Early morning aggression

[tpapictures]

We have two cats and when Cat A gets hungry, he will find if he cant wake us up that he will just go over to Cat B and start slowly stlking and creepily approach him, charge him a bit and try to nip at him. We have never responded to this in a way that would have taight him that it gets our attention. He just has always done this with out last cat and now with this newer one we adopted 3 months ago. Introduction went well, but he just insists on doing this
Any toughts on how 'to help Cat A redirect this aggression? We can't keep waking up to growls at 6:30AM. It happens, we wake up, we break them up with no yelling or disciplining them, then we wait 5 minutes so he doesn't think behaving like that will get him food. But this is becoming exhausting. Heathwise they're both fine, by the way..

If anyone has any thoughts/questions/recommendations, we're all ears.

 

[ArtNJ]

Cats can get weird when hungry. I had one that would eat plastic only when hungry. And we have had several posters describe play aggression against other cats when hungry. You seem to believe that its genuine hunger (rather than food anxiety), so I would start by examining the feeding schedule & what is fed. If you can post it here, we can give thoughts on how you might modify it.

 

[Kris107]

I do wonder if you did somehow teach him that that behavior gets you to wake up (to break up the fights) and then 5 minutes later, get fed. Cats are often naturally more wild in the AM. To truly teach him that he gets nothing with that behavior, it means staying put and letting them work it out. If you're worried about injury, then what about keeping the cats separate at night? Currently, my 2 cats sleep separately.

 

[FeebysOwner]

I agree about reviewing the feeding schedule - and the quantity given at each meal. He may need to eat earlier or may need his last meal of the day to be larger. You can always consider getting timed feeders and have even more flexibility about changing up the schedule to help see what works best. If it were me, this is where I would start and go from there.

Most of the time behaviors like this should be resolved rather than ignored, but this is especially true when another cat is suffering the consequences.

 

[Alldara]

I also agree with checking in on food. Personally, I'm also a monster when I'm hangry

Just an example of ideas below.

I give my guys their food last thing before bed and that pushed my 4:30 Magnus wake up to 5:30. I had to add a bit more food and play with the quantities to get to the 7 am wake-up. Magnus's metabolism is fast and he's energetic so has closer to 30 calories per pound of body mass and the other two have 20 calories per pound (approximately, and a bit more on days when they are hyper hyper hyper).

I leave out a puzzle for each of them with about 10 kibbles. They eat that while I prepare for bed. The wet food is prepared before I give them the puzzles so they ignore it until they are hungry again.

 

[maggie101]

Cats are starving in the morning so besides a timer chew toys

 

[cmshap]

Food puzzles were mentioned in one post. I actually know a fellow cat person who puts food puzzles out in the morning to keep her cats busy.

They wake up super early, like at 5am, while their human wants to continue sleeping. So she has food puzzles ready, in her nightstand by her bed, and tosses them out once her cats start bothering her. That buys her another hour of sleep.

This is all secondhand information so I don't have personal experience with this. I did when my cat, Willy, was younger (he would yowl in the morning when he wanted food), but I adjusted his nighttime feeding schedule to later, and it wasn't a problem as he got older.

(But waking up early and just being energetic, wanting to play, was an issue for a long time. And bothering me in the middle of the night, as a person with chronic insomnia.)

 

[maggie101]

I forgot about trixie puzzles! My cats love this one
My cart is smart but she could not figure out how to get the treat out of the bowl. Peaches likes sliding her paw in the tunnel
Amazon.com

 

[di and bob]

I started leaving out a good quality grain-free dry for them to snack on at night. Tractor Supply has a great selection. If you get up to use teh bathroom during the night, you could have it in a cabinet and put it out then, so the don't have all night to snack. i think once he loses his food insecurity because he knows food will be there, he'll leave the other cat alone. Mine gets all excited when I am dishing up the food and jumps on his brother. Usually me yelling at him gets him to stop. Putting down the food, definitely does!

