Feline Aggression Associated with Human Interaction

Key Points

In order to prevent aggression owners need to understand how to interpret basic feline modes of communication. Feline hyperaesthesia syndrome is an important differential in cases where cats are showing unpredictable aggression in association with owner interaction. Identify maximum duration of contact the cat will tolerate. Contact duration must not exceed this amount during training, and should generally be restricted to less than half the maximum duration. List the tactile interactions that the cat will and will not tolerate. Condition the cat to associate the already well tolerated interactions with the delivery of a food reward. Once the cat shows positive signs of anticipation during these sessions then the client may proceed down the list towards the less well-tolerated types of contact. Recognise signs of rising aggression and irritation so that training does not provoke an attack. Play and other interactions should be substituted for touch until the cat is genuinely confident to be handled.

Introduction

It is common for owners to comment on minor aggression problems when handling or restraining their cats. This is most often associated with inappropriate handling or misunderstanding of the cat's communication.

There has been some debate as to the possible motivation for these sudden assaults, but evidence suggests that a significant proportion of cats that appear to tolerate human contact in fact find it stressful. It has been suggested that the cat’s threshold for tolerance of handling is reduced due to a lack of habituation as a kitten or as the result of an internal conflict between adult feline behavioural responses and the perpetuated juvenile responses of a domestic cat, or that there is a fundamental mismatch between normal affiliative behaviour between cats and the expectations of their owners. Greetings between cats are often restricted to a ‘tail up’ approach accompanied with a trill or chirrup and blinking eye contact. After this, cats may sit close to each other for a period of time, and only in a minority of situations is there any physical contact such as allorubbing or allogrooming. When there is physical contact, it is often very brief.

Owners often interpret any approach by a cat as a request to be handled or picked up, and are then surprised when the cat struggles to get away or tries to bite or scratch. There is also often a delay between initial contact from the owner and a bite; the cat may appear to be tolerating, or even enjoying, physical interaction before then suddenly becoming hostile. Many owners will also attempt to sustain contact beyond the tolerance of the cat, holding onto it as it tries to escape. The combined effect of this inappropriate owner behaviour is that the cat may become wary of getting close to the owner, or allowing physical contact. In some cases, human interaction can become increasingly alarming to the cat, resulting in fear related aggression, especially when the owner reacts punitively to the cat.

Prevalence and Risk Factors

A Spanish study of 336 cats referred to a behavioural clinic found that 17.2% involved a complaint relating to aggression towards people; 43.1% of human directed aggression involved play, and 39.6% involved petting, with a significant overlap. However, referral populations such as those surveyed in the study are likely to be biased. A Brazilian survey of cat owners recruited from a general clinic population identified a similar pattern of eliciting situations for aggression, but with a very high overall prevalence of 49.5%. Those authors reported that the most common situations that elicited aggression towards the owner were when the cat was petted or put onto a lap, during play, when startled, when observing an unfamiliar animal, when in the presence of unfamiliar people and when protecting food or territory. Aggression during petting and when put on a lap were the most common. Aggression was associated with an early traumatic event and outside access. Cats that did not like being stroked or did not get on well with other animals that they had contact with were more likely to show aggression in general. A range of other factors, including age, sex, neuter status, accommodation, origin, and social contact with people and other cats were not significantly associated with increased aggression. However, the population of aggressive cats in this study was small (107 cats). There is also evidence that a significant proportion of cats become stressed by human contact even though they appear to tolerate it. These authors also suggested that cats that found human contact stressful were better able to avoid it when living in a group with other cats. Aggression due to human interaction is probably a common but under-presented problem that owners rarely seek help for, probably because it is easier to accommodate the cat's behaviour by reducing interaction with it.

Investigation

A range of information is required for a proper investigation of the cause of aggression towards people, including:

• Information about the rearing circumstances and age of homing of the cat.
• History of the cats reaction to human interaction, including any changes that have been seen over time.
• Detailed description of events in which aggression has been observed (including context, triggering events/stimuli, the cat's behaviour and the owner's reaction).
• Full investigation of health problems, particularly those likely to cause pain.
• Assessment of the cat's physical and social environment (including resource availability and distribution, conflict with other animals in the home).

It should be possible to identify a pattern of interaction associated with an aggressive reaction.

Owners often describe the cat’s behaviour as unpredictable ("Jekyll and Hide"), but there is usually a clear relationship between certain types of owner-initiated interaction and an aggressive response from the cat. After an aggressive incident the cat will often run away, exhibit displacement behaviour (such as a brief period of grooming), or perform a head or paw shake. Displacement behaviour indicates that the cat is experiencing an amount of unresolved emotional conflict. The lack of predictability often relates to the owner's inability to interpret changes in the cat’s body language as it is approached or handled, combined with the owner’s false expectation that the cat ought to understand that their approach is intended to be friendly.

