Cats not getting along

padimus

Hi All,

I have a quick question.

We have two cats, one is a stray who lived in the garden of our last house. We got used to her and took her in, had her neutered and vaccinated etc. When we moved last year we brought her with us.

When we were settled in the new house we decided to get another cat to keep her company as we are both working full time. We adopted a new cat via boards. He was a young cat (8 months) and the first few weeks were the normal settling in period of ocasional fights but nothing too worrying, what I would have expected. The older cat was put out by the appearance of the younger one and began pooing occasionally on our stairs. She had always used a litter tray before.

Things quietened down and the poo problem went away for a while but now the problems have resurfaced and gotten worse. They are constantly fighting and we have started to let them go outside as they were always trying to do it and we thought the additional exercise would help them settle down. It helped for a while but not any longer. Tonight was open warfare in the house as they both went for each other and we had to drag them apart.

Does anyone have any advice? Both cats are neutered. the older one is female (2 years old) and the younger one is male. We´d really like to get this sorted as we adore the cats but if they are not getting along we feel we may have to rehome one or the other

Thanks

The Sweeper

You need to start over from scratch.

Rescue Remedy is a popular solution with cat breeders - a few drops in the water to help them chill out. I have never used it with my cats (never need to, thankfully) so I can't vouch for it, but I know a lot of breeders who swear by it and feliway diffusers (a synthesised version of cat facial happy hormones that is supposed to disseminate through the house via a plug-in - like an air freshener).

In terms of pecking order, the chances are that your two year old female should be top cat. You need to re-establish the pecking order, so that she doesn't feel put out and start crapping everywhere, and so junior doesn't think he can chance his arm and go bald-headed for her to try and assert himself as top cat.

Pick a room that female isn't attached to and in which you can install male cat. Male cat will be living in this room for a while - maybe even two weeks, so you need to be sure you can put litter trays, food, water, bed and toys in there and he can live in there. Female cat will need to have the run of the house. Clean all traces of any accidental poos or pees from the house. Let the female re-scent everything in the house as her territory. Make her feel like top cat. When she's firmly re-established, gradually reintroduce the male cat into the house. If she goes for him, distract her but don't chastise her. If he goes for her, return him to his room.

When reintroducing male cat, ignore him. When he comes into the room female cat is in, don't turn all attention to him. Ignore him, pay lots of attention to her. Ignore any hisses or spits from her, and just keep soothing and spoiling her. Obviously, break up any outright war. If she becomes very aggressive, remove him, not her. Eventually she'll just ignore him and they should be able to live together in a situation where they pointedly ignore each other but don't fight. You may never have them curling up together though.

When reintegrating, make sure you have enough litter trays - you need one per cat plus one extra.

Don't let either cat outdoors in this time. The outdoor access could even be confusing matters, giving the cats a broader territory so they're fighting harder over who owns which bit.