Hi everyone,
Very grateful to have found this forum. My husband and I are (mid-30s, no kids yet) having a difficult time with our cats and could use some advice - apologies for the long message, but I wanted to give as much detail as possible because we are running out of ideas on how to help this situation. We have two beautiful cats - sisters - who are three years old now and we've had them since they were kittens. They've always been a little scrappy with each other, but nothing that was too problematic. One is black and the other is a tortoiseshell. The black cat is very bold and confident, but the tortoiseshell is incredibly nervous and doesn't seem to like men very much.
Last November, we got married and had to put the cats into a cattery for two nights for the wedding. The cattery we usually use was closed, so we went to another one, recommended to us by our usual cattery's owner. When we picked them up, the owner there said they had barely eaten and were very stressed. Why she didn't call me to tell me this, god only knows.
We brought them home and from then on, there have been problems. A few days later, they had one of those really scary fights - they went stiff, had puffed up tails, started screaming at each other like 'no no no' and then full on cat-screaming and clamped into a fight, spraying around the house as they ran. We calmed them down, separated them and reintroduced them. On and off since then, they've had a few other fights, but manageable ones.
This week, the situation has become terrible again. We just went on a trip to Italy to visit family, and my mother, who the cats really like, stayed in our house to take care of them as we were worried about putting them in a cattery after what happened in November. Here's the problem: Last week, the cats were spooked by a magazine falling onto the floor behind them, they must have thought it was the other cat doing something and then had another almighty fight with hissing, screaming and spraying. When my mother arrived on the Saturday to take care of them, she said in the evening she heard a lot of noise and hissing and went upstairs to find that they'd had another huge fight, having sprayed all over the upstairs of the house. They were fine then and calm with her until we returned home on Tuesday.
On Wednesday morning, we were all in the garden together and the cats were looking at a flowerpot, which one of the cats knocked over and it terrified them both - resulting in another very aggressive fight and spraying. Then we've had two more very near-aggressive fights, which we managed to stop - but both times they were screaming at each other, luckily we were able to separate them into two different rooms. All week they've been hissing at each other when they walk past each other, the tortoiseshell cat has been meowing aggressively (yowling?) at the black cat as if to tell him to go away when they are near to each other, and there have been constant mini fights - not playfights. However, yesterday they groomed each other (they haven't done this for months and months), but this was only for thirty seconds or so and then they stopped.
They eat together, share litter boxes, have all the resources they need - they are mostly fine together, until we either have a guest stay overnight (which we did about a month ago, our tortoiseshell cat hid under the sofa the entire time our guest was here, which was stressful to see and I imagine very stressful for her) or we go away on holiday or for work, then it all kicks off and we have to spend the months following trying to get back to normal.
We are concerned as we're talking about starting a family and imagine this will stress them out even more, and it's also making us not feel confident about taking trips because we are worried about their wellbeing and relationship while we're away, and also who can take care of them. They are mostly indoor cats, but we do take them outside a few times a day - although all week when they've been outside, they've looked at each other as if they don't recognise each other. I don't feel comfortable letting them out independently - next door there's a huge German shepherd and a busy road close to ours with traffic, and they're super skittish, which makes me think they'd get hit by a car or would get spooked and have another fight and possibly just bolt in any direction.
We are really at a loss about what to do. Since November last year they've been incredibly aggressive with each other and they've now had three or four huge fights this week with spraying in the house. They sleep in the same room as well, so that's not a problem, but there are just constant fights at the moment and it's really distressing - for all of us, I would imagine. We've done a lot of reading about redirected aggression, but nothing we've tried seems to help. There are no medical issues at work here as we've had them checked up by the vet.
Any advice on what might help would be great. We've even started to discuss rehoming them, but we don't know if it would be best to rehome them together or to separate them due to the fighting. Or if to keep one and rehome the more nervous cat to a home with a calm environment. Or what to do.
We have two Feliway Optimum diffusers on, they are both spayed and seem to tolerate being together, but rarely groom one another or sleep together - this has become very unusual, so I don't think they're hugely close although when we had a plumber here a few weeks ago they sat very close together on the same chair, as if they were comforting each other. I was shocked to see them licking each other's heads yesterday as they've not done that for a long, long time. We obviously don't want to rehome them because we love them to bits, but we are concerned that further holidays and further changes - moving house or having a baby - will be sources of stress and in turn make them fight more, and that this cycle will just continue. It's becoming unsustainable - I feel like since we got married we've been working so hard on getting them to like each other again, then we had an overnight guest and it upset the balance again, then we just went to Italy and have come back to all this fighting and spraying, and we're off on honeymoon in a month, which I feel as though I'm now dreading as I'm worried about the cats. I'm still working from home, but am concerned about returning to the office and leaving them all day, in case they fight while there's no one here to separate them. As you can imagine, this situation is taking up most of the space in our free time.
