Feudin' like the Hatfields and McCoys

carolpetunia

TCS Member
Thread starter
Top Cat
Joined
Oct 25, 2005
Messages
9,669
Purraise
17
Location
Plano, Texas
I'm thrilled to have a chance to bring this up with a bona fide behaviorist! Thank you so much for being here.

Let me try to nutshell our household: My elderly parents and I share a house with six cats, all strictly indoors, all speutered, all between 1 and 6 years of age and in good health. Abby (6) is a former feral who loves her humans, but is terrified of other cats, so she lives in my father's room. Dylan (5), Clyde (3), and St. John (1) are all boys and get along well most of the time.

The problems are named Sassy and Pearl.


Sassy (4) is a longhaired calitortie glamour girl, overly plump, incredibly loving toward her humans and toward Dylan (they were once the only two in the house), and friendly toward St. John and Clyde... but not toward Pearl.

Pearl (almost 3) is a medium-haired grey beauty, much smaller than Sassy, also extremely affectionate toward her humans, and she was Clyde's original companion. Pearl gets along pretty well with everyone... except Sassy.

Let me insert here what our litterbox arrangements are: Abby has one to herself in her room, of course, and there's another in my bedroom for Clyde and Pearl, who usually sleep with me. There's one in my mom's room for St. John, who sleeps with her. And in the sunroom, available to all five "whole house" cats, is a Litter Robot, which we dearly love. The cats like it too, and prefer it over the other boxes. Although we have never had the standard "one box per cat, plus one," we'd never had a problem at all.

Sassy and Pearl have never been friends, but for at least a year, they harbored a manageable level of hostility. I think it began with Pearl wanting to play with Sassy, Sassy not interested, and Pearl being a pest. Neither is really the aggressor now -- they simply go into growl-and-stalk mode instantly when they see each other. As far as we can see, though, there has never been any actual injury beyond the tiniest scratches, thank goodness (and very, very rarely that).

Six months ago, we began finding puddles on the sofa and on the throw rugs. The puddles started appearing in the kitchen, even on the countertops, and there was sometimes more than just puddles, too.

Then one day, we realized that Sassy was almost never leaving the kitchen. At night, when Pearl was in my room, Sassy would come out and visit the Litter Robot, snuggle up with Dylan, and behave like her usual self. But when Pearl was free... Sassy would not venture out of the kitchen, even to go to the litterbox.

We took Sassy to the vet to be sure she was well, and she was, aside from her excess weight. We tried a Feliway diffuser in the kitchen, in the sunroom, in the living room between... no change. In desperation, we finally put a litterbox in the kitchen, just to keep it from happening until we could figure out a real solution.

We even took Sassy to an alternative vet and got prescriptions for Prozac and some herbal calmatives... but the act of giving her the medicine was so massively traumatic to her (and to us!) that we finally gave that up. Sassy won't eat anything but dry food, so it's very hard to sneak anything past her.

So... no real solution has appeared, and we really hate having a litterbox in the kitchen. Is there any way to help Sassy and Pearl learn to get along?
 

catpsych

TCS Member
Veteran
Joined
Jun 14, 2007
Messages
75
Purraise
5
Location
Tallahassee, Florida USA
Wow, you've got a tough on for me. mmmmmm, let's see......It sounds like Pearl is resource gaurding. Your best bet would be to up the number of litterboxes, basically so that no matter where Sassy is in the house she can easily access one. I would also restart the introduction process over with Pearl and Sassy. I've noted in my studies that the aggressor is best kept in a separate room and the victim is left to have roam of the home. It seems to help balance things out, the victim gets her confidence back by being able to roam the home without being jumped and the aggressor redefines his territory (in his smaller room, and not the whole house). So I would try with Pearl being placed in her own room and Sassy having run of the home, and slowly begin the reintroduction process and keep lots of litterboxes available, of course you can relocate the litterbox that is in the kitchen to a more preferable location.
I know how that is, no one likes little litter pieces stuck to their feet when your trying to cook or get your morning cup of coffee. The whole process couild take only a matter of weeks, yet sometimes with stubborn kitties it can take months! Good Luck with it, I wish you all the best!



Originally Posted by CarolPetunia

I'm thrilled to have a chance to bring this up with a bona fide behaviorist! Thank you so much for being here.

Let me try to nutshell our household: My elderly parents and I share a house with six cats, all strictly indoors, all speutered, all between 1 and 6 years of age and in good health. Abby (6) is a former feral who loves her humans, but is terrified of other cats, so she lives in my father's room. Dylan (5), Clyde (3), and St. John (1) are all boys and get along well most of the time.

The problems are named Sassy and Pearl.


Sassy (4) is a longhaired calitortie glamour girl, overly plump, incredibly loving toward her humans and toward Dylan (they were once the only two in the house), and friendly toward St. John and Clyde... but not toward Pearl.

Pearl (almost 3) is a medium-haired grey beauty, much smaller than Sassy, also extremely affectionate toward her humans, and she was Clyde's original companion. Pearl gets along pretty well with everyone... except Sassy.

Let me insert here what our litterbox arrangements are: Abby has one to herself in her room, of course, and there's another in my bedroom for Clyde and Pearl, who usually sleep with me. There's one in my mom's room for St. John, who sleeps with her. And in the sunroom, available to all five "whole house" cats, is a Litter Robot, which we dearly love. The cats like it too, and prefer it over the other boxes. Although we have never had the standard "one box per cat, plus one," we'd never had a problem at all.

Sassy and Pearl have never been friends, but for at least a year, they harbored a manageable level of hostility. I think it began with Pearl wanting to play with Sassy, Sassy not interested, and Pearl being a pest. Neither is really the aggressor now -- they simply go into growl-and-stalk mode instantly when they see each other. As far as we can see, though, there has never been any actual injury beyond the tiniest scratches, thank goodness (and very, very rarely that).

Six months ago, we began finding puddles on the sofa and on the throw rugs. The puddles started appearing in the kitchen, even on the countertops, and there was sometimes more than just puddles, too.

Then one day, we realized that Sassy was almost never leaving the kitchen. At night, when Pearl was in my room, Sassy would come out and visit the Litter Robot, snuggle up with Dylan, and behave like her usual self. But when Pearl was free... Sassy would not venture out of the kitchen, even to go to the litterbox.

We took Sassy to the vet to be sure she was well, and she was, aside from her excess weight. We tried a Feliway diffuser in the kitchen, in the sunroom, in the living room between... no change. In desperation, we finally put a litterbox in the kitchen, just to keep it from happening until we could figure out a real solution.

We even took Sassy to an alternative vet and got prescriptions for Prozac and some herbal calmatives... but the act of giving her the medicine was so massively traumatic to her (and to us!) that we finally gave that up. Sassy won't eat anything but dry food, so it's very hard to sneak anything past her.

So... no real solution has appeared, and we really hate having a litterbox in the kitchen. Is there any way to help Sassy and Pearl learn to get along?
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #3

carolpetunia

TCS Member
Thread starter
Top Cat
Joined
Oct 25, 2005
Messages
9,669
Purraise
17
Location
Plano, Texas
Thank you, Kerry! We'll load the outlets up with Feliway diffusers and (ulp) give that a try.
 
Top