Cat advice needed (long)

[smilingcat]

I wish I could offer you help, but I'm a terrible behaviorist. My cats still fuss and fume - all started by my older boy cat who will randomly walk up to poor Fat Luna and bite her. I just shout at them and they stop, haha. Shows you what a great trainer I am.

Does Fat Luna take old boy's food or treat? Biting on ear seems to be part of dominance thing. I've noticed this with my pride of cats. The boy who wants to be king keeps getting in trouble with my #2 Rag doll mix (8 yo). Rag doll mix is pretty laid back but after couple of hard bites on his ear by the boy who wants to be king, rag doll dishes out pretty hard. enough so that we have to intervene otherwise the boy cat (well he is all grown up at 5 years) will end up in ER. Boy cat doesn't even try with grampy, #1 main coon mix (13 or 14 yo). He wont tolerate it one bit.

Is there anything you can tell as to why your boy wants to do the dominant thing with Fat Luna? I think it has to do with food.

[indysteel]

I think we're continuing to make some progress. After limiting Izzy and Matilda's visits to a neutral room, we allowed them access to the upstairs hall and landing. Unfortunately, this is an area that Matilda also has some access to when she's not otherwise sequestered in her room. So, she exhibited a bit too much territorialism. I finally decided to let her loose in the main area of the house, the area that is now saturated with Feliway thanks to two diffusers. So far, the visits have gone well. No fights and a minimum of hissing and growling. Izzy follows her though and doesn't let her get out of her sight. Henry is mostly uninterested. I'll feel a lot better if and when Izzy grows less obsessed. It doesn't help that Matilda demands near constant supervision as is. She gets into everything and is a fearless climber.

I'm still just holding my breath about this. If it's truly not a good situation for them, I'd prefer not to force it, but it's hard to know what's reasonable to expect at this point. Ever the optimist, I ordered some Feliway diffuser refills. I do think it's taking the edge off their aggression. I'll have to order a third for the basement litterbox area if we ever make it that far.

[pumpkinpony]

It does take time... I had two cats who were sisters. One died about 2 years ago. They were both very bossy cats but could hold their own against each other. It made it challenging to have any other besides them. After the one died, I picked up another cat from my mom who seems to collect them. I kept them completely separate (they could smell and paw fight under the door) for the first month or two. Gradually I was able to let them interact for short periods of time. It seriously took well over 6 months for me to be able to leave them alone together, and over a year for the fur fights to stop. Now two years later, I have a picture I took that completely shocked me - them both eating from the food bowl at the same time!

I didn't find the feliway to help much. I had slightly better luck with Bach's Rescue Remedy. Either dropped onto their gums or in their water.

[westtexas]

Does Fat Luna take old boy's food or treat? Biting on ear seems to be part of dominance thing. I've noticed this with my pride of cats. The boy who wants to be king keeps getting in trouble with my #2 Rag doll mix (8 yo). Rag doll mix is pretty laid back but after couple of hard bites on his ear by the boy who wants to be king, rag doll dishes out pretty hard. enough so that we have to intervene otherwise the boy cat (well he is all grown up at 5 years) will end up in ER. Boy cat doesn't even try with grampy, #1 main coon mix (13 or 14 yo). He wont tolerate it one bit.

Is there anything you can tell as to why your boy wants to do the dominant thing with Fat Luna? I think it has to do with food.

I don't think it has to do with food. They get separate dishes and no food is left out when I'm gone. He bites her just about anywhere he can grab (usually her butt). Other times they are cuddling and he's grooming her. I think it's how he "plays" but she'd rather he fall of a cliff and die than play with him. When I had a little kitten before Luna, Theo would bite the kitten and the two of them would take off tussling. She's just got no interest.

[indysteel]

At the risk of jinxing it, we may have found a forever home for Matilda a/k/a Itty Bitty Kitty. Months ago--not long after we first took her in--a local not for profit offered me a courtesy listing on their website. Two days ago, I finally heard from a woman who had seen the listing and was interested in adopting her. I did my best to be positive about Matilda's personality but also wanted to make sure the woman understood that she's pretty high energy and food-obsessed. She's not a bad cat at all, but she's fearless and often gets into stuff. Otherwise, she just plays and plays and plays.

