Our Cat Has Lost Her Mind, Please Help...

User Name: F11711
Parent Forum: General Cat Forum
Posted: 9/13/2011 5:11 PM

Hello,
My wife and I just brought home a new kitten yesterday and our established cat (Shadow) immediately became very aggressive towards the two of us.  Shadow is a Maine Coon and weighs about fifteen pounds, so she's a pretty large cat.  We live in a nice big clean home, so there's much room for everyone and the little kitten even has her own room.  The only contact they've had is when we had Shadow check out the kitten, while the kitten was inside of a carrier.  We've given Shadow her space, but she's literally lunged on numerous occasions at both me and my wife, trying to attack us.  We live in Portland, Oregon and a couple of years ago we went through a big snow storm for about a week and this is when Shadow (about five to six months old at the time) came to our door and we believed she was a feral cat and the Multnomah County Animal Shelter also thought there was a good chance?  We had taken her to the shelter after she had road out the storm in our bathroom for a few days, hoping her family would come looking, but no one ever did and we had told the shelter not to put her down, we would take her if it ever came to that.  Shadow has always been an aggressive cat and she'll occasionally show her dominance towards my wife, but she's never tried to actually harm us like what we've seen over the last twenty-four hours.  I'm 6'3 and 245 lbs. and I'm even scared of her now, she just tried to attack my wife and then she turned and ran at me (while hissing and growling), but luckily she proceeded to slip on the hard wood floors and passed me without incident.  Any and all help would be greatly appreciated, we truly feel like prisoners in our own home and this just isn't fair to anyone involved, Thank You!  Scott & Alice.