Confidence building vs high energy cat

[V-joe]

Hi everyone, you may come across a post from me a couple of months ago ("is he a bully?") where I was asking for help with regards to one of the boys "bullying" the younger boy. Sorry for another long post

While I am pleased to say that the issue mentioned there has pretty much resolved, we are now facing a new challenge (and yes, the same cat is the perpetrator!).

Initially Sirius was chasing Jasper and make him cry like a baby. As mentioned, after a couple of months things have considerably improved: Sirius still chases Jasper on occasions but they both instigate it and looks more like playing, they seem to have found a balance: we now have to intervene very very rarely. We would still keep them separate when unsupervised for long times (night or if we were both at work), but we thought we were winning!

Well, a new issue has arisen. After things improved between Sirius and Jasper, we left for a holiday and our pet sitter (who is our regular sitter so she knows the house and the pets!) looked after them, popping in twice a day. She kept to the instructions of keeping them separate when not there, but there was a few occasions when one of them had managed to open the separating door (despite baby locks...) so she found them all together. She never found them particularly upset though so we thought all was well.

Well, since coming back, we noticed that while things with Jasper keep being pretty good, things with Ruby, the girl, have definitely gotten worse.
Sirius now taunts Ruby We didn't see this coming cos initially she was the one who set very clear boundaries and he d respect them, so I wonder if something happened one of the times they managed to open the door while we were away, but I guess we will never know.

Anyway, now the situation is as follows:
- Sirius tends to chase/taunt Ruby, pretty much any time he sees her walking away. He goes out his way to do so, like this morning he was at the top of a ceiling cat tree, saw her walking to the catio and came down on purpose to harass her. He does NOT bully her away from getting food, using the litter etc. It is as if he finds it funny that when he gets close to her, she gets upset
- Ruby is pretty much always anticipating being chased when he is in the room as soon as Sirius is nearby her, she growls at him. Thankfully, she is not showing other signs of being stressed (eats, drinks, uses litter, doesn't over groom etc), but she must be a bit stressed for sure if she acts like that towards him, right?
- they can still share the same areas, and will eat and take treats next to each other just fine
- when he does get to her, she screams as if she being murdered - no fur flying, no physical injuries though. I actually tried to play with him with my own hands (I know you're not supposed to do this, but wanted to test his play style!) and he is actually very gentle! He doesn't scratch or bite hard at all, so I would imagine he is probably not too different when he interacts with the others? Also, I noticed she does scream very much in anticipation: I have seen very clearly one instance in the catio where she screamed as if she was being murdered but he was actually a foot or 2 away and there had been NO CONTACT at all, although he did have fixated on her.

Am I right thinking a key point is increasing her confidence? How can I do this most effectively?
I am not concerned about any of them getting physically hurt, I think it all comes down to him being a VERY confident cat, and quite high energy, and that she finds his demeanor overwhelming.

We keep separating Sirius when we are away for work and at night, and we always try our best to step in before Ruby feels the need to growl. We play a lot with them, especially trying to tire Sirius out. I also harness trained him although we have onyk gone as far as the back garden for now as we re taking it slowly.

I feel a complete re-introduction may be excessive as they are both used to roaming the house and they can eat in the same area, but if necessary I am totally willing to give it a shot!

Any success stories to give me hope? Lol

(Also, you may have come across my post about my older 13yo cat finally coming to stay with me: I do realise timing didn't work out great, but we didn't know we were coming back to a new issue as when we left they were doing well, so we kinda have to make do with what the situation is. Thankfully he is doing great and I genuinely don't think it has anything to do with the Sirius-Ruby situation)

Thanks in advance for any help, tip or similar stories you may decide to share!

 

[Kris107]

Quick clarification - you have 3 cats (Jasper, Sirius, and Ruby) but are getting another soon? But the 4th isn't there yet?

