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Sounds bored to me - does he go outside at all? Also how old is he/has he been neutered?
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Is there anything I can do to change his behaviour?
+1 for him sounding bored, but he's scratching you and biting you and going for your feet because your reactions (and other people's reactions) make doing these things loads of fun. Avoiding approaching him with bare skin might help a bit, not so much because he'll care about you being covered or not, but because if you've got a layer of protection on then you'll be able to avoid reacting when he goes for you. Right now he's learning that if he hurts you or your friends and family, you all make fun noises and interesting movements to entertain him with. Not reacting to this will be much harder in the night because he'll take you by surprise, but try wrapping your feet in something until the game isn't fun for him anymore.
Supplement making yourself boring with more toys. The fact that he's destroying some of them is a good sign - he's a predator and he's supposed to kill and destroy stuff. Obvs you'll want to give him stuff that you're not that bothered about him destroying. Big cardboard boxes with holes cut in them to make tunnels and the like, for eg - if he sits on one and squashes it or chews it to bits then it's just a box, so it's not a big deal, and at least he's having fun.
Edit: also maybe go back to the shelter you got him from and find out more about the way the place was laid out - you might get some ideas about how to structure your own place to keep him entertained. He'll have got a lot of stimulation there and your house is probably more geared towards entertaining you than entertaining him by way of furniture and the like. The people there might also be able to tell you what specific things he particularly enjoyed using (I'm thinking structural things here, not cat toys).
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TL;DR Adopted an amazing, wonderful cat. A week later he suddenly turned into an unmanageable nightmare, and is getting worse. What do?
You didn't marry him did you?
+1 for Felliway, when I moved in with my partner her cat became aggressive and now he's mellow moggy.
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Dramatic_Hammer
bothwell
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@Jezston
I have cat quandry. Long story ahead followed by TL;DR at the end.
I have wanted my own cat for ages, but couldn't have one so got my cat fix by volunteering at cat shelters for the last couple of years where I have got to know cats more and had a better idea of what kind of cat I'd like to adopt. When I moved into my current place I knew I could finally get a cat, and after living there for six months I adopted one about 2 months ago.
This cat I'd known at the shelter I'd been volunteering at for about two months. He is incredibly friendly, super cuddly and smart, and also an amazing looking maine coon / norwegian forest cat mix. When I got him home he was exactly what I hoped, super cuddly, really friendly, would sleep on my bed at night with one paw on me purring gently, and it was lovely and exactly what I wanted from a cat.
This lasted about a week.
Since then he suddenly lost all interest in sleeping on my bed. He lost all interest in coming to me to be petted (although he purrs a lot when I go to him to pet him), he just wants to play all the time and hassles me continuously to play with his stick & string toy that is the only toy he has any interest in as everything else either doesn't interest him at all, or he destroys it. If I don't play with him continuously, he becomes an agressive nightmare - he gets very agressively playful and go near him with bare skin and he will be all cute and let you pet him at first, will try to initiate play by putting a paw out and/or gently biting you, and if you continue will grab you and bite and scratch the fuck out of you - and he's getting worse - in the last two days he's started running and jumping on my face and attacking my feet constantly during the night.
I cannot sleep, a young lady I've been sort of seeing recently will now not stay at my place, and my sister is talking about cancelling coming to visit me soon with her young daughter because shes rightly worried my cat will seriously hurt her child.
What the hell is going on? I read stories of angry semi feral cats becoming sweeties with time and love, but I've not heard of it going the other way round. This is actually making me really sad - I've wanted my own cat for years and spent ages making sure I chose the right one, and was so happy, but now he's turned into a completely different cat that I simply cannot live with.
Anyone know why this has happened? Is there anything I can do to change his behaviour? I was considering a pheremone releasing device, but I don't want to blow €50 on something that does fuck all.
TL;DR Adopted an amazing, wonderful cat. A week later he suddenly turned into an unmanageable nightmare, and is getting worse. What do?