Gary Lawrence McKinley was nearing the end of his prison term after serving more than 20 years of a murder life sentence, when he attacked cellmate Peter Biddle for scaring the feral cat.
On Boxing Day last year, McKinley stabbed Biddle twice in the neck and once in the chest with a 12cm kitchen knife as Biddle was watching Coronation Street.
He pleaded guilty in Upper Hutt District Court in June to grievous bodily harm.
At his sentencing in the Wellington District Court today, Crown prosecutor Michael Snape requested his sentencing be transferred to the High Court so a sentence of preventive detention could be considered.
The incident was of such a "violent nature" it required a broader sentencing option, Mr Snape said.
McKinley's lawyer Paul Paino opposed the request in written submissions.
But Judge Jan Kelly said the attack could warrant a sentence of preventive detention and ruled McKinley be remanded in custody until the case was heard in the High Court at Wellington on October 7.
The attack on Biddle was sparked after he entered the living room he shared with McKinley in the prison's minimum-security unit, startled the cat and caused it to scamper away.
McKinley later told a prison manager: "I would do anything to protect the cat, it's all I've got".
The two men were prisoners in the self-care unit used to prepare long-term inmates for release.
McKinley was originally jailed in 1987 for the rape and murder of 23-year-old New Plymouth jogger Wendy Snowdon.