 

[tpapictures]

Thank you all for your comments... So, a few comments:

Cats can get weird when hungry. I had one that would eat plastic only when hungry. And we have had several posters describe play aggression against other cats when hungry. You seem to believe that its genuine hunger (rather than food anxiety), so I would start by examining the feeding schedule & what is fed. If you can post it here, we can give thoughts on how you might modify it.

Ours does the plastic thing too. And licking shoe laces. I have to think that it's hunger because I don't believe we have any evidence of food anxiety. Unless of course I'm not understanding the idea of food anxiety. He's not worried there won't be any food, if that's what you're referring to. He's incredibly un-food motivated to begin other than getting hungry when he gets hungry so anything involving enticing him with food is basically ineffective. His feeding schedule isn't a schedule really at all. He gets small meals throughout the day at random times and when he looks for us asking for food. He has places he'll go to in the kitchen when he's asking for food. How his food is served to him has to be varied frequently. Maybe once a week. Otherwise something about the routine bores him and he simply won't eat. You can read all about both of them here for further details. I think some of you already have. It's a whole massive project with them we're constantly monitoring and trying to work out.

I do wonder if you did somehow teach him that that behavior gets you to wake up (to break up the fights) and then 5 minutes later, get fed. Cats are often naturally more wild in the AM. To truly teach him that he gets nothing with that behavior, it means staying put and letting them work it out. If you're worried about injury, then what about keeping the cats separate at night? Currently, my 2 cats sleep separately.

Leaving him alone with the previous cat literally could end in altercations that ended in injury. Our previous cat was incredibly volatile and went to a red zone immediately if challenged. His response when we left them alone at first was to fight back when he couldn't take it anymore and extremely violent altercations ensued which were sparked by the current cat's creepy stalking behaviour. (I'm personifying for effect of course, I don't actually think he's trying to be creepy in a human way). So when he started with the new cat, knowing how much it set back Cat A and the previous cat's relations, we felt we had to intervene with the new Cat B. But you're right, to some degree he may know it gets us up. Which is why we get up but try not to "react". We walk in between non verbally, we act like othe cats in the group walking through and disrupting the behaviour.

I agree about reviewing the feeding schedule - and the quantity given at each meal. He may need to eat earlier or may need his last meal of the day to be larger. You can always consider getting timed feeders and have even more flexibility about changing up the schedule to help see what works best. If it were me, this is where I would start and go from there.
Most of the time behaviors like this should be resolved rather than ignored, but this is especially true when another cat is suffering the consequences.

Agreed entirely about resolution and its importance here behaviourally and otherwise. To say nothing of our stress levels. As far as feeding more before bed, we can't. As the day progresses he becomes less and less interested in food. He eats more in his meals earlier in the day. All health checks suggest he is fine. We trust our vet entirely.

I also agree with checking in on food. Personally, I'm also a monster when I'm hangry
Just an example of ideas below.
I give my guys their food last thing before bed and that pushed my 4:30 Magnus wake up to 5:30. I had to add a bit more food and play with the quantities to get to the 7 am wake-up. Magnus's metabolism is fast and he's energetic so has closer to 30 calories per pound of body mass and the other two have 20 calories per pound (approximately, and a bit more on days when they are hyper hyper hyper).
I leave out a puzzle for each of them with about 10 kibbles. They eat that while I prepare for bed. The wet food is prepared before I give them the puzzles so they ignore it until they are hungry again.

Sounds like you understand entirely. Kibbles aren't going to work for us, Cat A is simply not into it at all. Occassionally he'll get into dry food (we like N&D and its the only one we'll feed him because we don't like the ingredients of any others, corn starch, species inappropriate veg, Cat A is violently allergic to pulses and tapioca starch found in almost all dry foods). Puzzles are an interesting possibility that we have not tried and it might just snap him out of this a bit but it would have to be one that could hold wet food and only a few kibbles. Treats don't work generally with him.

