The skin of a cat is not tightly attached to the muscle below

This is about how small cats - the wild cats and the domestic cat - are able to better protect themselves in the event of a fight with another cat over territory thanks to their anatomy.

Small wild cats and the domestic cat are able to protect themselves thanks to their anatomy. Image: MikeB

Small cats try and avoid physical fights to avoid harm which, in turn, ensures that they remain as fit as possible to be the excellent predator that they are. Injuries can blunt their predation and even lead to starvation. 

They avoid other cats by marking territory with scratch marks, urine and faeces. Also they can sometimes scream loudly at their neighbours to tell them not to encroach on their home range.

In short a range of methods are employed to achieve a result without actually fighting.

When there is physical confrontation between small cats over their home range, they will try to avoid fighting by sumo-style standoff signalling using sounds and body language postures. If effective the weaker cat slinks off very slowly. Job done.

The last resort is an actual fight and under these extreme circumstances the small cat has an anatomy which helps to protect them.

RELATED: ChatGPT on animal welfare, sentience, cat anatomy, declawing, speciesism and more.

Here are some aspects of the small cat anatomy adaptations to inter-species fighting.

1. The skin of the small cat is not tightly attached to the muscle below.
2. The cat's body is very loosely enclosed within their skin.
3. The muscles move and slip within the skin.
4. Small cats seem to be able to rotate their body with their skin allowing the cat to often squirm free.
5. The cat's fur protects them.
6. The cat's fur seems to slide when grasped.
7. A combatant's teeth and claws might penetrate fur and skin but they a less likely to penetrate muscle.

These aspects of the small cat anatomy helps to thwart the grip of a combatant. The odds are that a couple of small cats fighting over territory will come out of a fight without serious injury. You see ears mangled sometimes for example but that won't hinder survival.

They often return to their home ranges and continue to patrol it diligently as before.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Tips for when your cat is biting or scratching humans

Here are some quick thoughts about domestic cat scratches and bites. When your cat is biting or scratching humans, including yourself, and if it goes on in a consistent manner, major damage can be done to the relationship. It is the emotional connection between the person and the cat which is chipped away. It can get to the point where there is a breakdown in that relationship. This can, in turn, lead to the cat being given up to a rescue centre. Or simply abandoned. That happens too often. Or as the relationship deteriorates, the cat become more anxious and more likely to bite or scratch in defense. A downward spiral.

Unwanted feline aggression but what is the cause? You need to analyse. Pic in the public domain.

Analysis through observation and thought required

If the person living with a cat is the kind of person who would abandon their cat under these circumstances, then this article is probably useless because it requires some effort to rectify the problem. It can require some detective work and reflection on what you are doing.

Unpredictable aggression or a pattern?

You might think that your cat bites and scratches you and other people in the home unpredictably, out of the blue and randomly. You might put this down to your cat becoming rogue and simply behaving badly. This won't happen. There will be a natural reason. It is just finding it. And invariably the cause will be with human behavior in one way or another.

Medical issues?

The first tip is to try and step back and not think emotionally (damned cat!) about it but to analyse the situation to get to the bottom of it. The professionals always say that you should check that your cat is in good health and not feeling pain or discomfort under certain circumstances before you go to the next step in the analysis. 

This is because cats are stressed by pain. And then when they are touched or picked up the pain is probably exacerbated. They interpret this as the person picking them up causing the pain. They strike out at that person in defence; defensive aggression, but the person picking up the cat doesn't realise it.

A cat might be injured, if they are indoor/outdoor cats, on their flank or on one of their legs. You can't see it because the injury is covered by fur e.g., if there is a broken bone. It hurts when they are picked up. Or they are ill with a disease that shows no immediate apparent symptoms. This might be cancer for example.

You've got to have a good look at your cat's health and rule out the medical issues that might be present.

When does the biting and scratching occur?

The next stage is to see whether your cat's aggression occurs at certain times of the day. You are looking for a pattern of behaviour. Your cat has body rhythms (circadian rhythms) just like people. They will be more active at certain times of the day than others. During those more active times they will need to release their energy. This would normally be in the form of hunting. The substitute for hunting, for indoor cats, is energetic playtime.

So perhaps, your cat jumps at your ankles in the late afternoon when you are pottering around in bare feet. This is the time when she would be outside hunting if she was allowed outside. She finds some object to hunt and it happens to be your ankles. Her body rhythms drive her to be active at dusk.