I thought of a couple things. Could be that with all the separation that Sirius is territorial. When he sees Ruby, his brain says interloper and goes after her? Or, he wants to play with Ruby like he does with Jasper. It may not be her personality or preference to rough house, so I'm not entirely sure she'll ever want that. I think stopping Sirius's lunges after her is good. Let him know that isn't okay. Try to not let him fixate on her either. Staring can actually feel threatening. Good news is cats are portable! That being said, it sounds like Ruby is a little bit of a drama queen, so just watch the interactions. I agree - I don't think separating and reintroducing is necessary.

 

[V-joe]

Hi K Kris107 , the 4th is, actually, the one that came first! Sounds confusing i know, but I will try clarify. I found the "4th", Oliver, when he was 10 days old, 13 years ago, and hand reared him - he is literally my baby. I still lived in my home country at that time, at my parents house, so when I moved for work he remained there and my mum looked after him over the last few years as I was settling in a new country. The plan had always been for him to come over once his paperwork was sorted (takes a bit of organising with moving pets into this country!), which was this summer. So he has finally arrived a few weeks ago and is / in w5ell. In hind sight, timing could have been better as I now have this is issue between Sirius and /≈{^"#

 

[V-joe]

Sorry, pressed enter by mistake. I was saying, timing could have been better in hindsight as I now have this issue between Ruby and Sirius. This being said, I don't think Oliver's arrival is the cause as it started JUST before it, yet too late to change the plans of him coming. Hope this clarifies!

I don't think Sirius is particularly territorial tbh - I make sure I swap their places when they are separated so that neither, hopefully, feels like an area is only theirs. Also, for example, now that the weather is nice, they get fed in the catio and they are completely fine eating there all together (each of them from their own bowl). Later in the day, they may either all chill in the catio with no issue, or he can chase her, depending on what "mood" he is in. I thought it was just pent up energy as he is such an energetic cat, but this happens regardless of how much I play with him. It tends to be at "zoomies" times, if it makes sense.

Ruby definitely doesn't like rough housing - I think he needs to learn to respect that? It's hard though because although Ruby gives him all the signals it's as if he discovered she won't actually fight back so he just pushes her buttons.
It is as if they got into a bit of a vicious cycle where she behaves like a prey and he behaves as a predator. But how to break this cycle?

Thanks so much for all your insight!!

 

[Kris107]

You said it's often during his zoomies time. Can you put him elsewhere when you're seeing him in that mood? Maybe even preemptively? When my boy is hyper, he loses his senses. There have been times I have to put him somewhere else to collect himself again. I'd keep stepping between them too. When you see him start staring, tell him no and step between them. If he does it anyways, away he goes. I dunno... just my thoughts. My boy gets FOMO, so getting put elsewhere is not what he wants.

 

[Alldara]

It really sounds like Siris needs someone to wrestle with.

Rather than your hands, ill recommend getting a brightly coloured oven mitt and using that. You can slip your hand out when he catches the mitt and kicks or bites at it. And its a clesr symbol of play. I do this with Cal and it really helps him to be gentle with the other boys. He gets overexcited otherwise. Gets too rough with Magnus.

 

[V-joe]

K kris yes we have been pretty much doing that - sometimes though it's just unpredictable tbh. It is *mainly* when he goes hyper, but recently there's been occasions where it was really random. For example yesterday morning I was sitting on our bed and Sirius was chilling/sleeping on the hammock at the top of the cat tree in our bedroom. Ruby walked into the bedroom, jumped on our bed, then left and went to sleep in the study. When she walked out, Sirius came down the tree ON PURPOSE just to follow her and go annoy her. Obviously I witness that so I didn't let him do it, I was like.. why? Why is he so set on annoying her?

Alldara that's such a good idea! Thank you, I will try that! I used to do this with my very first cat as a child, completely forgotten about it. I will definitely give it a shot, hopefully I am as entertaining as annoying his "siblings"
I have collected such an array of toys since Sirius joined us... interactive toys, wands, tunnels, a wide cat tree he can climb, you name it. His faves are *SOME* catnip toys and some toys made with ethically sourced real rabbit fur (which I hate to touch but oh hey!). But they still don't entertain him as much as taunting Ruby.

Picture to show how they *can* coexist without drama... this morning in the catio: Ruby on the left, Sirius on the right (excuse the mess, we re in the process of adding more shelves!)