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- Nov 13, 2024
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“The 3 cat problem”
Sorry, this is so long, but maybe some of you will get to the bottom & leave suggestions & comments.
(A preamble to this thread & Pics can be found in the “New Cats on the Block” thread.)
I have 3 wonderful recue kitties each coming to me from very different circumstances all within the last 6 months. Moxy died in Jan 2024 (see “new member forum). Loki arrived (Bengal 1) in April 24, Smoki and Leo (Bengal 2) Sep 24. When I was growing up (50-60’s) most people had multiple cats by ‘accident’ and were just brought together with no intros & left to sort it out as best they could. But I know now from reading cat forums & friends & family with experience that cat introductions could be tricky. So we converted one of our now empty bedrooms to a ‘cat’ room & went looking for another young Bengal as a buddy for Loki. Moxy had been a Bengal (also a rescue) & I fell in love with the breed. Available Bengal rescues are very hard to come by in the NE. So, after a couple of months with no luck, I widened my search to other cats and found a ‘2’ yro (no DOB & our vet puts him closer to 4) tabby who’d been confined at the shelter for what I was told was 4mo. He seemed like a nice cat and his circumstances pulled at my heart, so I adopted him in early Sep. and changed his name to Smoki (the overworked foster mom said he had been abandoned & came to her without a name). It turned out that, though he was fine & friendly with his caregiver, & though he was one of 9 other fosters kept in separate cages due to lack of enough foster homes and that had actually been in a cage for 9 mo., when I released him into his new home, he literally went catatonic! For 4 days he hardly moved, would not let anyone touch him, took no food, & did not use the litter box at all although he did drink water. With great difficulty we got him to the vet to make sure he wasn’t blocked & otherwise healthy.
To complicate matters more, 2 days after bringing him home (Sept.), I was offered a young Bengal (2yr) from a desperate, soon to be mother who found me through local search on Adopt-a-Pet by way of a search that I didn’t know was still active, and I adopted him as well. His name is Leo. Both new cats are neutered males. And since the new ones (all vet records were in order & confirmed by me & my vet) had no territorial claims (well Smoki had claimed a tiny space under a piece of exercise equipment), we decided to put them together under supervision(cameras) in the cat room. Amazingly they got along fine. Loki had had free use of the rest of the house since about 1 hr. after he arrived in April. Leo actually helped Schmoki come out of his shell! Bill & I are empty nesters with 2 empty bedrooms, so we put a couple of cameras in with the 2 new cats along with everything else a cat needs, in one of those rooms. Within 1 month they were fast friends, so we then started the process to introducing them to introduce them to Loki.
We had had a plan for a slow intro, but unfortunately, after spending a couple of weeks gradually getting used to each other through the screen door so they can see and smell each other etc., Loki (Bengal 1) managed to get by me and attacked Leo (2nd Bengal) with such vehemence that I was sure Loki would kill the other cat if he had the chance! So now we had to start over. Loki had never been at all aggressive. I had traveled out of state to my sister’s house to find him & I had introduced him to my sister's cats with no problems. He also had been buddies with the cat his foster mom owned, so I thought he would be fine. Big mistake #1. In addition, I had been told, and I had had experience with this also, that neutered boys were more likely to become ‘bros’. Unfortunately, by bringing home Leo I now had 3 neutered males. Big mistake # 2!
And since we knew we had to start again & I finally realized that I needed help. And since the problem seemed to only be between the 2 Bengals, I tried to get help from a Bengal forum called “Bengal Help & Advice”, but I found out later that that group until recently was called "Bengal Cat Lovers". It seemed that the members have not yet adopted the spirit of the new name and ignored my plea for help. The site does hosts an incredible number of gorgeous cat & kitten pictures to admire there. which ordinarily I appreciate, but I was looking for help, so I turned to my vet and a vet tech friend, podcasts from cat behaviorists, & cat forums including this forum.
