Dear Most Esteemed and Knowledgeable Kitties:
This question is urgent, because my roommate and I are going away on vacation soon and we really want to have things fixed before that because the cats will be fed by my mom but no one will be watching them full time.
I have two cats. One of them is an 8-year-old neutered female tortie named Sabrina. The other is Speck, a year-old female stray we adopted last year and had neutered, vaccinated and vet-checked.
When I lived with my parents, Sabrina had to stay in my room with the door closed all the time, because she had serious social problems with my mom’s cat. She’d cower and run, and my Mom’s cat would attack her. I was in my room constantly anyway, so she didn’t mind it and seemed quite content to only come out in the house at night when my mom’s cat was locked in her room. Since moving out a year ago, Sabrina has been much more comfortable, and last October we adopted Speck with no initial problems.
Sabrina and Speck usually get along just fine, but the last four days Sabrina has started acting bizarre towards her. She hides all the time, she’s avoiding the litter and doing her business elsewhere, and when we can get her out, all she does is look around like she’s terrified of Speck and looking for her. When she’s up on a perch that Speck can’t reach, all she does is stare at Speck with this FURIOUS face. Bu Speck doesn’t respond to her in any unusual way, most of the time she’s not even looking at her, during any of these incidents. This is a completely one-sided thing. Sabrina is acting like she did around my mom’s cat.
So we tried a little immersion therapy; my roommate and I put Speck and Sabrina together in the bathroom and stayed there to watch. Sure enough, Sabrina was snarling and hissing at Speck, but Speck completely ignored her and looked a little scared, lowering her tail and staying near the door. Neither one of them lifted a paw against the other. Sabrina seemed to think she had to defend herself against Speck, but I don’t know where she got the idea from. It’s so sudden! I don’t want to leave them alone when Sabrina is like this. She’s my princess and if she’s already scared, the last thing I want is her feeling like I’ve abandoned her. I don’t want her to feel threatened all the time, but Speck is very attached to us and I don’t want to give her up either, and that seems like a permanent solution to a temporary problem. This happened so suddenly, there must be some way to reconcile them. We’re making an appointment with the vet tomorrow to rule out it being a health issue with Sabrina, but in the meantime is there anything you can suggest?
~Dee
Siouxsie: You’ve made the right choice in taking Sabrina to the vet to rule out any health problems, because as you probably know, sometimes health problems can cause personality issues.
Thomas: If your Sabrina gets a clean bill of health, then the next step is to figure out the behavioral issue. And to us, this sounds like a classic case of redirected aggression.
Dahlia: Redirected aggression results from a cat being cut off from the main source of her agitation. A typical situation would be that the aggressor is looking out the window and sees an unfamiliar cat in the yard. The cat becomes extremely stressed and then, say, the aggressor’s cat companion jumps up to see what’s going on and the aggressor lashes out at the other cat because she’s in such a highly reactive state that she doesn’t recognize the other cat as her friend.
Siouxsie: We’d venture to say that Sabrina is pretty easily triggered into this behavior because of her years of having similar conflicts with your mother’s cat.
Thomas: Other things that can cause stress and the resultant redirected aggression include loud noises, the smell of another cat on your clothes, being in an unfamiliar environment, or an owner actively trying to break up a cat fight.
Dahlia: As you can see, this redirected aggression can cause serious damage to cats’ relationship, especially close companions.
Siouxsie: Usually the stress wears off within a few hours and the cats can “kiss and make up,” so to speak. But sometimes the stress continues because the victim, having been severely scared by her buddy’s outburst, takes on a defensive posture whenever she’s near the aggressor, which only stimulates the aggressor to continue her behavior.
Thomas: Unfortunately, the immersion therapy you describe may not have been the best idea. By forcing the two cats to be together in a small space, they became stressed enough that their aggression dynamic was reinforced.
Dahlia: But don’t fear, there is a way to restore harmony in your household. It may take some patience and diligent effort, though.
Siouxsie: What you’re going to need to do is separate the two cats at the first sign of an aggressive outburst. By separating Sabrina and Speck, you’ll give both cats a chance to calm down and begin feeling safe again. We’d recommend putting Sabrina in her own room–preferably a nice, comfortable room like your bedroom–with a litterbox and toys and food and water dishes. Make sure the room is dark and quiet, and leave her there until she begins acting calmer.
Thomas: Signs that she’s feeling calm include sleeping in an open place like on top of your bed, not grooming constantly in an attempt to displace her anxiety, and body language that indicates a tranquil state of mind.
Dahlia: Be aware of Speck’s body language, too. Once the cats start feeling calmer, you can reintroduce them under pleasant circumstances like feeding time or play time. If you do play with the two cats, make sure each cat has her own toy to play with; if they’re competing for one “thing on a string,” for instance, that could bring back the stimulation to be aggressive.
