Rocky Mount, N.C. — A Rocky Mount woman says her kitten Buddy didn't live up to his name when he attacked her, leaving gouges on her leg that required treatment at a hospital.

Cathy Daughety said she had had the 10-month-old, orange cat for several months before he lashed out.

"I didn't have any idea he would be that violent or vicious," she said.

One day, though, Daughety was sitting on her bed, talking on her phone and holding her sister's cat, Itty Bitty, when she saw Buddy in the mirror – preparing to pounce.

"He was either after me because I was holding a cat, or (he was) was after the cat I was holding," she said.

Daughety stood up, but Buddy still launched. "Next thing I knew, the cat was around my leg, hanging on, biting me, and I just took my hand and knocked him off," she said.

Daughety looked down at her leg and saw blood and rips in her pants.

"When I looked at the wounds, I knew that they were deep and that I would have to go to the hospital," she said.

Emergency room doctors treated her bites and put her on strong antibiotics.

Daughety called Animal Control to report Buddy's attack.

"They said they would have to take him. I said, 'Please, do,'" his owner said.

Daughety can still point to scars on her legs from the attack. "You can see the prick marks where his claws stuck in my leg," she said.

As for Buddy, he won't be coming home, Daughety said. The cat was in quarantined at the Rocky Mount Animal Shelter Thursday.