Signficantly, this woman has no other cats but has had them in the past. While we've made some progress integrating Matilda into our home, our two-year old remains pretty opposed to her. She can also be somewhat aggressive with our geriatric male, and that's the last thing I want. I think it could work out over time, but I don't know how ideal it is for any of them. Plus, as I mentioned, she is totally food obsessed. Dealing with that and the other two cats will be challenging. Not impossible, but challenging. I'd add that we have been using a couple different flower essences with the cats, and it's resulted in much less aggression. The change is actually pretty dramatic. Izzy used to charge Matilda (or vice versa) fairly regularly, and we haven't had a single spat in the time since I started using it.

Anyway, it's certainly not a done deal, but I do think once she sees Matilda, she'll fall in love with her. She looks wonderful and is so full of personality. I'm going to miss her dearly, but this would be a happy outcome.

So, as much as it pains me, please keep your fingers crossed that this woman is willing to adopt her and that, once adopted, they're happy together.

[Melalvai]

Good luck, I hope it works out.

There's a yellow & white boy roaming the neighborhood. Everyone has "adopted" him. We call him NOC (Not Our Cat). Next door he's Ted. The next door down, the 3 yr old told me, his name is Cat. (Duh.)

I gave him water but not food. Someone is feeding him--he pooped in our garden!

I hope someone adopts him enough to get him neutered & give him his shots. I haven't seen him in a couple days, but that person might end up being me. I won't feed him (he's not starving) but I don't want him giving diseases to our girls. He is a cutie-- I do NOT want a 3rd cat. One of our old girls died recently and she was SO much work to care for the last few months. I'm enjoying the break, 2 healthy cats are pretty easy (and cheap) to care for. They don't like NOC at all, and stay inside when he's around.

[indysteel]

We have another stray (a male) that we've fed for some time, but I really want to get out of the business because it just attracts other cats--either because they themselves find their way to our house or people in the area see us as a place to dump their animals. I love cats and I can't bear to see them suffer, but it's hard on me emotionally to care for them indefinitely. That sounds selfish perhaps, but I have to remember that I can only do so much for them. Unfortunately, our local humane society had not proven itself to be a very helpful partner in the effort. So, once I start caring for them, they're essentially "mine."

[indysteel]

Sigh....I think I did jinx it, as I haven't heard back from the woman who expressed an interest in Matilda. I left a message for her a few days ago hoping that she would at least let me know one way or another so that we could move onto Plan B. The fact that she hasn't called or texted to give me a polite "no" really bothers me. Why can't people just be courteous? Is the fear of an awkward conversation that overwhelming?

As to Plan B, I'm really at a loss. We've made some progress getting the cats to peacefully coexist, but we have a long way to go. Izzy still gets aggressive with Matilda here and there, and Matilda still gets aggressive with Henry, who then hides under something.

And Matilda has a few behavioral issues that we'll need to contend with, namely that she is really food obsessed. Everything edible has to be put away or she will go after it. She's ripped through ziploc bags to get at things. While I could fully transition Izzy to eating at set times, Henry is a bit of a grazer. We struggle as it is to get him to eat wet food "on command." So we also leave out some high-protein dry food from he and Izzy. But we won't be able to do that with Matilda. She'll eat all of it. We might be able to deal with it when we're home and our schedule is pretty typical, but vacations will prove to be a challenge. We have one coming up and, as it is, she'll have to stay in her room upstairs (and likely go completely bonkers).

So, this is a long way of saying that the situation isn't ideal. I love Matilda. She has a really big personality for such a small cat, and she clearly adores us. But I don't know how long we can allow the current situation to persist.

[jessmarimba]

I have the food problems at my house, too. My oldest cat is definitely a grazer, and she'll let herself be pushed away from the food bowls. Dummycat eats every time he remembers that there's food - if he hears me put food in the dish, if he hears me walk through the kitchen, if he walks past the bowls and sees them, whenever. He'll start eating out of one bowl if I add fresh food, then move to the second one as I fill it, etc. (he won't eat the full bowl, but has to try the food in the next one just in case it's different) He's getting a little chunkier than I'd prefer.

I sort of wonder if I put the bowls someplace more secluded, so they aren't in plain sight, if that would curb dummy's eating without affecting my grazer. She'd still make the effort to get food when she's hungry and maybe he wouldn't feel compelled to eat just because he sees or smells food. Haven't tried it yet though.