Cat owner calls the police because her two cats were fighting and one of them attacked her

OMAHA, USA-NEWS AND COMMENT: This is, for me, a case of very poor cat management. It appears to me that the woman simply lost control. The story also points to the problems that can arise when you adopt a new cat into the home of a resident cat i.e. your first cat. It can go badly wrong.

Feline aggression. Generic image. Not the cat. Image: Pixabay.

In this instance a couple of cats living in an apartment near 37th and Dodge streets, were fighting. The 52-year-old woman owner tried to intervene but one of her cats retaliated when the owner called timeout. I'm not sure what that means in this instance but it seems that the owner tried to intervene and was quite strict with the cat in telling him off, who, rather than submitting, retaliated and attacked the woman.

RELATED: Famously violent cat ‘Lux’ may have been systematically abused by man living in the home.

As a consequence, the owner called the police for help. Mistake 🤔. What were the police going to and in any case, it was not a police matter? There was no crime. The woman then said that she was able to lock the aggressive cat in a bedroom. The woman received a multitude of superficial scratches and treated at hospital. The cat was taken into custody by officers from the Nebraska Humane Society. We are not told what happened to the cat. I hope he is rehomed.

Comment: it seems to me that this was a house where the two cats were not getting on. There was a fight and the owner tried to intervene without success. One of the cats fought back and scratched the lady. It all seems rather typical. The problem appears to have originated in incompatibility between two resident cats. The woman mishandled the "argument" between the cats.

It would have been better if she had simply placed one cat in one room and the other cat in another room to allow them to cool down and used thick gloves for protection. She could have tried some tricks to stop the confrontation such as introducing a favorite toy to play with and/or catnip and/or some treats. These may have cooled tempers and distracted the cats.

If there is an underlying and unresolvable hostility between the cat then she would have to seriously consider rehoming one of them. That would certainly resolve any simmering hostility between the two.

It was, in retrospect, ill-advised to try and tell off a cat that was in an aggressive confrontation with another cat. It may be the case that the aggressive cat transferred their aggressivity towards the lady in a kind of repositioned or redirected aggression. The aggression was meant to be made against the other cat but it ended up being made against the woman.