So far, we have tried a couple of our vet’s recommendations, which came with the disclaimer that she is not a cat behaviorist, and that these were the tools available to their practice. One was that we indeed needed to start over with the slow no physical contact for a couple of weeks & add a couple of multi-cat pheromone diffusers on both sides of the door. Two; observe the behavior of the two Bengals for signs of aggressive or fear reactions during the cooling off period. We had determined that Leo displayed more of a fear-based aggression and Loki’s aggression was territorial. Smoki by this time had become Leo’s buddy & they played extensively. He’d come out of his shell completely & displayed an amazing amount of confidence & he now only seemed to care about the fact that he had a home and a fearless freedom he’d not known for a long while. Before his confinement, he was trapped in the wild and assumed feral. But once he had confidence in his caregivers, he became the affectionate in a way that told them that he had had a home at some time. And during this process, & from Smoki’s & Loki’s behavior, we were pretty confident that a supervised visit between Smoki & Loki would be a good place to start. The meeting went like this: Smoki’s demeaner was totally one of self-confidence, & in Loki’s presence seem to be saying something like, “I’ve experienced lots more scary things than you, so how about you leave me in peace & I’ll return the favor” & Loki turned & walked away! That was that. Now Smoki enjoys lots of play time with Leo at night & seems to be totally at home with Loki (no playing yet). We now refer to him as the Diplomat.
The vet also suggested that we might try gabapentin when we started doing their first new meet & greet with Leo which we tried. Sadly, that backfired. On the dosage the vet prescribed Loki became a “mean drunk”. We could have tried lower doses, but I just generally didn’t think it was a good approach for these cats. So, after a lot of thought & online research we decided to try her 2nd medical intervention which was to start Bengal 1 & Bengal 2 on fluoxetine (Prozac for cats) & wait another month. That month took us to last week. We have had 4 short meetings (<1hr). 2 of the meetings went well although our vet suggested we have brooms available in case Loki became aggressive & when that did happen, it was my husband Bill who ended up intervening by separating the two by placing his broom between them shoeing Loki away using a gentle push with the broom. In this case Leo had held his ground & managed to look serene while Loki tensed & his hair came up. Loki seemed to understand & left the room.
As it happens, I had not read this thread yet, so didn’t understand how this this might appear to the cats! The next day during the time we set aside for free access to Leo & Smoki we discovered that one of the cats had peed on our bed on Bill’s side! Fortunately, I had a waterproof pad below the linens so only had to change the linens, unfortunately that included a king down quilt! Also, we weren’t sure who ‘done it’, because both Bengals had had access since we made the bed. For a lot of reasons, I pretty much knew it was not Smoki or Loki. But we vowed to keep our door shut at all times, & did not reprimand any of them for obvious reasons. The next day, Bill forgot to close it during a critical time. However, this did allow me to catch Leo in the act, so now we knew the ‘who done it’. I grabbed Leo’s scruff and deposited him outside the room with a strong NO! (I may have raised my voice a tiny bit), but nothing more. I had suspected it was him as he’s the 2 yro (Loki & Smoki are 4) & I really didn’t think it was Loki, he has his own issues, but this wasn’t one of them. My amateur psych skills told me that this was Leo’s way of claiming Bill as his champion/protector, but who knows…
And now what? One of us will surely make a mistake again with the door (we’ve added a waterproof layer to the top). And I know this situation may continue for some time, and I really want to succeed, but this is stressful for all participants (except maybe Smoki) and it’s gone on for months already. In the last few days, we’ve tried a couple more times and there has been some more success where they are all free. Then the next time, Loki will make overt aggressive moves & in those occasions I remove him by taking ahold of him by his scruff while staying calm & put him in another room & close the door for 10-15 min. I don’t want to l more lose any of them because they’re my kitties now & they have all had a tuff enough life so far, but we really can’t afford expensive cat therapy. We gladly appreciate comments & suggestions on what to do/expect going forward! Thank You!
