Feline Maternal Aggression

In any stable household environment cats will develop a hierarchy of personalities and form dominance relationships. Sometimes these relationships will be subtle while other times they may be problematic or worse. Often, the alpha cat is not aggressive unless challenged or while protecting desirable resources. Family members may suddenedly be in flux when a family member becomes deceased or a new family member is introduced. This may result in the remaining family members vying for dominance.

Excessively rough and persistent play is called play aggression. Play aggression amongst cats may create a problem when a very vivacious cat pounces on a less playful cat making that cat fearful or aggressive. Inadequate or inappropriate early socialization may be a contributing factor in the development of play aggression. Naturally, a mother cat tends to institute boundaries on what is considered to be acceptable “cat behavior.” Bottle-fed babies without a parental influence tend to be the worse offenders.

One of the most frequent forms of cat aggression toward people is biting or scratching while being petted. This type of aggression often results from a mismatch between the owner’s and pet’s desire for physical contact. Warning signs may include twitching of the tail, restlessness, and “intention” bites where a cat moves as if to bite but doesn’t.