Thanks very much, I really hope someone has some insight that might be useful
Very grateful to have found this forum. My husband and I are (mid-30s, no kids yet) having a difficult time with our cats and could use some advice - apologies for the long message, but I wanted to give as much detail as possible because we are running out of ideas on how to help this situation. We have two beautiful cats - sisters - who are three years old now and we've had them since they were kittens. They've always been a little scrappy with each other, but nothing that was too problematic. One is black and the other is a tortoiseshell. The black cat is very bold and confident, but the tortoiseshell is incredibly nervous and doesn't seem to like men very much.
Last November, we got married and had to put the cats into a cattery for two nights for the wedding. The cattery we usually use was closed, so we went to another one, recommended to us by our usual cattery's owner. When we picked them up, the owner there said they had barely eaten and were very stressed. Why she didn't call me to tell me this, god only knows.
We brought them home and from then on, there have been problems. A few days later, they had one of those really scary fights - they went stiff, had puffed up tails, started screaming at each other like 'no no no' and then full on cat-screaming and clamped into a fight, spraying around the house as they ran. We calmed them down, separated them and reintroduced them. On and off since then, they've had a few other fights, but manageable ones.
This week, the situation has become terrible again. We just went on a trip to Italy to visit family, and my mother, who the cats really like, stayed in our house to take care of them as we were worried about putting them in a cattery after what happened in November. Here's the problem: Last week, the cats were spooked by a magazine falling onto the floor behind them, they must have thought it was the other cat doing something and then had another almighty fight with hissing, screaming and spraying. When my mother arrived on the Saturday to take care of them, she said in the evening she heard a lot of noise and hissing and went upstairs to find that they'd had another huge fight, having sprayed all over the upstairs of the house. They were fine then and calm with her until we returned home on Tuesday.
On Wednesday morning, we were all in the garden together and the cats were looking at a flowerpot, which one of the cats knocked over and it terrified them both - resulting in another very aggressive fight and spraying. Then we've had two more very near-aggressive fights, which we managed to stop - but both times they were screaming at each other, luckily we were able to separate them into two different rooms. All week they've been hissing at each other when they walk past each other, the tortoiseshell cat has been meowing aggressively (yowling?) at the black cat as if to tell him to go away when they are near to each other, and there have been constant mini fights - not playfights. However, yesterday they groomed each other (they haven't done this for months and months), but this was only for thirty seconds or so and then they stopped.
They eat together, share litter boxes, have all the resources they need - they are mostly fine together, until we either have a guest stay overnight (which we did about a month ago, our tortoiseshell cat hid under the sofa the entire time our guest was here, which was stressful to see and I imagine very stressful for her) or we go away on holiday or for work, then it all kicks off and we have to spend the months following trying to get back to normal.
We are concerned as we're talking about starting a family and imagine this will stress them out even more, and it's also making us not feel confident about taking trips because we are worried about their wellbeing and relationship while we're away, and also who can take care of them. They are mostly indoor cats, but we do take them outside a few times a day - although all week when they've been outside, they've looked at each other as if they don't recognise each other. I don't feel comfortable letting them out independently - next door there's a huge German shepherd and a busy road close to ours with traffic, and they're super skittish, which makes me think they'd get hit by a car or would get spooked and have another fight and possibly just bolt in any direction.
We are really at a loss about what to do. Since November last year they've been incredibly aggressive with each other and they've now had three or four huge fights this week with spraying in the house. They sleep in the same room as well, so that's not a problem, but there are just constant fights at the moment and it's really distressing - for all of us, I would imagine. We've done a lot of reading about redirected aggression, but nothing we've tried seems to help. There are no medical issues at work here as we've had them checked up by the vet.
Any advice on what might help would be great. We've even started to discuss rehoming them, but we don't know if it would be best to rehome them together or to separate them due to the fighting. Or if to keep one and rehome the more nervous cat to a home with a calm environment. Or what to do.
We have two Feliway Optimum diffusers on, they are both spayed and seem to tolerate being together, but rarely groom one another or sleep together - this has become very unusual, so I don't think they're hugely close although when we had a plumber here a few weeks ago they sat very close together on the same chair, as if they were comforting each other. I was shocked to see them licking each other's heads yesterday as they've not done that for a long, long time. We obviously don't want to rehome them because we love them to bits, but we are concerned that further holidays and further changes - moving house or having a baby - will be sources of stress and in turn make them fight more, and that this cycle will just continue. It's becoming unsustainable - I feel like since we got married we've been working so hard on getting them to like each other again, then we had an overnight guest and it upset the balance again, then we just went to Italy and have come back to all this fighting and spraying, and we're off on honeymoon in a month, which I feel as though I'm now dreading as I'm worried about the cats. I'm still working from home, but am concerned about returning to the office and leaving them all day, in case they fight while there's no one here to separate them. As you can imagine, this situation is taking up most of the space in our free time.
Thanks very much, I really hope someone has some insight that might be useful