two house cats fighting after a vet visit by one

[2catfamily]

I took one of our two cats to a routine visit to the vet for a yearly vaccination. Upon returning home the other cat starting growling and hissing at him which turned into a cat fight. Now they will not get along and we have been disrupted for almost two weeks with the growling, chasing and fighting between them.
I did take the cat who started the growling and hissing to the vet the next morning because she acted as though she may have been bit or clawed in her tailbone area.
Looking for ideas to get them back together. They were good buddies before.

 

[FeebysOwner]

Hi. That is typical non-recognition aggression - from the cat returning from a vet visit smelling differently than normal. Some cats get over it within a couple of days, and others go on longer. See if you can use anything in these TCS articles (links below) to help with getting them over this. If nothing works, you might have to do a re-introduction as if they were 'new' to each other.

Scent swapping (taking towels/cloths and rubbing on each of the cats, then rubbing the other cats with those items might help. Another member on this site has recommended using vanilla to apply to each cat so that they smell the same as a possible remedy. Here is the excerpt of the idea from valanhb (who hasn't been on this site for quite a while).

"For future readers who may not know about this trick, douse is a figure of speach.

You put a dab of vanilla extract under the chins, at the base of their neck (by the spine) and at the base of the tail (again, on the spine not the underside of the tail!) of all of the cats to make them smell the same. Cats recognize each other by scent, so if that kitty smells the same as "me", the he must be a friend. Kitty logic at it's finest.

This trick works when introducing cats into the household, and also when one of them has been to the vet and therefore smells different to the others who didn't go."

How To Deal With Non-recognition Aggression In Cats – Cat Articles
Why Do Cats…? The Ultimate Guide To Feline Behavior – Cat Articles

 

[rubysmama]

Hello and welcome to TCS. As FeebysOwner mentioned, that sounds like a classic case of Non-Recognition Aggression. Hopefully the tips article posted above will be helpful.

How old are your cats? Did you originally get them at the same time, or did you have to do an introduction between them?