Who's Zooming Who - looking at the correlations between feline aggression in the home and out of it

Our perception and treatment of cats lays a solid foundation for how cats respond to us, in turn. While the cat’s view on things human may be unknown or easy to dismiss, our own view often tends to seeing them as distant and aloof. It is said there’s a grain of truth in stereotypes but are we looking at the whole feline picture or understanding what cats are communicating and why they are "saying" it? With those popular characteristics attributed to cats, where might they stem from and why?

For starters, cats, those fearsome predators, are also a prey species, with each role calling for active vigilance and defense modes when needed. And when it comes to size differences, whether predator or prey, protective measures matter even more.

The reputation of the cat as fierce warrior, adds to their image as independent, remote, and less in need of our own protection than our dog best friends. Such an image of the cat, can endear or disconnect them to us. In homes with both cats and dogs, we are likely to be spending more time in a day interacting with the family dog than the family cat dog directed: talks, training, grooming, walks, day trips, games of tug, fetch and more. While cats are happier left at home and masters of self-grooming, chats and playtime are all species equal. True, how much we like having cats around is evidenced by the number of cats reported in our homes, we often have more than one. But the dog retains status as the more popular pet in US households, with more single dogs per family. And such status impacts our and wallets and affection in the numbers.

Specialized products for cats or dogs, including food, outweigh services in dollars spent in the pet services industry. Where monies are called for medically, research shows that we are more likely to spend twice as much on our dog’s health needs than our cats. This reluctance can be rooted in beliefs that cats are somehow healthier than dogs, their prey like propensity to mask illness, or our lesser engagement with, and attachment to them. A 2019 paper in the Journal of Business Research, found:

“Across three studies, with both actual dog and cat owners as well as owners of imagined pets, this research demonstrates that consumers place a higher economic valuation on dogs than cats. This effect is explained by consumers' enhanced feelings of psychological ownership of and resulting emotional attachment to the pet, and is due to the perceived controllability of the animal's behavior rather than other attributes intrinsic to the pet.” (Kirk, 2019)

The possibility that we are more concerned about the dog’s wellness over the cat's, believe cats are overall healthier, are not bringing cats to the vet because we’ve given up trying to get them into the carrier (if we can even find them to try), or their experience at the veterinarian’s office with biting, hissing, growling, swatting and worse at people, can all contribute.. Welcome or not, these distance increasing behaviors mostly stem from fear and or defense.

If the cat is “aggressive” at home or in the veterinarian's office, we may attribute this to personality and dismiss their behavior rising from a need to protect themselves from perceived harm as to what they are experiencing in those environments. Are we then confusing a behavior of vital response to perceived threat as a temperament type?

With the heightened defense modes of prey and predator, less mobile faces (Cats lack the musculature of dogs and primates to display the expressions we are most familiar with. Highly mobile ears, whisker positioning and pupil dilation are more telling cat expressions), and disparate body language (-tail wags for one), saying different things than the more popular dog, cats are not an easy animal to handle or treat by strangers unfamiliar with them personally or versed in their body communications. Those terrible tease-the-cat-for-likes videos circulating around social media can be viewed differently with greater understanding of feline body language. Flattened or "airplane ears," indicate extreme stress and/or discomfort, as do trashing tails, tightened muzzles, whiskers back, dilated pupils and body tension. Vocalizing heard in low and guttural growls or piteous meows are what they sound like, attempts to get away from the cause of stress.

Nor are cats as deeply studied in veterinary schooling, practice, or even as well liked as dogs. When Bayer undertook a series of studies several years ago, to determine how to bring reluctant clients back to veterinary practices, findings on cats brought partialities to light:

“Are veterinarians dog people?—Far more veterinarians found working with cats challenging than found working with dogs challenging. Ninety percent agreed that dogs are easy to work with during examinations, but only 65% agreed that cats are easy to work with. Likewise, only 33% of respondents said that obtaining a diagnosis is challenging in dogs, whereas 47% said obtaining a diagnosis is challenging in cats. Perhaps not surprisingly, even though 70% of veterinarians owned cats (81% owned dogs), 48% said they preferred dogs as pets and only 17% preferred cats.” (Volk, Thomas, et al. 2014)

The cats defensive reaction to unwanted and/or forceful handling at home or in the clinic can be taken as personally offensive and countered with overpowering resistance or matter of course sedation. Add in the pain, stress and discomfort of scruffing, and over-restraint on the exam table. Scruffing and force give rise to intrinsic increases in defense, are inhumane, have been criticized by industry experts with alternative methods of kinder and ethical handling outlined, published, and advocated. Despite such information, these practices continue everyday.

