Cat From Hell

I’m not sure what happened, but, literally over night, Shadow has gone from being an almost reasonable cat to the Cat From Hell. So far today, he’s actually attacked me twice. Drawn blood, even (and that, I really, really don’t like).

Here’s the story.

This morning, as I was scurrying around getting ready to go to work, he came out if the cats’ bathroom, and sauntered into our bedroom. No biggie. I followed him in there, as there was something I wanted to put in my laptop bag to have at work in case I got a break.

Anyway, Shadow turned, hissed, and took a dump in the middle of the floor!

I gave him some verbal abuse for that, especially since he’d just been rooting around in the clean litter box, and began to clean up after him. When I was about halfway done with that, he snarled, hissed and lunged at me. He left a hole in my shirt, and my shoulder as I fended him off, and he scampered away.

I decided the best bet would be to close him out of the bedroom, and went off to work.

Upon arriving home, I went in search of said cat, and found him crouched on the chair in Donna’s office. Again, I felt that limiting his range might be a good thing. I went to shoo him out of the room, but before I could get to him, he again hissed and lashed out with his claws, catching me on the right wrist, and again drawing blood.

What he didn’t count on was my left hand being far faster than my right. I caught him by the scruff of his neck, and now he’s confined to the bathroom.

For a while before Smokey was put down, I’d been finding the occasional “present” around the house, and I attributed it to Smokey being sick and just not being able to control himself, or whatever — sick cats can get that way. But now, I suspect it was Shadow all along. And, it furthers my belief that Shadow is semi-feral.

At any rate, at the earliest opportunity, Shadow’s getting boxed up and taken back to the shelter. On the one hand, we hate to do it, because we know what’s going to happen to him. But on the other hand, we can’t tolerate his feral tendencies any longer.