You can take proactive steps to meet her desire to be active and hunt at those times by playing with her instead. That should stop attacks on your ankles.

Play in the world of cats is not a luxury but a necessity. Particularly so for full-time indoor cats. It is something which I feel most cat caregivers don't give enough time to. I am poor at it myself. It is one way traffic really from the caregiver to the cat. The cat is thoroughly enjoying it and the human is discharging their responsibilities but rarely do people enjoy playing with their cat and certainly not to the same extent that their cat enjoys it. This is why humans don't instigate play sessions enough from the cat's perspective.

Where does the aggression take place?

And your analysis should look at, if applicable, where this aggression takes place. It may, for example, take place after your cat has been looking out the window and seen an intruding cat on her territory. This is territory outside the home which she might never use but from the cat's perspective it is her 'home range' nonetheless. 

A stranger on it is an invading cat. The resident cat should chase the cat away but they can't do it. Therefore, they have to be aggressive towards their human caregiver instead. This is normally described as redirected aggression or displaced aggression. The human is the innocent bystander under the circumstances. So, this analysis will help you find out whether the aggression is linked to the location where the aggression takes place.

Play turns to hunting hands?

Play sessions with cats can develop into aggressive sessions. I guess everybody knows that by now. There is a limit to how much roughhousing you can deliver to a domestic cat before the reactive behaviour of the cat becomes frankly dangerous and harmful to the person especially if hands are used inappropriately. This is overstimulation and petting becoming provocative from the cat's standpoint. It is described as 'putting your hands in the blender'.

Trim nails

Another thing you can do is to keep your cat's nails trimmed. And you should train your cat not to see your hands as toys. That means using a cat tease to play with your cat rather than thrusting your hand into the blender as mentioned.

Defensive aggression from timid cat?

Some cats are going to be timid and some domestic cats are going to be more confident. Timid cats may feel more threatened under perhaps innocuous circumstances. And when threatened a timid cat might become an aggressive cat.

One way to avoid timid cats becoming defensive and aggressive is to allow them a space where they can hide or avoid others by climbing vertically. This means a hiding space on the ground and/or a vertical space high up to where they can retire to feel safe and to perhaps avoid the unwanted attentions of other cats, another cat or people in the home when it is a multi-person home and there's plenty of noise and where maybe one person is not so great in handling cats.

Tell me your tips please.

I hope these thoughts help someone and their cat.

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.

Berkeley cat has sudden aversion to being petted

I have taken the title from The Mercury News. The reason why I am writing this note is because a reader of that online newspaper asked a question of their resident expert, Joan. They said that their nine-year-old beloved indoor cat had suddenly taken to clawing at her after she petted him for more than a minute. She found it very odd because he is usually very docile. She wanted to know the cause. I'd like to throw my hat into the ring.

Cat being petted. Image: Getty.

Joan suggested two possible causes: that the cat was feeling pain for some reason and petting him exacerbated the pain causing the inadvertently provoked aggression in response. And secondly she thought that he might be feeling stressed because of a change to his lifestyle as a result of the pandemic.

It's a good question which implies that for many years this woman has been petting her cat in a completely acceptable way. Therefore nothing has changed in the way that she is petting her cat. Therefore the change must come within the cat i.e. there is pain or the environment has changed.

The most likely cause would be that this middle-aged cat has developed sensitivity to petting. This could be quite easily investigated. It may be a certain area of his body which is tender. The owner could do what veterinarians do namely palpate her cat which means to feel her cat and apply a bit of gentle pressure. She can then observe her cat's response. An aggressive response after palpitating a certain area would clearly indicate pain in that area. She could then telephone her vet is there was no external injury.

Cats perceive these circumstances as the person being aggressive towards them. They don't rationalise the fact that they are injured and the person is trying to find the injury. They just feel pain and the pain is being caused by a person so they think that person is deliberately causing them pain. And this would apply even if they have lived with that person for many years in a very good relationship. It's instinctive.

If that doesn't produce any results then you need to look to the environment. I don't believe the coronavirus is the problem (but see below). There may be something else in the environment which is upsetting him. For example, there may be a cat outside which he has noticed which is irritating him because that cat is invading his territory. He wants to attack the cat but can't because he's an indoor cat. Therefore he redirects his aggression at his owner. Petting can irritate under these circumstances and therefore he claws the owner. This, I believe, is the most likely kind of environmental issue causing this abnormal response to petting.

