Kittens who grew up together growing apart? (hissing)

[DaNatCat]

I have two kittens from separate litters: S (spayed female, 8 months, 5.5 lbs) and D (neutered male, 8 months, 9.5 lbs). When we first introduced them we took care to do a slow introduction and did all the tricks, such as feeding them through the door and site/scent swapping. For a while, they always slept, played, and groomed together. However, recently S seems to be getting very annoyed at D. Ever since they first started playing, she has always been very vocal with lots of yowling.

S has recently been spayed and due to complications with her incision site she was confined to a large dog crate for a month. S and D still interacted with each other at this time but in a very supervised and muted way (no playing).

Now she is fully recovered from the surgery and they were able to resume living together as usual. But now when they wrestle it seems like she is genuinely upset and hissing a lot. Usually S will be minding her own business, such as looking out the window, then D will come over and tackle her and wrestle her. After a few seconds of this, S gets upset, hisses, and runs away. At first this was not much of an issue, but now it is happening multiple times every hour.

I think what is going on is that S used to be bigger and stronger than D, but because D has significantly outgrown her, his playing has become too rough for her. I don't think D is intending to hurt S, but he is a slow learner and I'm not quite sure he understands why she is mad because he will quickly re-engage her after she hisses and runs away. D also has freakishly long and sharp claws and I don't know if he understands how to play with them in. Is it possible to teach him how to play nicer? Or should I just let them work it out in their own way? They still groom each other and occasionally sleep next to each other so it seems as if they still like each other.

 

[ArtNJ]

I think your assessment is correct. With very young cats and a size difference of this magnitude, some protests from the smaller one and early disengaging is normal.

I would suggest cutting his nails if possible without crazy stress, trying what you feasibly can to get his energy out (more play), giving her some alone time with you now and then, and beyond that just letting them be.

As they grow and he chills, there is hope for improvement. Cats can play ok with very unequal sizes -- its just harder when one is young, overeager and oblivious to signals. I have a lean athletic 12 pound boy cat and a bony 9 pound girl cat. They have always liked each other and play well, but the girl is always the one to give up and will occassionally hiss if he is too insistent. Thats their permanent state -- hopefully you can get to that, but it might take a good bit of time. Most cats chill out to some degree before age two, but some stay overactive, so there are no guarranties. Even so, 1 year olds seem to be the worst for this sort of thing.

 

[DaNatCat]

I think your assessment is correct. With very young cats and a size difference of this magnitude, some protests from the smaller one and early disengaging is normal.

I would suggest cutting his nails if possible without crazy stress, trying what you feasibly can to get his energy out (more play), giving her some alone time with you now and then, and beyond that just letting them be.

As they grow and he chills, there is hope for improvement. Cats can play ok with very unequal sizes -- its just harder when one is young, overeager and oblivious to signals. I have a lean athletic 12 pound boy cat and a bony 9 pound girl cat. They have always liked each other and play well, but the girl is always the one to give up and will occassionally hiss if he is too insistent. Thats their permanent state -- hopefully you can get to that, but it might take a good bit of time. Most cats chill out to some degree before age two, but some stay overactive, so there are no guarranties. Even so, 1 year olds seem to be the worst for this sort of thing.

Thanks so much for the advice and timely response! A follow-up question: would you recommend against any scolding for D? Is it futile to try to teach him anything for this situation?

 

[ArtNJ]

Thanks so much for the advice and timely response! A follow-up question: would you recommend against any scolding for D? Is it futile to try to teach him anything for this situation?

I think its futile yes. You can *talk* to, say, 5 and 7 year old human boys, but they are *still* going to poke at each other in the car. With a cat, I just don't think the message is going to get through. "Play nicely" is just too complicated -- maybe in a very extreme case it would be worth trying to teach "don't play with the other cat at all" but "play nicely" seems beyond something that could be trained.