Cats are starving in the morning so besides a timer chew toys

Chew toys have no effect whatsoever on him. Toys in general have very little effect unless WE are playing with him.

I adjusted his nighttime feeding schedule to later, and it wasn't a problem as he got older. (But waking up early and just being energetic, wanting to play, was an issue for a long time. And bothering me in the middle of the night, as a person with chronic insomnia.)

So like the other person previously, you understand entirely and with chronic insomnia you would know and be affected by this even more than us. Later than what we feed him would basically mean waking to feed him in the middle of the night. He gets his last meal around 1AM as is.

I started leaving out a good quality grain-free dry for them to snack on at night. Tractor Supply has a great selection. If you get up to use teh bathroom during the night, you could have it in a cabinet and put it out then, so the don't have all night to snack. i think once he loses his food insecurity because he knows food will be there, he'll leave the other cat alone. Mine gets all excited when I am dishing up the food and jumps on his brother. Usually me yelling at him gets him to stop. Putting down the food, definitely does!

Yeah, I get it, but as I mentioned above he won't eat dry with any regularity. That would be ineffective. I agree that if he knows there's food he may not go after Cat B (I only call them Cat A and B because it lessens confusion, but it kills me not referring to them by name . It's just easier for talking here and getting everyone's great help).

These are both very very very difficult and behaviourally/socially/nutritionally complicated cats from extraordinarily tough backgrounds we have adopted as adults/seniors because we couldn't bear the thought of them being left unadopted for so long. We love helping cats like this but these two have been a massive challenge. We've had A for about 5 years. B was just adopted this summer. They tolerate each other fine (as Jackson Galaxy says to aim for) but this morning thing is a set back. B has other setbacks about refusing any food other than one particular can but that's in the other post.

 

[ArtNJ]

Well, that does sound like a real PITA and difficult situation. Normally, I think your feeding schedule is excellent and prevents food anxiety. I do the same thing. However, in your particular case, it seems like he is the opposite of a cat with food anxiety -- he has concluded that he doesn't really have to eat until he is actually hungry, because there will always be food when he gets hungry, and if there isn't, that is an outrage!

One suggestion would be to do a bigger moist food feeding right before bed. Yes, it may sit a bit and brown. And yes, your cats might not eat browned food during the day. But I've found that at night, when they know no more food is coming standards are different, and my cats WILL generally eat all the moist food I put down, eventually. As long as I dont over do it.

 

[imogen]

Can Cat A be put in a closed room for the night? I'd feed him in his bedroom (lol), leave out dry kibble, and shut the door. You might miss his snuggles...but it might buy you a little more sleep and Cat B a little peace.

 

[tpapictures]

Can Cat A be put in a closed room for the night? I'd feed him in his bedroom (lol), leave out dry kibble, and shut the door. You might miss his snuggles...but it might buy you a little more sleep and Cat B a little peace.

Since their introduction, which involved separation via a closed door and then gradually a see through screen/fence that was placed at the door of the new cat's room and then moved to different parts of the apartment as his desire to explore grew, any attempt to sort of keep them separate only has the effect of aggravating them more. Each one know what else there is and becomes very distressed when they can't have access.
We're saying all this now but we haven't actually had an outburst in several days. We have started leaving wet food for Cat A, that luckily Cat B doesn't like when we go to bed. We know it's free feeding but we know Cat A will nibble here and there throughout the night as necessary and we figure we'd rather deal with that than any aggression issues between them. B is very content to cohabitate if A isn't being a prick. So their ability to be happy is more important to us at the moment than having a few odd unconventional eating patterns overnight.

 

[Alldara]

Some cats just need to free feed. Glad you found one Cat B will leave down!

Our trick became that Ghost won't go on the bathroom counter because the mirrors scare him. So we can leave food overnight there for Magnus. Oh the mental gymnastics we do for our cats huh?