There might be someone else in the home which is upsetting them. Or the owner might be away a lot more than before. On reflection Covid might be a factor on this basis because if the owner was home all the time and then it suddenly away from home the cat might be upset. However the aggressive reaction under these circumstances is unlikely.

The first thing to do is to check health as Joan said (the most likely cause) and then to go through the environmental tick box possibilities until you hit the right answer. The problem might subside naturally with patience.

74-year-old man shoots and kills his neighbour's cat

NEWS/COMMENT: The information is skimpy but it comes from the police of Brookville, Pennsylvania, USA. Police were called to a home on Summit Street on Sunday after a neighbour had shot and killed his neighbour's cat. 

We don't have a photo of the man or the cat. Sorry. Photo of police are in the public domain.

It appears that the deceased cat was an indoor cat who escaped and which had made his/her way to inside a neighbour's porch. The neighbour, a 74-year-old man, tried to remove the cat from his porch using a broom. He tried on two occasions which appears to have aggravated the cat causing the cat to become aggressive to him which resulted in the man retaliating by shooting the animal. 

There is no more information. I feel I need to comment. There would appear to be some background antagonism in this story which is not been mentioned. There will also appear to be antagonism towards cats by the person who shot the cat. And, perhaps more importantly, the man who shot the cat aggravated the cat with a broom on two occasions to the point where the cat became aggressive. Yes, I know I am repeating myself but the point needs to be stressed. Although I am guessing as to the cause of the cat's aggression as the story is short on detail.

If I'm correct, and I are almost certainly am correct because domestic cats do not attack people willy-nilly without provocation, this is a case of animal cruelty under the local applicable laws which will not be applied in this instance because they really are.

Humans looking like Martians attacked by super aggressive Sphynx cat in madhouse

'Cat Can't Get Over The Loss Of Her Kittens And Becomes Aggressive' - is the title of the video but it looks more like a madhouse to me with the people in it dressed like monsters to the cat. They are dressed in full cycle gear with cycle helmets and to any normal cat they, I think, would look incredibly hazardous. I think this a joke video. If it is not something is terribly wrong.



These people are making things worse. It is said that the cat became aggressive after she lost her kittens and she is locked inside a room alone. This is going to make her very agitated and then when they let her out they are wearing clothes and headgear which protect them from her. This makes them look incredibly strange to a cat.

I have got to say that they look incredibly strange to me as well. It looks like a complete madhouse and a totally bizarre situation that has got fully out of hand. This cat is in a desperate situation. She is completely isolated emotionally and lost. This is not the solution. The answer is to totally normalise her life by making the home warm and friendly. She needs to be totally re-socialised. She has lost her socialisation in an entirely hostile environment devoid of emotional support.

The problem really is with the people looking after. Yes, she may have been emotionally disturbed by loss of kittens but I believe that she will overcome that in a proper friendly environment. This cat is also a full-time indoor cat so the environment is already somewhat artificial. It also looks incredibly sparse and unfriendly. Jackson Galaxy would have a field day in this place.

I feel very sad about this cat and an entirely different approach needs to be taken by these people if it is genuine and not a Mickey take.

Lux Suddenly Snaps While Being Assessed by Jackson Galaxy

“It blew my world apart.” Galaxy talking about Lux

Jackson Galaxy with Lux. Photo: Animal Planet

Jackson Galaxy gets a surprise while assessing the behavior and character of his latest "patient", Lux, the notorious so called "cat with a history of aggression"

Jackson Galaxy has been assessing Lux in preparation for his television show “My Cat from Hell".

Like many of us, his initial assessment was that this cat had been provoked in some sort of way perhaps by the child of the family against the background of an environment that was not calm which caused Lux to become aggressive on occasions.

Jackson Galaxy admits that his initial assessment was incorrect.  He says has had to rethink the way he goes about dealing with cat behaviour problems. This is because Lux has thrown up new challenges.  It is the most difficult case he has dealt with in 20 years he states.

During Jackson Galaxy's six-week assessment, living with this cat, he fell in love with him.  They were getting along like a house on fire.  Then suddenly Lux showed him something unexpected.  He snapped and became aggressively violent, he says.  I have to presume that this outburst of domestic cat violence was totally unprovoked unless Jackson Galaxy was testing Lux to see how far he could go with him to check how well balanced, or not, Lux's character is.