 

[furmonster mom]

Even though D has been neutered, he’s still a young male, and has male instincts. In my experience, boys tend to play more aggressively at that age in natural preparation for fighting and mating.

I think the suggestion for cutting his nails is prudent in any case, and maybe try to redirect his more aggressive moments to a special toy he can “fight” with.

 

[danteshuman]

So 3 kittens from 1 litter, 2 boys & 1 girl. The plays play fight or wrestlemania or thunderdome. The girl wants to play hide and seek or tag! Whenever the boys get bored (like when they are rained in and can’t go outside) they hunt their sister. They are 3.5 years old, fixed & still do this! In their case what works best is giving them an hour break from each other & playing with the boys or pulling out some amazing toys!

How the boys play fight and the boys cuddling. I love pulling out two of these hexabug mice or 2-3 hexabug toys and letting the cats watch the robotic critters run around the room.Robotic mice are way more exciting to hunt then their sister!

I would say put him in soft nail caps but the boys are nip happy when playing. What makes them squeal is when one nips the other’s belly.

Some cats get all loud and other cats will cry wolf. My last cat Salem would growl really loud every time my other cat Dante would hunt him! I even saw Salem use it by getting in Dantes bed then crying for mom by growling real loud! So I stopped Dante from hunting his brother and built up Salem’s confidence with 1 on 1 play. (I had to lock Dante out for that.)

 

[DaNatCat]

I think its futile yes. You can *talk* to, say, 5 and 7 year old human boys, but they are *still* going to poke at each other in the car. With a cat, I just don't think the message is going to get through. "Play nicely" is just too complicated -- maybe in a very extreme case it would be worth trying to teach "don't play with the other cat at all" but "play nicely" seems beyond something that could be trained.

Okay, thanks so much for the info!

 

[DaNatCat]

Even though D has been neutered, he’s still a young male, and has male instincts. In my experience, boys tend to play more aggressively at that age in natural preparation for fighting and mating.

I think the suggestion for cutting his nails is prudent in any case, and maybe try to redirect his more aggressive moments to a special toy he can “fight” with.

Okay, I will try that out, maybe he will like the big fish toy we have. Thanks for the help!

 

[DaNatCat]

So 3 kittens from 1 litter, 2 boys & 1 girl. The plays play fight or wrestlemania or thunderdome. The girl wants to play hide and seek or tag! Whenever the boys get bored (like when they are rained in and can’t go outside) they hunt their sister. They are 3.5 years old, fixed & still do this! In their case what works best is giving them an hour break from each other & playing with the boys or pulling out some amazing toys!

How the boys play fight and the boys cuddling. I love pulling out two of these hexabug mice or 2-3 hexabug toys and letting the cats watch the robotic critters run around the room.Robotic mice are way more exciting to hunt then their sister!

I would say put him in soft nail caps but the boys are nip happy when playing. What makes them squeal is when one nips the other’s belly.

Some cats get all loud and other cats will cry wolf. My last cat Salem would growl really loud every time my other cat Dante would hunt him! I even saw Salem use it by getting in Dantes bed then crying for mom by growling real loud! So I stopped Dante from hunting his brother and built up Salem’s confidence with 1 on 1 play. (I had to lock Dante out for that.)

Thanks so much for sharing! Your black cat looks just like D -- so handsome! I will look into those bugs, I've seen them before but forgot about them. And I do think S would benefit from some 1 on 1 play. Thanks for the response and cute photos!

 

[BoaztheAdventureCat]

I have two kittens from separate litters: S (spayed female, 8 months, 5.5 lbs) and D (neutered male, 8 months, 9.5 lbs). When we first introduced them we took care to do a slow introduction and did all the tricks, such as feeding them through the door and site/scent swapping. For a while, they always slept, played, and groomed together. However, recently S seems to be getting very annoyed at D. Ever since they first started playing, she has always been very vocal with lots of yowling.

