feline emotions

[forgotten_aria]

My cat, every once in a while, will get really vicious for no reason what so ever. Lunging at my leg or greg's feel, biting an clawing. I don't understand this behavoir and wonder if it's like when people get irrationally depressed or angry. That the same things that go wrong in human brains go wrong in feline brains and he just gets completely angry at the world and lashes out with out provocation. Is it him feeling powerless, or that too much anthropomorphizing?

Catnip, or the smell of chlorine or bromine will induce this state in him instantly, but sometimes it happens naturnally.

Brains are so odd.

Comments

[exponentialdk.livejournal.com]

Pet psychoanalysis is made easier by the simplicity of their lives but much more difficult by two other factors:

1. We can't ask them to explain anything.

2. We're limited in how much we can relate to their needs.

I've often seen (mostly before he mellowed with age) chrysaphi's cat posturing as though to prove to me that I am not his master. We all see how readily cats get caught up in anything that could be at all hunt-like. And I see Toccata and Fugue (my apartmentmate's cats), who are very much loving brothers, play rough with each other.

But based on your use of the word vicious, I'd guess that frustration is the cause. Even humans don't "go postal" due merely to anger. On the other hand, someone who isn't angry, but is very frustrated, can unleash a passion that nobody else saw coming.

I'd be surprised if indoor cats weren't frequently frustrated by being penned up in the house. Add to that a badly-timed taunt from a bird outside the window, or some gesture(s) that the cat takes as mocking his inability to go outside, and an unleashing of that frustration seems quite understandable. I don't know how a cat would unleash frustration other than with claws and teeth.

[forgotten-aria.livejournal.com]

And I would understand if his life were some how more frustrating than it isn't always. I understand when I'm giving him a hard time and he retaliates with claws. But when we're just sitting there, he's been fed, he's not been at the window, the state of his world hasn't changed notably and he just lunges, it's harder to grasp.

[exponentialdk.livejournal.com]

At least in humans, frustration can be unleashed due to an internal event, such as a dream. I don't know about cats, but dogs definitely dream.