Tension Between Two Cats

[momstiel]

Hello, I came onto this thread hoping that I would be able to get some sort of suggestions. I recently brought a new cat home, and the resident cat doesn't like her at all.

The Details:

• Precious is six years old, she isn't spayed, and she's part-Siamese. She's the resident cat and has been here for a few years.
• Hannah just turned four years old and she is spayed. She's new. She suffers from stress of being in the shelter, and part of her hair was missing, but it's been growing back in nicely.

When we first got Hannah, a few weeks ago, we placed her into the bathroom. We provided her with a kitty litter, a bed, and food different from Precious's. Eventually, they found the presence of each-other and interacted under the door. There was hissing, growling, but that was to be expected. After a few days, we introduced Precious to the bathroom, and we took Hannah out so that they could become more familiar with each-other's scents. After a week and a half or so, we decided to have a slow introduction between the two.

Things went alright, Precious was grumbling/hissing, but Hannah wasn't doing anything. For a few days they were able to share the couch, and Precious was fine as long as Hannah didn't get too close. If she did, hissing was prone to occur.

In the time that they've been out, they have had two cat fights. Precious instigated both attacks, trapping Hannah against the corner. Fights have gotten pretty bad, but fortunately we had been able to get the cats to stop long enough to put Hannah back into the bathroom. Since the second attack, that is where she has been residing.

I was wondering if I could get advice or help on the following topics:

• How to lower the chance of fights occurring?
• How to stop cat fights? (I know you can't just throw yourself in-between, but I also know you can't just let them "fight it out", as things will only escalate).
  

Thank you so much for your time, and I'd be grateful for any advice that you can provide.

 

[rubysmama]

Hello and welcome to TCS.

I think part of the problem could be the fact that Precious isn't spayed. Her hormones may be causing her aggression towards Hannah, especially since Hannah is another female.

Since Precious is 6 years old, I would consider getting her spayed soon, as the longer a female cat is unspayed, the greater the chances of her developing mammary cancer. She could also develop Pyometra which is an infection in the uterus caused from being in heat too often.

Why You Should Spay And Neuter Your Cats
Pyometra

TCS also has some articles on cat introductions, including How To Fix An Unsuccessful Cat Introduction

Here are the others:
Introducing Cats To Cats
How To Fix An Unsuccessful Cat Introduction
The Multi-cat Household
How To Safely Break Up A Cat Fight

 

[Mamanyt1953]

I agree that most of the issue probably stems from Precious being intact. As a breeding queen, even if you do NOT breed her, her instinctive imperative is to protect territory and resources for her possible future family. Taking those hormones away will relax that to a great degree.

 

[KarenKat]

Spaying is a great idea. In the meantime, we break up catfights by putting an object between them - our favorite is a "shield" made out of a large piece of cardboard. I heard people also use towels or pillow or other large objects. It protects you from being scratched / bitten, it's a little more neutral than clapping or making a noise, and it can be a useful way to gently "herd" one cat into another room. Obviously this only works if there is space to put something between. If they are rolling on the floor, maybe clapping or using shaking a can of pennies could break it up.

As for preventing fights before they start, what we have learned from our resident cat Gohan (7 yrs) going after our new Olive (3 yrs) is:

• Depending on how tense Gohan was in the beginning, we couldn't pet him at all to distract or calm. He was so over stimulating by her presence even a soft touch to his head would actually cause a chase. Now we can pet him and it distracts, but initially touching was bad. I think this is very cat specific though.
• Distract using a favorite treat or toy. If you see too much interest from the aggressor, try and softly call her over and speak calmly and softly and give her something positive to focus on instead.
• Stay calm yourself. If you are wound up dreading a fight to start, the cats will pick up on your tension and be more likely to fight because of that.
• If Gohan starts staring for too long, simply speaking in a normal, conversational tone can defuse some tension.

I understand if these don't work at first, for a while we felt hopeless because like I said, petting Gohan would cause a chase, and Gohan would not be distracted by toys and we had never found any treats he would like. At this point he has calmed enough to choose pets or toys over Olive-chasing and we finally found a treat he will eat (after much experimenting). But I agree with Mamanyt1953 and rubysmama that spaying should be your first step.

 

[momstiel]

I'd like to thank everyone that has replied. I'll look into getting Precious spayed as soon as I can. In addition, I'm appreciative of the links/personal experiences that were added! My first step will to get Precious spayed, and move from there.

 

[1 bruce 1]

Spaying is a good idea. Don't expect it to be immediate though, sometimes it takes a long time for those hormones to fade. We have a few girls here spayed that still have that territorial thing going on but it's much less intense than intact girls.
Some girls IME just never get along. Two of my girls don't love each other but they co-exist, which is fine with me so long as no one is being bullied or beaten up!
I'm not trying to be a downer or anything but consider the fact that the girls may never be BFF's and may simply ignore one another, which is fine. If that's what they choose, that's what they want, and if that's what they want that is what makes them happy =)

 

[Mamanyt1953]

Sometimes peaceful coexistence is the best we can achieve. So long as the cats become happy with that, don't fret over them not being "best buds." We can only guess at how much benefit a cat may be getting from the simple presence of another cat.