Worried For My Adult Cat... Ragdoll Kitten Attacking Her

[Ashley&Cats]

hello everyone,

As my male ragdoll kitten Benjamin gets bigger and stronger (he's 6 months 1 day and 8.5 pounds) my other cat Mila is starting to have a hard time with how he is playing with her (she's 9.8 pounds and 6 years old) he will jump up top of her and bit around Mila's neck. 99% of the time he will do this out of the blue when he is hyper. She is a very laided back cat and was never really playful after Smokey (her older brother) passed in March of this year.

Today I notice he was being rough with her and she actually hissed at him and it didn't faze him much. He got in a defensive stance then decided to pounce again...I ended up spraying him with water which made him run away.

I'm very concerned that he isn't playing anymore that he his just treating her as if she is his pray. If it is still playing, I'm worried that if he is hurting/ bothering her now that it will be worse once he is 2x the size of her. I need to know how to fix this behaviour because I do not want to separate them!

 

[ArtNJ]

Six month olds are still kittens, and this is what they do for play. Its totally normal. If fur is being pulled out its a real fight. If you find scratches on the ears, head, shoulders while massaging the older cat under the fur, that is a real fight. And experienced owners can also tell from the sounds. But more than likely you don't have that...rough play is totally normal for 6 month old kitten, and its totally normal to ignore cues from the older cat. That doesn't mean it isn't a problem! It can still be a huge problem, depending on how the older cat reacts. In fact, I completely failed to solve a similar issue myself years ago, and over time the big docile older cat got more and more anxious and started hissing, yowling and swatting at the youngster...who, previously only wanting to play, at that point decided, oh, you want a real fight, bring it...and ended up biting the older cat 2x, which is a big deal. Still, normally it isn't that big a deal -- as the kitten gets older it will eventually get less active and the problem will fade.

The only known solution that is widely accepted is to try and tire the kitten out by playing with it more. It doesn't really work that well, but it's 100% better than nothing, and the more you can do, the more likely just waiting for the cats to work it out is to go ok. Making the kitten an indoor/outdoor cat helps a ton in my experience, but depending on where you live could be an unacceptable safety issue. If you have carpentry skills, on his tv show "My Cat from Hell" Jackson Galaxy routinely solves all kinds of inter-cat issues issues by building elevated/isolated/defensible spaces where the attacked cat can be comfortable being alone, but I have no idea if this really works for normal folks.