Sorry, this is so long, but maybe some of you will get to the bottom & leave suggestions & comments.
(A preamble to this thread & Pics can be found in the “New Cats on the Block” thread.)
I have 3 wonderful recue kitties each coming to me from very different circumstances all within the last 6 months. Moxy died in Jan 2024 (see “new member forum). Loki arrived (Bengal 1) in April 24, Smoki and Leo (Bengal 2) Sep 24. When I was growing up (50-60’s) most people had multiple cats by ‘accident’ and were just brought together with no intros & left to sort it out as best they could. But I know now from reading cat forums & friends & family with experience that cat introductions could be tricky. So we converted one of our now empty bedrooms to a ‘cat’ room & went looking for another young Bengal as a buddy for Loki. Moxy had been a Bengal (also a rescue) & I fell in love with the breed. Available Bengal rescues are very hard to come by in the NE. So, after a couple of months with no luck, I widened my search to other cats and found a ‘2’ yro (no DOB & our vet puts him closer to 4) tabby who’d been confined at the shelter for what I was told was 4mo. He seemed like a nice cat and his circumstances pulled at my heart, so I adopted him in early Sep. and changed his name to Smoki (the overworked foster mom said he had been abandoned & came to her without a name). It turned out that, though he was fine & friendly with his caregiver, & though he was one of 9 other fosters kept in separate cages due to lack of enough foster homes and that had actually been in a cage for 9 mo., when I released him into his new home, he literally went catatonic! For 4 days he hardly moved, would not let anyone touch him, took no food, & did not use the litter box at all although he did drink water. With great difficulty we got him to the vet to make sure he wasn’t blocked & otherwise healthy.
To complicate matters more, 2 days after bringing him home (Sept.), I was offered a young Bengal (2yr) from a desperate, soon to be mother who found me through local search on Adopt-a-Pet by way of a search that I didn’t know was still active, and I adopted him as well. His name is Leo. Both new cats are neutered males. And since the new ones (all vet records were in order & confirmed by me & my vet) had no territorial claims (well Smoki had claimed a tiny space under a piece of exercise equipment), we decided to put them together under supervision(cameras) in the cat room. Amazingly they got along fine. Loki had had free use of the rest of the house since about 1 hr. after he arrived in April. Leo actually helped Schmoki come out of his shell! Bill & I are empty nesters with 2 empty bedrooms, so we put a couple of cameras in with the 2 new cats along with everything else a cat needs, in one of those rooms. Within 1 month they were fast friends, so we then started the process to introducing them to introduce them to Loki.
We had had a plan for a slow intro, but unfortunately, after spending a couple of weeks gradually getting used to each other through the screen door so they can see and smell each other etc., Loki (Bengal 1) managed to get by me and attacked Leo (2nd Bengal) with such vehemence that I was sure Loki would kill the other cat if he had the chance! So now we had to start over. Loki had never been at all aggressive. I had traveled out of state to my sister’s house to find him & I had introduced him to my sister's cats with no problems. He also had been buddies with the cat his foster mom owned, so I thought he would be fine. Big mistake #1. In addition, I had been told, and I had had experience with this also, that neutered boys were more likely to become ‘bros’. Unfortunately, by bringing home Leo I now had 3 neutered males. Big mistake # 2!
And since we knew we had to start again & I finally realized that I needed help. And since the problem seemed to only be between the 2 Bengals, I tried to get help from a Bengal forum called “Bengal Help & Advice”, but I found out later that that group until recently was called "Bengal Cat Lovers". It seemed that the members have not yet adopted the spirit of the new name and ignored my plea for help. The site does hosts an incredible number of gorgeous cat & kitten pictures to admire there. which ordinarily I appreciate, but I was looking for help, so I turned to my vet and a vet tech friend, podcasts from cat behaviorists, & cat forums including this forum.
