I have an indoor cat but we put her in our basement at night and she attacks us?
Saturday, March 13th, 2010 at
4:48 pm
Our cat was a stray and we had her fixed and she was strictly an outdoor cat. Now we’ve had her for 4 years and she’s almost entirely an indoor cat. We don’t have a litter box inside though so at night we put her in the basement which has a litter box, food, water, heater, and all her toys. Every time I go to put her up for the night she trys to attack me and growls but during the day she’s very quiet. Why is this happening and how can I fix it?
Filed under: Cat Furniture
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Put the litter box into a room upstairs and let her stay up there all the time. She’s probably terrified of the basement.
maybe you live in the Amityville house and the voices down stairs are telling her to do it.
Sounds like she really doesn’t like the basement and try keeping her stuff in another room upstairs
Perhaps she was abused as a younger cat and kept in a dark basement area. It might remind her of this. You could try keeping her in the bathroom in her little bed and maybe leave a night light on for her. That’s nice that she has a heater to keep warm. She’s probably just scared and perhaps doesn’t realise that it’s you coming to see her in the night.
If she will use a litter box keeping her upstairs will help. It could be that there is a smell in the basement that she doesn’t like that frightens her, or she may feel like she’s being exiled for a crime she doesn’t even know about. I have a cat who doesn’t get along with the other three and I have to keep her separated. She gets very upset and attacks me when we don’t let her go outside when she wants to go out. I finally put her out on our back deck where it’s colder so she’d see that the weather was bad and she calmed down.
It sounds like she has some anxiety about the basement. Maybe you could spray around it with Feliway, a calming pheromone that you can get at the pet store.
Do you go down there with her in the daytime sometimes? Maybe that would help. She might feel better that you go there sometimes, and you might observe something that would help you figure out what the problem is.
Stop locking her up.
I hope your cat still gets outside. If a cat has had the freedom of outdoor life you should not imprison it no matter how comfortable you think your house is.
Locking the cat in a room is wrong. We can’t talk to our cats to explain why there are some rules for us and some for them so it’s not really fair to deny them access to parts of your house that they know you go into.
Let your cat have a free roam of the house at night and let it out when ever it wants.