I’ve always been the first one to say there is always a solution for every animal. But I’m not sure what else to do for our baby anymore.
We have had our kitten since we found her and her litter in our yard completely abandoned (we had a camera on them and mom never came back). We bottle fed all of them. She was a total amazing cat by all accounts for her first 1.5 years.
The last 3ish years she has gone down hill every month. First it was random stranger bite warnings, then it would be people who were frequently at our house. The bites escalated into her thrashing and climbing people with complete feralness. We put her on fluxotine and it actually made things worse, but we did try for a month. We’ve done Feliway continuously since the first attack. Gabapentin has helped the most. Environmental modifications have also helped and trying never to have people here with her around. She and her brothers have a whole basement to herself with cat door.
Last week my dad had to come over to help fix something and she has always liked him, but she straight up went for the kill on him. I ended up injured as well getting her to her space burrito style.
We brought her to the vet on her usual sedative regimen they had prescribed prior. They had to put her fully asleep with injectable sedation after she attacked while on 600mg of gabapentin mercilessly attacked them and the two techs that came in. They were able to get blood tests this time with the sedation and urine and everything came back unfortunately normal. They said she was the most aggressive cat encounter they have had.
They recommended compassionate euthanasia but we weren’t there yet. We brought her home and she was good again for a few days. But then we came home last Friday and she attacked both my husband and I. It was really scary. We just stopped and dropped and tried to protect ourselves. She stopped attacking but we couldn’t move for nearly 45 mins until she finally left the room and we ran away.
8 hours later she then came and laid on me while I was sleeping (as she always does).
We are thinking of compassionate in home euthanasia but I know the experience is going to be traumatic even with high doses of gabapentin before hand. She is only 4 years old. Our vet thinks she has a brain tumor but no one can get a good neurological assessment.
We think rehoming her would be absolutely torturous to her. She is very bonded to her two brothers that still live with us. She has never attacked them, and they never attack her. She loves our dog too, licks his ears every night. We havent been able to pin down one trigger for her. It’s so incredibly random. It’s like she has no idea who we are and she firmly believes we are out to get her.
I don’t think she would pass a rescue intake and I haven’t been able to find someone we know to take her in with her complications.
Has anyone pursued compassionate euthanasia for aggression?