So far, we have tried a couple of our vet’s recommendations, which came with the disclaimer that she is not a cat behaviorist, and that these were the tools available to their practice. One was that we indeed needed to start over with the slow no physical contact for a couple of weeks & add a couple of multi-cat pheromone diffusers on both sides of the door. Two; observe the behavior of the two Bengals for signs of aggressive or fear reactions during the cooling off period. We had determined that Leo displayed more of a fear-based aggression and Loki’s aggression was territorial. Smoki by this time had become Leo’s buddy & they played extensively. He’d come out of his shell completely & displayed an amazing amount of confidence & he now only seemed to care about the fact that he had a home and a fearless freedom he’d not known for a long while. Before his confinement, he was trapped in the wild and assumed feral. But once he had confidence in his caregivers, he became the affectionate in a way that told them that he had had a home at some time. And during this process, & from Smoki’s & Loki’s behavior, we were pretty confident that a supervised visit between Smoki & Loki would be a good place to start. The meeting went like this: Smoki’s demeaner was totally one of self-confidence, & in Loki’s presence seem to be saying something like, “I’ve experienced lots more scary things than you, so how about you leave me in peace & I’ll return the favor” & Loki turned & walked away! That was that. Now Smoki enjoys lots of play time with Leo at night & seems to be totally at home with Loki (no playing yet). We now refer to him as the Diplomat.
The vet also suggested that we might try gabapentin when we started doing their first new meet & greet with Leo which we tried. Sadly, that backfired. On the dosage the vet prescribed Loki became a “mean drunk”. We could have tried lower doses, but I just generally didn’t think it was a good approach for these cats. So, after a lot of thought & online research we decided to try her 2nd medical intervention which was to start Bengal 1 & Bengal 2 on fluoxetine (Prozac for cats) & wait another month. That month took us to last week. We have had 4 short meetings (<1hr). 2 of the meetings went well although our vet suggested we have brooms available in case Loki became aggressive & when that did happen, it was my husband Bill who ended up intervening by separating the two by placing his broom between them shoeing Loki away using a gentle push with the broom. In this case Leo had held his ground & managed to look serene while Loki tensed & his hair came up. Loki seemed to understand & left the room.
As it happens, I had not read this thread yet, so didn’t understand how this this might appear to the cats! The next day during the time we set aside for free access to Leo & Smoki we discovered that one of the cats had peed on our bed on Bill’s side! Fortunately, I had a waterproof pad below the linens so only had to change the linens, unfortunately that included a king down quilt! Also, we weren’t sure who ‘done it’, because both Bengals had had access since we made the bed. For a lot of reasons, I pretty much knew it was not Smoki or Loki. But we vowed to keep our door shut at all times, & did not reprimand any of them for obvious reasons. The next day, Bill forgot to close it during a critical time. However, this did allow me to catch Leo in the act, so now we knew the ‘who done it’. I grabbed Leo’s scruff and deposited him outside the room with a strong NO! (I may have raised my voice a tiny bit), but nothing more. I had suspected it was him as he’s the 2 yro (Loki & Smoki are 4) & I really didn’t think it was Loki, he has his own issues, but this wasn’t one of them. My amateur psych skills told me that this was Leo’s way of claiming Bill as his champion/protector, but who knows…
And now what? One of us will surely make a mistake again with the door (we’ve added a waterproof layer to the top). And I know this situation may continue for some time, and I really want to succeed, but this is stressful for all participants (except maybe Smoki) and it’s gone on for months already. In the last few days, we’ve tried a couple more times and there has been some more success where they are all free. Then the next time, Loki will make overt aggressive moves & in those occasions I remove him by taking ahold of him by his scruff while staying calm & put him in another room & close the door for 10-15 min. I don’t want to l more lose any of them because they’re my kitties now & they have all had a tuff enough life so far, but we really can’t afford expensive cat therapy. We gladly appreciate comments & suggestions on what to do/expect going forward! Thank You!
My neighbors all know I'm the kooky cat lady anyway!
