my 6 month old kitten is terrorizing my 1yr old cat

[caity_bean]

helllooo kind souls,
i have 4 cats and 3 of them live in perfect harmony but my 6m old kitten jasper loves to bully our 1yr old cat rudy. both are males and have been neutered. jasper has been like this since the beginning of him coming into the house and he knows not to target my older cats gary (4yrs M) and tofu 2yrs F) but for some reason he just constantly goes after rudy.
it starts off as rough play which is fine but 9/10 times the rough play will turn into jasper and rudy almost fighting it looks like. rudy will hiss and growl to get jasper to stop but jasper doesn’t listen so what ends up happening is me making a loud noise to get them to stop and removing jasper from the situation to give him some time to cool off while rudy is left w poofy tail and feeling disturbed. i’m not sure if it’s a dominant thing jaspers trying to prove or the fact that he knows he can take rudy? i’m not sure but what can i do to bring some peace between them?

 

[di and bob]

I haev this same problem and it continues ten years later. They are brothers! 6-month-old kittens are a pain in the you-know-what to older cats. They have two things on their mind, play and terrorize older cats. Get two kickeroos on Amazon and keep one 'steeping' in a catnip-filled plastic bag, (shake it out over the trash can) and throw one in the middle of them or nearby to see if you can distract that kitten. Interchange them often. If not, it will probably be a stern yell of 'NO"! and doing what you are doing.
Rudy must be the most tolerant of your cats, if he would fight back like your others are probably doing, this would stop. He still may. Once in a while the little brother turns against his bully, and then I have to yell at him! I do have to say though that in ten years no one has gotten really hurt, no blood drawn, not even any scabs, so I really think it is very rough play. your Rudy will finally fight back, or the kitten will most likely calm down a bunch as he gets older. so there really is no harm done, just on YOUR and Rudy's nerves! I want to see what others have to say, because I have really never found a permanent solution for this! Good luck!

 

[caity_bean]

if cat nip didn’t make both of them crazy that would be something i would try but cat nip doesn’t mellow these boys out. the no does work tho! i’m just hoping jasper will calm down or rudy will put him in his place which ever comes first!

 

[ArtNJ]

I think this is mostly just a youngster thing. Kittens and cats up to a year or so more often than not just want to play-play-play and disregard any and all signals of older cats. I dont know why they sometimes pick out one cat to play with even though none of them want too play like that. It might well be as di and bob said, that the others were willing to wump the annoying kitten. It does seem like cats that are able and willing to send a clear physical message do better. Normally, one year olds don't have a problem doing that -- they love to play also. Inability to send a physical message by pinning an annoying kitten is normally more of an older cat thing. But for whatever reason, you have a one year old that isn't willing to do it. Make sure you are giving the 1 year old a chance -- you dont have to intervene the second there is some hissing and growling. That is not necessarily anything other than communication of displeasure -- I'm done, leave me the bleep alone! That alone doesn't mean there is going to be a fight. The one year old turning it on a bit, pinning the kitten, biting its neck and holding the bite isn't necessarily fighting either -- that is physically dominating it and showing it that it has to stop when the older cat says so. Its a difference of intent -- there is no intent to actually injure.

Hopefully this improves with age. It normally does, and there is even a chance they will get all the way to friendship given the young ages.

 

[Alldara]

Some great points above. Another thing is how many play sessions are they getting with you and how often? Getting "some* of kitten's extra energy out will be beneficial.

But I'd also recommend using a kicker toy with the kitten and you play with with the kitten like that. Make a high pitched EEP sound if he accidentally or purposely gets you.

Our Calcifer used to get too rough sometimes and that's what's really helped him.