Thread: HELP! MY MAINE COON IS BULLYING ME! I am at the end of my rope.

hi Joey - I had a similar experience with mine - yours sounds even worse though I have to admit. She is better now - MUCH better actually she doesn't hunt us any more except playfully and boy can we tell the difference.

here's mine, hopefully you can get something out of it...

We got Neevie, a female Maine Coon, when our darling Charlotte passed away. Charlotte was tiny even for a cat, but many people told us she had a lot of Maine Coon in her - so I assumed I could get the same cat, and got a real Maine Coon - I thought: twice the size, twice the cuddle, heaven! Boy was I wrong.

From the word go Neevie was trouble - she was from a litter of 3 who had been raised by hand because their dam had got an infection so we were able to bring her home 4 weeks before the normal time, since she didn't need to be weened.
That is one thing that can make a cat unstable, by the way.
She was violent when she played - I guess she'd never been told by her mom how to play nice? I don't know. When she was little, her biting was not a problem, we weren't overly worried. But then she grew up and then her hormones started playing. We hadn't spayed her - Charlotte had died on an operating table and I wasn't ready to take the risk.
Then she really started misbehaving and yeah I did feel bullied by my own cat so I know how you feel Joey - Example: Picture the scene if you please: me working at my desk, sitting on a chair. What can only be described as a mini-lynx crawling beside me at the foot of the chair and decides there is something on the top of my head that looks like it wanna be caught and ripped. Mini-Lynx jumps up from the floor, plants her claws in my head and gives it a good bite, hanging by the teeth and claws for a second, then jumps down and looks at me very agressively like "there, who's the boss now?!" I now have more puncture marks on my scalps than a bike tire that's been ridden through a cactus field. It sounds funny when it's not the animal you're supposed to love who does that, right? I know you can relate. My stomach would start making knots when she did that.
So, anyway, this kind of behaviour happened very often - we couldn't walk without our legs being hunted - and when I say hunted, I mean jumped at, and ripped into like it's a piece of ham that's trying to get away - from the moment he got up in the morning, my husband had to watch out for her at all times in case she grabbed his legs and started ripping into them. Naked feet seemed to set her off so we just couldn't walk barefoot in the house.
I couldn't love her. That's the worst thing, you're right, you feel guilty because you can't love the little beasty, I considered giving her up... but there were still times when she was cuddly, and in those times I loved her to bits, but they were scarce and far appart.

we tried spray bottles, it actually worked to shoo her away when she misbehaved but didn't teach her a thing, and we had to walk with a spray bottle at our belt at all times, it seemed a bit silly.
I have to admit, there are times I wanted to wring her neck, and picking her up tenderly when she had just made 2 more puncture marks in my head was very hard. When I could, I would pick her up silently, and put her in time out in the toilets. More often than her I couldn't, I shouted at her, waving my arms around and scaring her into a different room, just slammed the door and calmed down. Anyway, it was war at home.

but THEN we spayed her. OH BOY! It got soooo much worse! I'll pass the few weeks when we went off on holiday and left her home to be looked after by a cattery owner. She was CRAZY. I have a post on that somewhere.
She stayed crazy for the full 3 weeks we were gone.
Then when we came back she gradually started calming down. She still attacked us but less and less often.
Now, 6 months after being spayed, she's calmed down totally. I am not sure if was anything we did, though we did try a lot of thing. Some worked better than others but never fully. There were times when I got depressed, I missed my old cat so much and this one refused to comfort me, I took it very personally.

so here is my take on your situation:
sounds like Finn still has too much testosterone in him for all he's neutered - may be have his blood tested? may be there is some kind of medication for that?
when was he spayed exactly? It took a lot of time for Neevie to get her body clear of the bad stuff. Still you're right I don't think he's supposed to hump when he's been neutered. Check with another vet if may be it's been botched? Sounds like he's got a real hormone problem there.

not sure if it helps him, but to help you and Dexter, when he misbehaves, make him go in another room. I know you will say he is hard to pick up and he's big but he needs to be in another room to calm down. If you can, pick him up - I find with Neeve picking her up by the scruff of the neck works, she stops struggling she can't bite or scratch, and I can then put her in another room and shut the door. Just have to be quick and self assured - it doesn't hurt him it's what his mum would do when he was a baby, and I think it also helps put you in the alpha position if you can do that. I noticed that with Neevie, too.
At the end of the day, you're the alpha in this relationship. He has to know that. In the wild, when you see lions or tigers feed, you see the alpha is first on the scene - THEN he allows the others to feed. Neevie also tried to pick on our plate - Husband let her do that, he found it cute and funny - I think that's a big mistake, we'd argue about it - well I'd argue and he'd laugh... sigh...
Also, try to keep consistent in your approach. If he misbehaves even a bit, first say no, then if he insists even once, he's going in time out. Not a word, just "no" and out. Like a kid. That's what I did with Neevie in the end, not sure if that's what worked, but at least while she was out I could work without watching my back, so I did it as often as possible in the end. Don't think "well it's only a little bit" or "he doesn't understand what he's doing". Misbehave -> "no". Misbehave more -> time out.
I know it's tempting to just shout at him, but to be avoided if you can: being scared of you might also be part of the agression. Cats are not like dogs, you can't really scare them into doing stuff. They do stuff they want, really, you have to make him think he wants it, and simply think that bad behaviour doesn't get him anywhere.
Oh also when we'd have our cuddly moments with Neevie, I started talking to her. About nonsense, you know, telling her about what a good kitty she was, and how I loved her when she was a good girl, stuff like that. I know it sounds like I've lost my mind but I swear she's so much better since I started doing that, it's like she's started bonding with me (2 and a half years on!!) I only started that a month ago.

AND try feliway. If you don't know it, it's a kind of perfume thingy you plug in a socket, it dispenses a calming pheromone - it only works when it's been plugged in a while though, it doesn't work immediately - so don't plug it, expect great things and then unplug it when you see it doesn't work, in Neevie's case it started working only 2 weeks after it was plugged - it should really work to calm him down at least a bit, and every little helps, right? It is expensive, try to get it on Amazone that's the cheapest I have found.

Now, she's fine, she's cuddly when it suits her but at least she's not agressive at all any more - she's very playful but she is also very careful not to hurt us now. She still likes to hunt feet when we're lying down but doesn't really bite, she pinches the skin a bit sometimes but when I say no she stops and look at me like "pff you're no fun", so I know she understands the no now. We stopped being scared of walking in our own home, and I have stopped watching my back when I work at my desk. She's still a pirate, but we have a cat at last, not a lynx any more.

I hope you get to that point with yours - sounds like he's making life hell for you - try to bear in mind, I'm convinced he's just got a hormone problem at the end of the day, he's ill, and it's not his fault, he just needs to be made well somehow.
Big hugs!