Medical training and education can give short shrift to nutrition and behavior, which does little to help the treatment experience for patients. Where our own species is under examination, we may have greater insights into the more compassionate applications thanks to empathy with one of our own. With another species with varied abilities and degrees of sensation and perception we are more severely limited without study and informed application.

At home, punishing cats by spraying with water, shaking coins or even, hitting, is outmoded and inhumane, yet we are still doing it rather than providing training and the environments for what we want cats to do instead. Bolstered by misguided “expert” advice - just check the internet for multiple examples of this bad advice. We can find ourselves in good company, those cat videos, with all the rolling on the floor laughing

emojis heighten our own desensitization to cat cruelty. And that’s just the latest in the deck stacked against cats. Disturbing findings from a 2025 study looking at animal cruelty cases reported by the ASPCA and the NYC Police Department found:

“There was relationship between species and suspected case type, with the more common suspected case type for cats being non-accidental injury, while for dogs and other species it was neglect, hoarding or abandonment.” (Caldwell, Patterson-Kane, et al., 2025)

In other words, those cats were hurt deliberately, on purpose. Such injuries and fatalities are grossly under-reported as further noted in the report, either as cats that are feral and owned may not be registered in statistics or through lack of concern or unknowingly.

The “fractious cat” is terminology used in the veterinary setting to describe a cat that is beyond “easily upset and annoyed and often complaining,” as if such cats came into the practice in a bad mood already. Being restrained, wrestled, poked and prodded against one's will is no one's idea of a good time. And then there's the whole subjectivity that comes with how easily we can use the word aggression and how accurate it is. The American Association of Feline Practioners' 2024 Guidelines on Intercat Tension notes:

"Subjective terms such as "aggressor", "bully", "victim" and "aggression", should be avoided. The goal of these Guidelines is to use terms that aid understanding of the causes and emotions (affective states) underlying the tensions, and to define the cat's behavioral changes as responses to those emotions" (Rodan, Ramos, et al. 2024)

Words shade our thinking and influence our actions, in such settings are we starting with affection or distaste where the cat is concerned? When cats are forcefully handled, overpowered and stressed, the experience impacts on their physiology and behavior. On the clinic table or in the home, the stress and trauma of possible or apparent impending danger directed towards them, whether by hands on force, loss of agency, water sprayed, intrusive sounds, etc., all are compounded biologically by the immediate experience:

“The feline hypothalamus is complex in it's response to situations that provoke aggression, but cats stay reactive for a prolonged time after the initial stimulus, and can become more—not less—reactive and aggressive if they are manipulated during this reactive period” (Beaver, 2016)

Another 2024 study in the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery invites the question of which past experience cats are responding to in the home. The research surveyed cat owners who had recently brought their cats to veterinarians:

“to evaluate whether aggression at the veterinary clinic is associated with behavior problems at home in cats in the USA” – (Gerkin, Lee, et al., 2024).

Behaviors of concern, namely "aggression". While the article is clear to say that the “study did not establish cause and effect,” and our stats courses have laid the groundwork that correlation does not equal causation, implications, suggestions, and indications, etc., linger, and conclusions are still drawn. Again, is this about who the cats are or is it about what we doing to the cats?

Are such "behavior problems" part of the cat persona or the cat's protection against repeated negative experiences? What is of great interest in the study is the chicken and egg quandary (leaving self-reporting and confirmation biases off the table). How and why are seeing all this? What purpose do these behaviors serve? What is being reinforced for them to repeat?