Some cats with this form of aggression may be suffering from undiagnosed feline hyperaesthesia syndrome (FHS); displaying the classic signs of rippling skin and hypersensitivity to touch. FHS is therefore an important differential, or underlying factor, in cases where cats are showing aggression in association with owner interaction. Conditions such as pain and FHS should be suspected in cases in which the cat's reaction appears very variable, or has changed dramatically over time (e.g. the cat has recently become intolerant of being touched, when previously it was tolerant).

Treatment

Underlying medical problems should be investigated and treated. Owner education is key to effective treatment, as owners must be convinced to make permanent changes to the ways in which they interact with the cat.

Specific recommendations will depend on the individual case, but could include:

• Teach the owner to interact with the cat in a manner that is acceptable to it; reducing physical contact and increasing verbal and visual signals for greeting. For example, using brief eye contact and high-pitched vocal greetings instead of touching the cat or picking it up.
• The owner must also be able to identify early signs of aggression and irritation, such as growling vocalisation, tail swishing and ears folded back.
• Identify the maximum amount (duration) and type of contact that the cat will tolerate before showing the first signs of aggression or irritation. Owners should restrict physical contact to a maximum duration that is less than half of this value, in order to minimise aggressive responses.
• Introduction of physical contact should be planned, systematic and increased in response to the cat’s improved behaviour.
• The owner should substitute appropriate play for times when they might otherwise try to handle or cuddle the cat.
• Physical environmental enrichment should be introduced, including giving the cat free access to resources such as food, preferably through activity feeding, in order to reduce underlying stress.

Owners may be reluctant to comply, but this is made easier if the ethological basis is explained, and an analogy is drawn with human greetings in different cultures. Hugging and kissing are the norm in many societies, even when a person is introduced to strangers, whereas in the parts of Northern Europe, especially the UK, this used to be considered socially uncomfortable. Following social conventions enables an individual to fit into a social group without causing offence or stress. The situation is similar with cats; greeting behaviour does not usually involve much physical contact, so forcing excessive physical contact is against normal feline social norms. Owners should be taught to correctly reciprocate feline greeting behaviour, for example calling the cat’s name in a high-pitched voice, or making slow blinking eye contact. They must realise that the cat that sits in close proximity has already made its greeting and may not, on this occasion, have any desire to be touched. Physical contact should generally be restricted to times when the cat initiates it.

Cats also need to learn about social interaction with humans, and be conditioned to tolerate it. The situation is compounded once the cat has been forced to put up with interaction that it does not like, and this creates negative associations with the approach of a person, which must be overcome before touch contact can be reintroduced.

Fortunately, clients who change the character of their interactions with their cats will often be rewarded with increased trust and a greater amount of affiliative behaviour so that future compliance is usually high. However, it is important that they do not attempt to re-establish a tactile relationship with the cat as soon as it begins to become more approachable, as this will undermine trust and the cat will regress rapidly.

Methods of conditioning may be used to re-establish tolerance of contact in cases in which the cat had begun to show avoidance when a person approaches. Owners may need to experiment with a wide range of food rewards in order to identify something that can be used as a reinforcer. Access to the chosen food reward is restricted to training sessions alone, as this helps to increase their perceived value.

The cat can be classically conditioned to associate the presence of a person with a food reward (without any request for physical interaction). Once the cat is accepting this, it can be trained using instrumental conditioning, to accept increasingly direct contact from the person. It may help for the owner to be given a listed sequence of behaviours, which should be rewarded. The owner must not progress to the next step unless the cat shows no signs of stress, fear or anxiety.

A typical sequence of actions might be as follows:

• A person approaching
• A person sitting near to the cat without touching
• Tolerating brief stroking along the back
• Tolerating brief restraint
• Tolerating increasing amounts of stroking and handling
• Tolerating being lifted briefly off the floor
• Tolerating being picked up

Prognosis

The prognosis for these cats is usually good as long as owners do not allow themselves to relapse into inappropriate behaviour as the cat becomes more friendly and apparently tolerant. Owners must regard the changes in their own behaviour towards the cat as permanent and not merely a temporary means of winning over or convincing the cat. The prognosis is guarded to poor if the cat’s attacks have been serious and unanticipated, such as when a person is attacked whilst walking past the cat without any intention to touch it.

Prevention

Information about feline communication and the best way for people to interact with cats are subjects that can form part of classes offered to cat owners. This applies to owners with kittens as well as those taking on adult cats. It is particularly useful for owners who have taken on cats from shelters.

Owners need to understand how to interpret basic feline modes of communication:

• Normal greeting behaviour between cats
• The lack of importance of physical contact during greetings
• Facial and body postures that indicate the cat’s mood and intention

This knowledge should be applied so that greetings between owners and their cats are sensitive to normal feline ethology and expectations. They also need to understand the effect of certain kinds of handling:

• Fear or alarm caused when a cat is picked up and thereby loses its ability to engage an escape response
• Holding and preventing the cat from getting away from contact is frustrating and alarming to it

References

Also see:

Overview of Feline Aggression