalk and (yes Jackson was so right when he said this) for her to kill. I have been amazed how all her play, unlike a dog, centres on hiding, stalking pouncing and 4 claw needle teeth attacks (that’s her Kung fu attack form I have named). So I feel happy that my feline companion trusts me enough to seek me out when she wants closeness (to the extent that she simply curls up leans against me), that she signals through gentle head butts that my hand is required for head massages which she blisses out on. I am pleased that I worked out her “live bites” are her communicating “stop patting me” signals. This was really encouraging to have Jackson confirm. To sum up my thread here. Learning about my feline comrades “world” has been enriching, educative and therapeutic for me. As a new cat daddy I have heaps to thank the big cat daddy, Jackson, for his informative work.

My one cat, Mina, has TERRIBLE non-recognition aggression. I took her sister Lita to the vet by herself once, and Mina didn't recognize her for four days. Poor Lita was so confused. She also didn't recognize me until I changed from my day clothes into a nightgown, at which point she immediately hopped up on my bed and start rubbing me with her head like "Thank God, the imposter is gone!" 😹 Lita doesn't have the same problem when Mina goes to the vet by herself. I suspect that Mina was the runt of the litter and may not have been fully "cooked" neurologically, thus accounting for the discrepancy.

My cat suffers PTSD and separation anxiety, because her former so called, "owners," were badly abusive. I learned to work with my cats illnesses, I took her to the vet.

Hello jackson. I want to thank you for teaching me so much about my cats and helping us to have a good relationship.

Pain induced... Just got a feral cat at home, we wanted to take it to the vet, because it had a swollen back, then it lashed out at us... My girlfriend saying, wow, that's an agressive cat, whe won't be able to tame it... We came to the vet, made photo's and it has a broken hip, that's why it's back was swollen... Now, that explains it's agression. The vet is going to operate the cat next tuesday. Hope that it gets ok and then we have to wait for the healing process and then we'll see if it's still that aggressive. I guess not, when the pain fades. Thanks for the video.

Also, for cats that get overstimulated easily, pet them slower! Give their nervous system more time to process each touch. Make the petting a more soothing experience.

We had a hard time placing an aggressive cat. She was a foster that DID NOT play well with others. She did not like being pet, but she wanted to sit on your lap. She got into the kitten room, and she literally went after them. I found her a single cat home with a very patient, and loving lady, and made it very clear that Rudy was very territorial and would not thrive with other cats. *Also my pretty boy was temporarily aggressive towards me after I came home from the hospital from having my daughter. I was pregnant when he was born, and my change in hormones, and hospital smell freaked him right out.

I have 5 rescue cats, and 3 are feral, none of them fight, they play but it's never even close to aggression. I have peace and order in my house and I don't know what I did right but I'm happy for every cat I have 😻❤️💕🐈🐾🐾🐾🐾

I lost a cat sibling to the pet food recall. My other cat would go to the place where his brother died every day at the same time he died and would cry. We tried to comfort him. After 4 months, he started to settle a bit. After 7 months, we felt it was time to bring in another cat. We picked the cat, but held off bringing her home. We had brought two cat beds with us, and had rubbed one with Smokeys scent, and left it for her to get used to. Meanwhile we had rubbed the other one with her scent and brought it home for Smokey to get used to. A couple of weeks later we brought her home and kept her in the bathroom for the first couple of weeks. Mainly to be able to give her the meds that our vet prescribed, but also to slowly introduce both of them with supervision. They were inseparable after that, until he had to have surgery and was gone for over a week. After that, she could not stand to be around him, and will not tolerate any other cats.

Thank you for your channel. I only recently discovered it and I love it. I have a good example of motherly aggression. I once had 3 cats (and 2 dogs) and brought home another one from the shelter. All went well. However, she was supposed to be spayed, but to my great surprise, nearly two months later I suddenly had 3 kittens (all my other cats were neutered, so I probably got a pregnant cat from the shelter), making it a total of 7 cats! Luckily I can close off my staircase, so I put mum and the baby's upstairs and left the rest downstairs. That worked very well, until one time when I forgot to properly close the door to the stairs and one of the other cats (a big tom) became a bit curious. I was unaware of his presence until I suddenly heard a great hissing, saw mum flying and literally slap the tomcat down the stairs, went after him and stood there hissing and spitting in the kitchen. It was actually quite a sight to behold, mum is a tiny cat and she was holding 2 dogs and 3 tomcats at bay. None of them even dared to approach her. I quitely called out to her and she came with me back upstairs. I was the only one allowed near her kittens. In fact she came to me for help when she had hidden the kittens behind some books in a book case and she couldn't reach them anymore. It felt so good to be trusted so much. She is still with me and so is one of her sons.

We had a cat with severe mental illness. He was super aggressive but he couldn’t help it. Nothing seemed to work. It was the 1970s. I wish I knew them what we know now. His life was so miserable. He so craved human and cat interaction but he was hurting everyone he came near so the other cats shunned him and were very aggressive with him and we had to avoid him too, to avoid injury. It made us all very sad. Otherwise we never had cats with overly aggressive behavior as we raised and sold Siamese kitties. I’m so grateful for these tips now so as to help my kitty and gives good pointers to my friends with their kitties