Aggressive Neutered Male Cat

Question
I have a full-bred LaPerm male cat.  I didn't know this when I got him, but the lady that bred the cats interbred too much.  So, Parker (my cat), is sickly.  He has Herpes and gets sick very often and very easily.  We have always had problems with his behavior.  He is aggressive and destructive.  He seems to enjoy doing something bad, cause he'll look me right in the eye as he's doing something wrong just to rub it in my face that I can't catch him when he runs away.  It's like he WANTS the crap beat out of him or something, I don't understand it!! Sometimes I think he's Satan in bodily form.  I've tried the squirt bottle, but he LIKES being squirt.  I've tried rewarding GOOD behavior, but that doesn't seem to help either.  I'm a nerve away from getting rid of him, which I hate to do because I know he would just be put down because of his sicknesses.  I hate him now, and would really like to figure out how to get more of a loving relationship with this cat!  I also have a female cat who is very passive and somewhat mentally challenged.  Parker forces himself on her all the time, taking advantage of her timidity.  He humps her, even though they are both fixed.  She hates it and tries to fight back, but Parker is much stronger than her.  He also attacks her, to where her hair is flying all over the place.  I have a baby.  And although he hasn't attacked her yet, I'm leery of Parker's aggressive behavior continuing.  Please help me so I don't have to get rid of him.  I feel bad for him cause he's sick, but I hate him cause he's acting so evil.  Are there special training techniques that I'm missing?

Answer
Beth,

Oh MY!  OK, I am not sure he is truly neutered.  He is acting way too aggressive for a neutered male.  I would have a vet (not the vet who neutered him) do a titer of his male hormone (testosterone) to see if it is conistent with a neutered male cat.  What sometimes happens is that the cat may have been a monorchid (one descended testicle) or a cryptorchid (no descended testicles), and, so if both testicles were NOT removed, this may explain some of his behavior, expecially towards your spayed female.

Squirt bottles, yelling, physical punishment, etc. are not good ways of disciplining a cat.  You might look at a technique called clicker training.  Go look at Karen Pryor's web site:

http://www.clickertraining.com

and see if it is something you might be interested in.


Also, be careful not to anthropomorphize your cats motives.  Cats do not think like people and attributing them human attributes will only exacerbate your frustration and will not lead to anything useful with respect to your cat.

There may be some things you can do to help his immune system.  First of all, I would give him L-Lysine which is known to help ward off herpes.  Try 50 mg/day.  Also, MSM and Echinacea whcih are suppposed to boost the immune system.

As far as aggressive behavior is concerned, this cat appears never to have been socialized.  If he truly is neutered, I would look at socializing him as if he were a feral cat.

See:  http://www.abyssinian-rescue.com/advice.htm

for a super article written by Susan Baker, an Abyssinian breeder who also works in Aby rescue.  If her techniques work for Abyssinians (who are somewhat high strung), they should work for any breed or domestic cat.

As far as hurting your female, you need not worry.  Cat skin is very, very tough and cats play incredibly roughly with each other.  So, ignore the noise, ignore the loose fur, even ignore the loss of hair on the back of her neck.  She is objecting to his constraining her, not to being hurt.  After you socialize him to you, you can use the second part of Susan's article to re-socialize him to your female.  3-5 days of isolation after you have socialized himn to you should be more than enough.

Please let me know how it goes.

Best regards... Norm.