The local psychopath

There’s a psycho living in my neighbourhood and it seems nothing can be done about his reign of terror.

A few years ago I was awakened one Saturday morning by the sound of my cat Stella growling under the bed. When I opened my eyes I saw a large, strange cat at the foot of the bed trying to get to Stella. I leapt out of bed to chase off the intruder. Far from considering me a threat, this cat hurled himself at me, latching onto my bare leg, biting and scratching it. I don’t know how I got him off, but when I did I leapt back into bed, wrapped the duvet around myself, got out the other side of the bed and somehow managed to get the fiend out of my house. I covered the cat flap, got in the shower to wash my many wounds, then put the duvet cover into the washing machine to get rid of the blood stains. By Saturday night my leg was throbbing, so no surprise when I got to the doctor’s office on Monday morning to be told that yes, one of the bites was infected. Many dollars later I started a treatment of antibiotics.

A few weeks later I heard a cat fight outside. Rushed out to find this same cat attacking Stella. I broke up the fight and once again he hurled himself at my leg. Fortunately this time I was wearing jeans, so, although there were a couple of scratches, there were no bites and thus no antibiotics required.

A few weeks later the same thing almost happened again. Another outdoor catfight broken up, but this time, despite his clear desire to kill me, I managed to talk him down. It took at least ten minutes of me holding up my hands in surrender and speaking to him in a gentle voice to calm him down enough for me to slowly backtrack into the safety of the house. Since then I’ve kept a spray bottle full of water just inside the door.

Several months later, my 93-year-old neighbour heard a catfight on his porch. When he opened his door, his cat Hazel shot into the house. The other cat hurled himself onto my neighbour and shredded his arm and leg. I learnt about this attack when he called me and told me. Before I’d seen the damage, before going across the road to his house, I called for an ambulance. When I did go across the road, I couldn’t believe my eyes. There was blood everywhere. The ambulance crew couldn’t believe their eyes either. They took him to the medical centre where a doctor was waiting to treat him. I stayed behind to clean up the blood before following. My neighbour’s arm required many stitches. The doctor couldn’t believe a cat had done this much damage. Even though I hadn’t witnessed the attack, I knew exactly which cat was responsible. And so I reminded the doctor, who’d prescribed my antibiotics the previous summer, of the attack on me.

Not surprisingly the news of this vicious attack on an elderly man caused some outrage. The owner of this mad dog cat then tried to persuade my neighbour and me that we were mistaken, that some other cat had attacked us, going so far as to ask me to come to her home to see how sweet her doppelganger cat was. I confess, when I saw this monster curled up, purring on her partner’s lap, I simply could not marry the two images into one cat.

And so it goes.

To my certain knowledge an attack by this psycho cat on another local cat resulted in a vet bill of hundreds of dollars, which the psycho cat’s owner did agree to pay. By way of apology, she gave the injured cat’s person a klaxon with which to frighten off her monster. She’s also offered me a klaxon. I haven’t taken up her offer. I find the spray bottle does the trick. Unfortunately neither the klaxon nor the spray bottle are much use if the psycho cat is between you and your weapon.

Sometimes you can reason with this demented animal. For example, one evening last winter, I glanced over to discover him sitting in front of the woodstove. I hadn’t heard the cat flap. I didn’t freak out and neither did he. I simply looked at him and told him quite calmly that he knew he shouldn’t be there. To my surprise and relief, he calmly left. I closed and barricaded the cat flap.

Yesterday afternoon I tried to reason with him again. When I left the house to put a birthday cake in the car, I spotted him outside. I calmly pointed out to him that he shouldn’t be there and he (I thought) calmly turned and started to walk away down the side of the house. When I was walking back from the car he’d changed his mind, turned around and was walking towards me. I stopped walking. He stopped walking. “Hey, come on,” I said in a gentle voice, “you need to leave.” He growled, he got that frenzied look in his eyes, he crouched ready to hurl himself at me. I raised my hands in surrender and once again managed to talk him down. It took nearly fifteen minutes of creeping slowly one step at a time for me to reach the safety of the house – and the spray bottle.

When there was some discussion on the community Facebook pages about this cat’s attack on me and on my neighbour, inevitably there were people who would say anyone who broke up a cat fight got what they deserved. (Or words to that effect.) Well, yesterday afternoon there was no cat fight. Yesterday afternoon something just snapped in this demented cat’s brain and he decided he was going to attack me.

The same thing happened three hours later when I was returning from my friend’s birthday party. Once again I managed to calm him down enough to get safely into the house.

I shouldn’t have to do this. I shouldn’t have to block the cat flap at night to prevent him coming into my home and attacking Stella, which he has regularly done. Stella shouldn’t have to be trapped in the house overnight for her own protection.

It beggars belief that nothing can be done about this neighbourhood menace. This cat terrorises all the other local cats. This cat terrifies me. Laws abound to deal with dangerous dogs. How is it possible that there is no law, by-law, rule or regulation that can curb or curtail the attacks of a dangerous cat?

This cat’s owners cannot be shamed into keeping their demon locked indoors. Instead they offer klaxons.

How is this possible?