In any case, he says that Lux blew his world apart, meaning, I presume, it changed his attitude towards cat behaviour problems.  We will have to wait and see what he says in his television programme scheduled for 8 p.m. Saturday, June 14 on Animal Planet.

Has anyone said if Lux has been declawed. If so that is a potential cause.

Having read what he has said about his relationship with this celebrated cat, we can pretty confidently say that 90% of all cat behaviour problems are to do with the environment in which the cat lives together with the socialisation of the cat but clearly some behaviour issues are inherited and some are caused by chronic discomfort or pain suffered by the cat. Perhaps the latter two factors have played a part in this instance.

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Note about the photo: I have taken the liberty in publishing it here in exchange for this link to the Animal Planet website and in promoting Jackson Galaxy's work and this important example of feline behavior.

How Do I Know If My Cat Is Stressed?

Perhaps a good starting point is to know what kind of environment a domestic cat should live in which is ideal and within which a cat should not become stressed.  If, then, the environment is not ideal, it is possible that the cat might be stressed.

An ideal environment for a domestic cat is one that is secure, calm, without too much noise and without stressful interactions from either people, strangers, other cats or other companion animals.  In addition the cat should not be punished but all training should be carried out through positive reinforcement if the owner really wants to train her cat.

Shelters are stressful places for cats.

There should be no abuse, obviously.  The cat should be free of pain because pain causes stress.  The cat should be well fed.  The cat should be healthy and free of disease and parasites etc..  The environment should be stimulating for a cat.  It's what the experts called an enriched environment.  This is because boredom can also cause stress and the more natural a place is in respect of normal intellectual stimulation that a cat would encounter in the wild, the more healthy and de-stressed the cat will be.

As can be seen there are quite a lot of things to think about when creating an ideal environment for the domestic cat.  The classic thing that could cause a cat to be stressed is a background threat of some sort, either from another animal or a person.

A stressed cat would probably demonstrate a change in normal behaviour.  In order to be aware of the change in normal behaviour the cat's owner obviously needs to know what normal behaviour is for this individual cat.  There is therefore quite a lot of necessary observation required in order to know how one's cat behaves normally and then to measure any changes against that.

Specific sorts of behaviour that a cat might demonstrate when stressed would be: over-grooming, usually in easily accessible places like the belly.  Hiding is another form of behaviour that indicates a cat is stressed.  Incidentally, every cat needs a place to hide so the owner of the cat should ensure that such a place exists in the household.  In addition it is useful even necessary to have some vertical spaces meaning places that a cat can climb to, to feel secure.  Height brings security.

A stressed cat might also engage in inappropriate elimination.  There are many reasons for inappropriate elimination and one of them could be a feeling of insecurity and the need to mark territory either through spraying or even defecation.

A stressed cat might also become irritable and more aggressive than usual.  The form of aggression would probably be defensive aggression because the cat would feel a need to be defensive in what would seem to the cat to be a hostile environment or at least an environment that was not calm or secure.

I suppose, a stressed cat might decide to leave.  It is not uncommon for a cat to leave the family home and find another home that feels better.  Sometimes cats which are what I call time-share cats (sharing more than one home) eventually decide to stay at one home which may not be the original home.

A cat who is subservient to another in a household without a secure place to go to will be stressed. Problems can occur at feeding stations and at cat litter trays.

Stress can lead to ill-health. Cats at shelters are exposed to stress and contagious diseases.

The above are some initial thoughts on the matter which I have written about without reference to any web page or book.  You might like to add to the list if you have time to comment.

Most Common Cat Behavior Problems

A discussion about the most common cat behavior problems. First we must recognise the fact that cat behavior problems are problems from the point of view of people. Often a behavior problem is normal behavior for a domestic cat that a person does not like; not strictly speaking a cat behavior problem. In fact, that is the default scenario. I know that obvious fact is hard for some people to digest, but it's true.

My research indicates that it is difficult to rank cat behavior problems as there is not enough widespread available research. In any case if the true problem is about our perceptions, likes and dislikes, all we are doing is ranking what we don't like about domestic cat behavior.

