Pscyho Alley Cat

Yesterday morning Scott and I woke up to a horrible moaning sound followed by screams and loud bangs. In our sleepy state we both thought that it might have been the kids upstairs since they can get really loud sometimes. As I became more fully awake I realized that it was actually the sound of angry cats and I got really freaked out. They fight sometimes, but it sounds more playful and sometimes frustrated than what we were hearing. I convinced Scott that it was, in fact, our cats making the terrible sound and not the kids upstairs and he went to investigate. The thought that crossed both our minds was that someone was in our apartment hurting our cats. I waited in the bedroom with Brianna, who was also waking up. After more loud bangs, hisses, and growls; but no sounds of distress from Scott, I also went to check out what was going on. It turns out that there was a male tabby cat at the living-room window and he was running into it with his head. The growling we heard was coming mostly from Tyke and the banging was him jumping out of the window when he was charged at (there are security bars on the windows since we live in the basement and they were banging). All three cats were cautiously watching and the room was filled with the sound of growling.

Scott got out the pepper spray (we got it from the pet store to spray on furniture and other areas where cats are clawing or peeing etc.). He opened the window and started spraying it directly at the cat. He's run away from the pepper spray, but he kept coming back to look at our cats.

Flash back to a couple days before:
Scott was walking around with Brianna and saw a cute grey tabby sitting at the window. Tyke and Zeek both jumped into the window to investigate and the cats meowed curiously at each other through the screen. Scott opened up the window without the screen about an inch and Zeek put his paw through to touch his new friend. Mishka was the only one not saying hi to the nieghbourhood cat, so I put her in the window too and chastised her for being so antisocial. As soon as she caught sight of the grey tabby she started growling and hissing. The tom didn't seemed too affected by Mishka's hostility; he just meowed back at her. I took Mishka out of the window because I was worried he would leave. Little did I know she perceived his craziness and was warning him to leave (or she was just being her normal, antisocial self - what do I know?).


That's what made yesterday morning so creepy. That cat was perfectly normal the last time we saw him so I don't know what got into him. We've had the windows closed and the blinds down ever since because we don't want that to happen again. I'm just glad is was so cold, otherwise I wouldn't have closed the window in the first place and he quite possibly would have rammed himself right through the screen.