Taking a closer look at pertinent timeframes in the paper offers relevant specifics to tension, aggression, avoidance, and other related events under discussion, much of which is closely associated with veterinary visits in the recent past:, the majority, 63.9% of survey participants had brought the cat to the vet in the last six months and 23.3% had brought the cat for a visit within the last 6-12 months. Where problem behaviors in the home are detailed by survey respondents, the largest weight is given to “stranger directed aggression,” “owner directed aggression” and “resistance to restraint,”

With such closely related events in the timeline, showing the majority of cats displaying problem behaviors, last on the table within six months, a context to the need for retaliatory actions and greater vigilance to guard against the reoccurrence of such negative experiences, no matter where they might take place is more than plausible.

We can never know what takes place within the mind of another, yet if such defensive and protective actions by cats with owners and in clinic, who have been recently taken to veterinarians where unwelcome procedures are encountered, if these behaviors are positively associated with those same behaviors in the home, we have to ask different questions here.

If those behaviors in the home with the most weight are the most similar to those observed at the exam or treatment, as in stranger directed aggression and resistance to restraint - this suggests such behaviors may stem from defense/history to recent similar negative experiences outside the home. The study further finds greater aggression from cats who are sedated prior to these visits, indicating such sedation is less than effective for the cat’s comfort. Light sedation and all too common side effects of ataxia, may make a cat easier to handle for the clinician but keep the unpleasant experience overwhelmingly vivid and worth guarding against and lashing out protectively against.

Further to correlating timelines, it is important to ask which particular forms of handling were the study cats exposed to at a visit? Looking at this same study and controlling more closely for timelines along with Sophia Yin's low stress handling and restraint, over more nominal nods to same, might yield different results. One trial learning with a significant aversive can color the future and takes its own time to dissipate. There's a lot of information if we look to tease it out.

In the behavior business, history taking is compromised by limited observations. The pets themselves can offer a good amount of evidence in their presentation. How they are around strangers and affiliates speaks volumes and in there, tells are palpable. Again, how we interact with cats or any companion animal has a direct and immediate impact on how they respond to us. A case I had with a small dog who was violently opposed to being touched by strangers, hands coming towards the dog, or being handled by same, and who also was impeccably groomed gave pause to the development of those behaviors. Grooming, which requires restraint to begin with, especially with that degree of precision, often involves gripping the muzzle, frequently tightly, to scissor around the face. Over restraint with small dogs is frequent. One of my interventions suggested, was to change how and where grooming was done. This was first put into place, aggressive behavior of concern abated. Their history with how we treat them leaves it's mark long after that moment. It goes on.

There are adverse effects of force and over-restraint, practicing less harmful ways to minister to every pet, including cats, can lessen them. We know more so we can do more. Let's give cats and every pet, less reason to fight back.

References

Beaver, B. V. (2004). Fractious cats and feline aggression. Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery, 6(1), 13-18.

Caldwell, S., Patterson-Kane, E., Brandler, E., Gupta, M., & Lockwood, R. (2025). Animal Cruelty in New York City: Cruelty Cases Presented to the ASPCA in Partnership with the NYPD 2013–2022. Animals, 15(5), 662.

Gerken, A., Lee, K., Bain, M., & Kim, S. A. (2024). Correlation between aggression at the veterinary clinic and problem behaviors at home for cats in the USA. Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery, 26(2), 1098612X231214907. https://doi.org/10.1177/1098612X231214907

Kirk, C. P. (2019) Dogs have masters, cats have staff: Consumers' psychological ownership and their economic valuation of pets, Journal of Business Research, 99, 306-318, ISSN 0148-2963, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.02.057.

Rodan, I., Ramos, D., Carney, H., DePorter, T., Horwitz, D. F., Mills, D., & Vitale, K. (2024). 2024 AAFP intercat tension guidelines: recognition, prevention and management. Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery, 26(7), 1098612X241263465.

Volk, J. O., Thomas, J. G., Colleran, E. J., & Siren, C. W. (2014). Executive summary of phase 3 of the Bayer veterinary care usage study. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, 244(7), 799-802. Retrieved Apr 11, 2025, from https://doi.org/10.2460/javma.244.7.799