Human Directed Aggression in Cats

Introduction
In the literature on feline behaviour problems, the term ‘aggression’ is often used as a diagnostic category. Attempts are also made to further divide aggressive behaviour into different diagnostic categories by a number of criteria – some of which are based on the target of the behaviour (e.g. ‘inter-cat aggression’), the context in which it occurs (e.g. ‘territorial aggression’) or an assumed motivation for the behaviour (e.g. ‘predatory aggression’). There are clearly problems with all of these different approaches – for example, defining behaviours by their appearance, context or target means that diagnostic categories will include combinations of cases where the behaviour arises for different motivational reasons, and which require different treatment approaches. In essence, the aggression should be considered as a presenting sign, akin to pruritis or lameness. As for other presenting signs, further investigation is required to understand why the sign is occurring to enable a targeted programme of treatment for each case. […]