Feline Redirected aggression

The scene: The three-season room at the rear of Mrs. Zee's house

The action: Mrs. Zee is reading the newspaper on the chaise lounge. Ay the cat is sunning on a window sill with a stunning view of the garden. He grooms himself languidly while pausing occasionally to watch a bird or butterfly flit by. Ay shares his window sill with Bee, a fellow feline housemate, who is dozing while basking in the warmth of the sun. Suddenly, See, the new neighbor's Siamese cat saunters through the garden. Ay hisses and growls, and his coat puffs up, but there is no response from See, who cannot see or hear the cat behind the window. Ay then attacks Bee, jumps on his back and bites him. Bee, not knowing what happened, runs away, completely bewildered and injured. Mrs. Zee, also bewildered and quite angry at Ay, throws her paper in Ay's direction and hurries to find out the extent of Bee's injuries.

The analysis: Redirected aggression is a phenomenon in which the recipient of the aggression is not the stimulus for the aggression, and is often an innocent bystander. This type of aggression can occur in both dogs and cats, but I tend to see it more frequently in cats. The victims of this form of aggression can include other cats, dogs, or people. The owners of these cats often express surprise at the sudden violence that can erupt between parties that previously shared a friendly relationship. Owners may or may not know what the stimulus of the aggression was; often the location of the incident provides clues to this.

The solution to this type of problem is to identify and manage the source of the aggression. This can be especially tricky in cats because the early signs of aggression can be so subtle. In Mrs. Zee's case, she would either need to keep neighboring cats out of her garden (www.cat-repellant.info), keep Ay out of the room where he can look out the window, or she would need to block her cat's view of the garden through which cats can stray. Obstructing the cats' view can be acheived through curtains, blinds, or translucent contact paper on the lower half of the window.

Also a word of caution: owners should not use their hands (or other body parts) to physically separate fighting pets. Throw a blanket over them, douse them in large volumes of water, sound an air horn, use a broom to physically separate them. A 2006 study published in the Journal of Hand Surgery revealed that stray animals do not contribute the majority of bites to the hand. Two-thirds of the patients in this study required hospitalization for at least intravenous antibiotics.