Lives in my house--She's not that bad, although she has been known to take a swipe at the cat feeder person when we are out of town, she won't play without drawing blood, and she is generally a psycho. She has mellowed with age, she's 12 now, but still crazy. Also abandoned by her mom.

If I had LW's cat, I would put him down. That simple. If you need some encouragement, take my advice and that of the others here. Set yourself free.

I had a cat very much like this once as an apartment dweller. Bit me within 1mm of my jugular one time. Attacked visitors. Pooped smack in the middle of our bed when he was mad at us. Had a warning sticker on his vet record. As soon as we moved to a house with a yard we let him become an indoor/OUTDOOR cat and he was reformed. Turned into a delightful cat. Was even fine with our kids when we had them. He was a bit of a hunter for a few years but not terrible.

I just don't think most cats are meant to be trapped inside. If you can't let him out then the farm idea is perfect. He will do fine. It doesn't take training for them to figure out what to do. We even lived at a busy intersection and he somehow never got hit by a car - more luck that smarts probably.

Good luck to you and the cat.

My cat has found an elderly neighbor with whom she loves to smoke pot. She is much more mellow after being exposed to second hand smoke and Patsy Cline records.

Philosophical question:

Thousands of well dispositioned and loving cats go to their deaths everyday for a lack of loving homes. Is it right that they should die, while your mean cat lives? Wouldn't the cats of the world be better off if your cat was euthanized, and you adopted 2 of them? Think of how much good the money you will spend on therapy could do for the cats of the world.

My opinion:

Its not just any cat, its your cat. We can be upset for years over the death of a friend, but we hear daily of dozens killed in other parts of the world, and go on with life unaffected. Such is the nature of being human.

So this isn't about your cat - its about you. Your cat doesn't have a problem, he sounds like he is total master of his domain. I should be so lucky! His total mastery has difficult and unbearable consequences for the people he cohabitates with.

I agree with Cary, if you intend to keep the animal, you are going to need to do something and a professional animal behaviorist is the obvious solution. Either that, or you can cage him for large portions of the day. This approach isn't inhumane, and is certainly cheaper, you just need a properly sized cage, with room for him to move about. However, I can't imagine a cage will improve his disposition, it very well might make it worse.

Barring some sort of freak cat brain disorder, you should also appreciate that you are the source of the problem. You had a completely blank slate of an animal, and under your care it has grown into a monster. It is completely your fault. Go ahead and kick yourself for it... GOOD, you deserved that. Now forgive yourself, you meant well, you just didn't know how to socialize a cat properly. You can learn from this lesson.

As my sweet departed cat Max illustrates, only the good die young (FeLV contracted at humane society). So your evil cat will likely live to a ripe old age. You could easily have 17 or more years of this cat to deal with, and when you look at getting behavioral help, it can help frame the cost effectiveness. You very well might be seeking professional help for yourself otherwise, and that is not cheap either. With 3 years to establish this bad behavior, the cat is getting into a rut, but its not too late to change course. The sooner the better though, every day he continues to get away with being mean reinforces the behavior.

We, too, have a crazy cat. She was weaned too early, but at 6 weeks or so, unlike many of the writers here whose cats were abandoned shortly after birth. She was a lovely, affectionate kitten, comfortable with strangers, until we had her fixed, and that was the end of those halcyon days. She hisses, swats at and bites strangers, growls and bites hard when playing, isn't much interested in toys... she's a handful.

We've learned a lot of techniques to deal with her, but the main one is LOTS of love. She likes to be cooed at, and while I've never been one for baby-talking to animals, speaking in a soft, gentle voice soothes her, so I do it. She likes kisses better than being petted, so that's what she gets. She has "her" chair where she can watch the birds outside, and we let her have it; she now loves it if we come visit her at her chair to say hi.

She attacks visitors, so she goes into the bedroom when visitors are around - more calming for her as well as the people. We also make it clear to visitors that if they don't want a confrontation, don't confront her! Just pretend she's not there. If she growls at us when we're playing with her, we stop, speak soothingly to her, and give her kisses, and she usually calms right down.

After realizing she'd have to be gassed every time she went to the vet, we found a vet who specializes in animals with behavioural problems and makes house calls, which has eliminated one more stress for everyone involved.

More than anything else, we've learned to watch her, listen to her cues about what she likes & what scares her (and therefore makes her aggressive) and we've changed some of our behaviours accordingly. No great sacrifices here, just recognizing that it must be hard for her to be constantly on alert, and really wanting to make her environment feel safe. She's rewarded us with lots of love, along with the battle scars!