 

[imogen]

Some cats just need to free feed. Glad you found one Cat B will leave down!

Our trick became that Ghost won't go on the bathroom counter because the mirrors scare him. So we can leave food overnight there for Magnus. Oh the mental gymnastics we do for our cats huh?

In all the cats we've had, only one had a problem with free-feeding. All the rest have been able to regulate themselves. I think a bowl of kibble out all the time reduces anxiety and the demands that feeding wet food intermittently does. (Personal preference, I understand!)

If you're looking for a kibble to start, Royal Canin baby has something in it that draws cats to it. It would be simple to mix it with your food of choice afterwards to change kibbles. But, not all kibbles are palatable to all cats. You might have to try a few. Our current vet recommends Purina Pro Plan and all our cats like it. In the past I've fed Royal Canin and IAMS.

 

[tpapictures]

Thanks again for all the advice. We've been continuiong forward with this trying to resolve the issue. There are periods when this isn't an issue, but it's gotten to the point where every single morning, around 7, the one cat just insists on stalking the other. And it's not play. It's not flat out assault either but it's far more aggression than play. We had a bad incident happen in the early evening this time instead of 7am as the first cat decided he didn't like his food. We are usually woken by the hissing or grolwing of the other cat. We have tried not respoding immediately (impossibly difficult) to not encourage him to do it for our attention, we've tried just getting up and ignoring it as we start preparing a meal for each of them in the kitchen, we've tried getting up and trying to redirect that aggression and self defense into play... it isn't working.
We don't want to separate them and start introducing again for various reasons, but mostly because this isn't two cats who can't be around each other, it's just this one interaction that doesn't work. When the first cat doesn't get the food he wants, he thinks going after the other one is how to solve the problem. We're thinking about paying a behaviourist for advice because we seem to be tapped out of fixes on this for the first time ever in 20 years of owning cats. In the meantime we can still set up the see through fence we made when they were introducing back in October, but this feels like both may get even more aggravated. It's just the only way right now to ensure nobody gets hurt as we are awoken.
Any ideas would be welcome.

 

[Alldara]

A behaviourist would be able to be at your home to see the ins and outs that we cannot.

I can't remember but for feeding time is there any way to just shut one cat in a room for 20 minutes and be done with it? Can't be aggressive if there's a closed door between them. Could break the behaviour cycle.

Even if it's the other feeding times and not the AM one...

 

[maggie101]

Do you have carpet or wood/laminate? My cats stopped playing when they replaced the carpet to laminate so I bought some big rugs and they're back to playing

 

[tpapictures]

For two nights we've put up our fence again in a neutral place. It allows both cats access to essentially a half of the apartment each. And luckily, at least for now, it happens to be the half each one likes. There have been no fights naturally, and waking up to feed hasn't needed to happen either, but during the day, the cat who gets hounded by the other cat is walking around acting like he's worried. It's like putting up the fence has made him want to explore the apartment again as though he were just being allowed out for the first time and that's making him incrediby tense. Very quick to snap and grumble. But then just as quickly he can be ok with a soft pet on his head.

So, yes, the nights are smoother, but as we feared, the new cat is being somehow made to recall early anxiety from when he frirst arrived 3 months ago. Or at least that's been the case for 2 days. That charge from the other cat a few evenings ago has clearly set him back again. Now it could be another day of needing to leave him alone again for him to calm down. Playing that aggression out makes him more angry and the hissing becomes growling and spitting and clearly stressed. We need to research what play and what toys can be used with a cat who has so much anxiety that it angers him to try playing with him.

I absolutely can not stand how people have cats and treat them like crap for 11 years only to dump them at a shelter and have people like my wife and I have to help them through all their behavioural problems. If we hadn't taken him, he'd never have found a home. Poor guy. He can hate us all he wants, at least he has a safe home with people who won't quit on him.