Bells Causing Agression?

[Miss Wiggle]

was clearing out one of our 'junk' cupboard the other night and found a cute little silver collar with a bell on, so I put it on our kitten and proceeded to laugh at her confusion over the bell.

Our other cat had a bit of a strange reaction to it though and I don't know if this is normal or not??

just to give a bit of background info, Mitt's our older cat is a rescue cat and had been badly treated before she came to us, she can be a bit viscious and takes a long time to get to know people and trust them. I was really struggling with her temper and attitude to people and after much deliberation though that if she had someone at home with her in the daytime maybe she'd be a bit calmer. So we got a kitten knowing it was a risk adn I was prepared to re-home her if things didn't work out. For the first few weeks they fought but once they got used to each other Mitt's has been a completely changed cat. She fine with strangers now and is loving and caring, she's calmed down completely. Her and Lu-Li get on now, Lu-Li is a typical excitable kitten and as such likes to play fight a lot, her and Mitts do play fight but they never damage each other and you can tell they're just playing cos there's non of the tell tale signs of aggravtion like bushed up tails or ears pinned back. On occasion when Lu-li is being too much of a handful mitt's will give her a bit of a swipe to tell her to get lost, again she never hurts her so we think it's fine. So we've had Li-Li 6 months now and this is how they're relationship is.

so I put the new collar on Lu-li, as soon as mitts saw her she went completely mental, was hissing and snarling at Lu-Li and starte to become quite agressive. Lu-Li gave her a bit of a swipe and Mitt's immediately backed off, ran to the front door and started crying to be let out. So I let her out so she could cool off a bit. It was about 2 days before she came home, she walked through teh door and was fine, then saw Lu-Li and went crazy again. So I quickly took the collar off Lu-Li and Mitt's immediately calmed down, they trotted off upstairs to play together.

So, is this normal for a cat to react that badly to just a little bell? why do you think she was like this?

 

[l.michelle]

Perhaps when she was badly treated there was a bell? I know it may sound silly, but you know the whole pavlov thing about classical conditioning? where a certain sound is associated with certain feelings. So say for instance is she was hit with something with a bell on it, (i know, sounds silly) or maybe she heard a sound of a bell etc it would set her off because she may think she will be hurt. I don't know if i am exaplining this properly. My mind is rather jumbled and it is early here.

I just had a thought, were there other cats in the house with her at her old house, do you know? Because perhaps one of the other cats that may have lived with her, or perhaps a dog, had a bell on their collar, and would hurt her?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

that was my initial thoughts (don't worry your making perfect sense!)

i don't know the full circumstances just a little bit the rspca told me and from the way she's been since she's been with me i think it was rather worse than I was told.

never thought of other pets bullying her, could be that.

in fact about a year ago she went out and came back home with a chunk missing from her, the vets said they thought a dog had attacked her and taken a big bite perhaps that dog had a bell?? didn't think of that before.

I'm not especially bothered, if I know she reacts like this I can happily get collars without bells, not an issue, i was just wondering why really!

 

[l.michelle]

I know, normally the spca don't really tell you everything about the animal, or else you may be hesitant to give it a home. When i was younger we got a bassett hound from the shelter who had been abused and starved. we got her weight way up to normal, we thought everything was going very well with her, she seemed to be so well adjusted, then one day she charged at me and attacked me viciously. I was very far away from her as well when she suddenly came at me. My mother had to get her off me with a broom, and we had to take her back. Was quite sad, but we couldn't have her anymore. It is very sad when animals have been abused, because they never quite move on from the abuse.

I do hope your kitty is okay though!!

 

[Miss Wiggle]

she's alright most of the time now, few issues like her having not been litter trained for the first 2 years of her life makes her a bit of a pain now, she's mostly trained but is just very picky over how clean her litter tray is whcih makes life a pain! but other than that she's fine and i wouldn't change her for the world!