I have three cats. Oliver is at the center of this- he has a history of anxiety and self mutilation, but has improved over the years. He was previously on Prozac, but it did not seem to help him much. Last year Oliver had a bout of misdirected aggression toward another cat, Thor. They were separated and slowly brought back together and things seemed well. He later had another bad bout toward Thor, and at this point they have been living separated for at least five months. I know that with misdirected aggression they need to be brought back together very slowly, one stage at a time, starting with feeding them on opposite sides of a closed door. When that is going well, you can start moving forward in slow stages- but if Oliver smells Thor on the other side of the door, he will start trying to dig his way under it (he has *ruined* my carpets doing this.) He doesn't seem to be progressing at all so I can start other steps. On one occasion out of desperation I did let him into the room in a controlled way to see how he responded to actually seeing Thor, and he is still very, very fixated.
As the Prozac didn't seem to be helping, we started Oliver on Clomipramine, but that turned him into a zombie cat- he was sleeping all day and much less interactive and happy. We're currently trying it at a half dose, but it still seems to be having the same result. It also didn't improve the door digging to try and get at Thor. In good news, Oliver is still getting along with the other cat in the household, Stark (who also gets along with Thor). So I'm basically just rotating cats around every day so both Thor and Oliver get time in various rooms.
Is there any hope that Oliver and Thor can someday again coexist, or am I stuck just rotating them around forever? There is no doubt in my mind that right now if Oliver and Thor were to have a face to face meeting Oliver *would* attack him immediately and violently.
As the Prozac didn't seem to be helping, we started Oliver on Clomipramine, but that turned him into a zombie cat- he was sleeping all day and much less interactive and happy. We're currently trying it at a half dose, but it still seems to be having the same result. It also didn't improve the door digging to try and get at Thor. In good news, Oliver is still getting along with the other cat in the household, Stark (who also gets along with Thor). So I'm basically just rotating cats around every day so both Thor and Oliver get time in various rooms.
Is there any hope that Oliver and Thor can someday again coexist, or am I stuck just rotating them around forever? There is no doubt in my mind that right now if Oliver and Thor were to have a face to face meeting Oliver *would* attack him immediately and violently.