S has recently been spayed and due to complications with her incision site she was confined to a large dog crate for a month. S and D still interacted with each other at this time but in a very supervised and muted way (no playing).

Now she is fully recovered from the surgery and they were able to resume living together as usual. But now when they wrestle it seems like she is genuinely upset and hissing a lot. Usually S will be minding her own business, such as looking out the window, then D will come over and tackle her and wrestle her. After a few seconds of this, S gets upset, hisses, and runs away. At first this was not much of an issue, but now it is happening multiple times every hour.

I think what is going on is that S used to be bigger and stronger than D, but because D has significantly outgrown her, his playing has become too rough for her. I don't think D is intending to hurt S, but he is a slow learner and I'm not quite sure he understands why she is mad because he will quickly re-engage her after she hisses and runs away. D also has freakishly long and sharp claws and I don't know if he understands how to play with them in. Is it possible to teach him how to play nicer? Or should I just let them work it out in their own way? They still groom each other and occasionally sleep next to each other so it seems as if they still like each other.

Your cats will likely grow further and further apart if D's persistence keeps up. You can wait for a while to see if they resolve the issue themselves, but you've got to draw the line somewhere. If S scolded D with a hiss, grow, or swat and he gave up and didn't start up again, you can be sure that they reconciled on their own. However, because D continues play attacking S despite S reprimanding him multiple times in quick succession, D is not getting the message.

If D goes on disrespecting S for too long, they won't resolve anything. What will likely happen is that the hostility will grow and grow between them because they're building up a larger and larger collection of negative experiences with each other.

I've had people tell me that I didn't wait long enough for my cat Boaz and my Dad's cat Posie (who live in the same house) to resolve their quarrels on their own. I disagree. I waited MONTHS and Posie's attempts at disciplining Boaz for playing too rough yielded no positive results. Instead, Posie grew to hate Boaz so much that she started getting possessive over the cats' toilet and Boaz became so afraid of her that he started relieving himself all over the house. In order to get Boaz to stop the house soiling, I had to keep him and Posie in separate portions of the house, not to meet again until they could be re-introduced properly.

Spend more time playing with D with his toys. Having 2 cats has many benefits, but it can also be a recipe for disaster if one cat is bored and has nothing else interesting to play with.

 

[DaNatCat]

Your cats will likely grow further and further apart if D's persistence keeps up. You can wait for a while to see if they resolve the issue themselves, but you've got to draw the line somewhere. If S scolded D with a hiss, grow, or swat and he gave up and didn't start up again, you can be sure that they reconciled on their own. However, because D continues play attacking S despite S reprimanding him multiple times in quick succession, D is not getting the message.

If D goes on disrespecting S for too long, they won't resolve anything. What will likely happen is that the hostility will grow and grow between them because they're building up a larger and larger collection of negative experiences with each other.

I've had people tell me that I didn't wait long enough for my cat Boaz and my Dad's cat Posie (who live in the same house) to resolve their quarrels on their own. I disagree. I waited MONTHS and Posie's attempts at disciplining Boaz for playing too rough yielded no positive results. Instead, Posie grew to hate Boaz so much that she started getting possessive over the cats' toilet and Boaz became so afraid of her that he started relieving himself all over the house. In order to get Boaz to stop the house soiling, I had to keep him and Posie in separate portions of the house, not to meet again until they could be re-introduced properly.

Spend more time playing with D with his toys. Having 2 cats has many benefits, but it can also be a recipe for disaster if one cat is bored and has nothing else interesting to play with.

Thanks so much for sharing your experience! We will definitely keep an eye on how this progresses. Things seem to have gotten better in the past few days. Firstly, now when these incidents happen we try to throw a toy in D's direction or distract him in some other way, secondly, S has gotten a bit better at not only anticipating when D is going to tackle her, but also running away to a spot D can't get to so quickly, and thirdly, D seems to have picked up on the idea a bit.

So we will keep monitoring how they interact, thanks to everyone for sharing your stories and helping us with this!