In no particular order the most common cat behavior problems referred to Pet Behavior Counsellors (APBC), a UK organisation were:

• Indoor marking behavior - this will be spraying urine and depositing feces. Feces are used by wild cat species to mark territories. Domestic cats can do it too from time to time for various reasons.
• Aggression towards people. This is particularly unhelpful as often aggression towards a person will be defensive in nature. Accordingly it might be argued that the aggression as caused by the person.
• Aggression towards other cats. This was complained about half as much as aggression towards people. Once again the root cause of this form of cat behavior problem might be traceable back to the person who looks after the cats. If he or she introduces a cat into a multi-cat household that upsets the hierarchy leading to inter cat aggression it could be said that the problem is a human one.
• Difficulties with house training.
• Attention seeking.
• Self-mutilation (one cause: separation anxiety). This is often caused by stress and stress can be caused by an inappropriate environment created by a person. The point I keep making is that cat behavior problems are not free-standing but often a reaction to something we did.
• Of the purebred cats the Siamese and Burmese (related cat breeds by the way) were the most represented in respect of cat behavior problems. This does not automatically mean that these breeds are the worst behaved. It might mean there are more Burmese and Siamese cats in circulation. They are popular cat breeds especially the Siamese.

A study published in 2000  and 2001 (Bradshaw et al and Casey respectively) compared:

1. data collected from questionnaires given to English people living in the south of England with:
2. a diagnostic review from the USA.

Certain cat behavior problems were "over-represented" meaning occurring more than average. These were:

1. House soiling which includes inappropriate elimination and marking. Inappropriate elimination is a litter box/stress problem while marking is deliberate territory marking and
2. Aggression towards people and other cats.

Cat behavior problems that were under-represented were scratching and fearful behavior.

The studies produced different results to the APBC referrals. This is partly put down to differences in cat caretaker knowledge of cat behavior. Also people will seek help for problems such as house soiling as it causes a lot of disruption in a person's home.

Stressed Rescued Cats

Studies indicate that cats are stressed when moved to rescue centers. This confirms what we know through the application of common sense. Cat caretakers know that when you move to a new place it may take you and your cat up to 6 months or more to settle in. Initially, your cat will be quite anxious and hide. We have all seen that. It took Charlie, my cat, about 2 weeks to simply calm down a bit! He hid under a desk or anywhere he could find for the first couple of days.

Shelter cats show signs of acute stress over the initial period of being at a new shelter. The time taken to adapt depends on the individual cat. That is common sense too.

However, the time taken to adapt will be several days to several weeks. Stress is caused by being in a strange place, strange routine, strange smells, people they don't know, close proximity to other cats, strange smells and importantly for shelter cats there is no where to hide.

I ask therefore how can shelter employees assess a cat's character under these circumstances (and therefore suitability for adoption)? I presume that they at least wait for a few before making an assessment.  But that might be impractical.

It would seem that cats who have nice characters, who are ideal as cat companions but who are slow to adapt to the new environment will be assessed as unsuitable. Or am I missing something?

This chimes with stories you hear of animal control grabbing cats and trying to put them into cages and getting scratched, then declaring that the cat is aggressive and putting the cat down. Totally idiotic, really. But it happens.

Lorraine St John who runs the Kent Wildlife Rescue centre in Kent, England says that the "biggest killer you get at animal shelters is not the illness...but stress". She was talking about the nursing back to health of a fox that had been hit by a car. He was blinded and comatose. He was put in a cage with abandoned kittens. The kittens nursed the fox back to health playing their part with the staff at the centre. The fox and kittens formed a great friendship which made the foxes recovery highly successful. Sadly they were separated when the fox was released back to the wild and the kittens rehomed. See the story.

Associated: Multi-treatments from a vet can cause stress too.

Reference: The Welfare of Cats ISBN 978-1-4020-6143-1

Why did the crow provoke the cats?

This is a strange video in which a crow provokes and agitates two cats to the point where they fight each other. There is no doubt that the cats were into a territorial dispute anyway. But it seems to me that the crow pushes them both into fighting sooner and more viciously. These cats certainly fought hard and risked serious injury. The black cat is bigger and won the fight. We don't know what happened to the red cat. He may have been hurt.

An animal only does something if it is to his or her advantage. So what advantage is there in having two cats fight over territory? I can think of only one right now having just seen the video.

Cats attack birds as a prey item, as food. If there are two cats in one area the crow has two predators to deal with. If they fight each other, one cat wins and the other leaves the territory leaving one predator for the crow. The crow has an easier life on the assumption that he stays in the area which might be the case as he probably has a source of food there.

Crows are very smart animals and I would have thought that that sort of reasoning is within his or her capabilities.