Siouxsie: We recommend that when you’re not home, you leave Sabrina and Speck separated so that they can’t get at each other while you’re away. If you can’t change your vacation plans (for example, you’ve got nonrefundable airline tickets or you simply can’t change the timing for other external reasons), make sure your mother understands what’s going on and that she keeps the cats separated.
Thomas: If they’ve been able to have supervised time together without lashing out, your mother might be able to bring them together for a meal and some play time, but make sure she puts Sabrina back in your room before she leaves.
Dahlia: Another thing that could really help is a plug-in feline pheromone diffuser. This product is sold under the brand names of Feliway or Comfort Zone, and are available at most pet stores and online pet supply stores.
Siouxsie: Feliway/Comfort Zone mimics “happy cat” pheromones and helps cats to feel calmer. Mama’s used this for us when we’ve had some aggression issues and to help us deal with the stress of moving to a new home, and we’ve got to say it really works!
Thomas: If they’re still having trouble together, they’ll probably need to stay separated until you return from your vacation. At that point, you’ll want to really start working on reintroducing them and rebuilding their relationship.
Dahlia: Good luck, Dee. Please let us know how everything turns out!
Thank you so much for your quick response! Sabrina has been acting better around Speck lately, thank goodness. They’ll even sit in the same windowsill together now. We’re still going to take her to the vet to be sure before we go, I’d hate leaving town not knowing for certain and the plane tickets are non-refundable so I can’t linger even though I’d like to.
What you said about smelling another cat on our clothes is an important clue I think… we had problems with Sabrina being terrified of a cat after we moved out too- we had adopted a young male named Lucius but could only keep him here for a few months due to major personality conflicts…he started chasing her constantly once he wasn’t a kitten anymore, and so he went to live at my parents’ house which is a lot bigger for an energetic boy like him. He’s very, very happy there and practically attached at the hip to one of my mom’s other cats so we feel it was the best decision, now he has someone to play with instead of Sabrina just running and hiding. But, that’s where we were the day she started acting weird. He is a black cat too, and while we were there we trimmed his nails which he can still be a little fidgety about sometimes. I wonder if she smelled him and that grumpiness, and maybe saw little black Speck more like Lucius! She was certainly afraid of him in the past.
I really hope I didn’t upset her too much putting the both of them together in the bathroom, I definitely know better than to do that in the future.
If things aren’t totally back to normal by the time we go, my mom will be thoroughly debriefed on the situation and we’ll follow your advice to keep both kitties comfortable during the already stressful time of owner-absence.
Thank you again so much for your help!
Thanks, good article.
We’re so happy we found your advice blog. Fanks for havin it and lettin us know.
I used to have to use the Feliway plugin cuz my fursiblings made me so nervous. After time, though, I didn’t have to use it any more. I’m still not crazy about them, but we don’t fight and hiss all the time any more. Those plugins can really help.
Purrrrrrrs,
Sanjee of CB
This is a very informative article. I hope that everything works out for Sabrina and Speck.
Our home is in caos, so I’ve been scouring the internet for help. This Sabrina and Speck article is very similar to our problem. Our cats started fighting out of nowhere. I immediately noticed a new cat in our new next-door neighbor’s yard (where they used to go). Now I’m convinced that our dominant cat saw that new cat and is taking her aggression out on our submissive cat. The mystery is pretty much solved now. Now we have to figure out what to do though. I’ve done every thing in this article so far. They now tolerate each other only when I’m around. My submissive cat is still quarantined to my bedroom and the balcony they share. I’m sure it’s getting old for the submissive cat. She seems pretty bored and lonely. I’m concerned about her, but she’s doing pretty well. We’ve noticed our dominant cat staring for long periods of time towards our new neighbor’s direction. She’s like a gargoyle waiting to defend her territory in case that new cat decides to come over the wall. I’m praying that time will heal this acute situation. It’s been 14 days. Does anyone have any idea what I can expect? That new cat isn’t going anywhere soon, so can I expect things to get better on their own? Or will there be this problem as long as that new cat lives next door? Ugh.
It’s me again. It’s been a rollercoaster! I’ve been supervising visits. And my dominant cat is obsessed with and staring at my submissive cat all the time, and my submissive cat is very uneasy still, obviously. Who wouldn’t be? The submissive cat is still in my bedroom and the balcony they share. I started leaving my bedroom door open, but now the dominant cat is holding my submissive cat hostage in my bedroom. My submissive cat won’t come out of my bedroom, poor thing. Whenever my submissive cat wants to come out of the bedroom, there’s my dominant cat to intimidate her. So tonight we put our dominant cat in the back bedroom to leave the rest of the apartment for our submissive cat. She started scratching violently and when we opened the door a pinch to tell her to be quiet, she busted out of the door and ran to the other bedroom across the apartment where our submissive cat was hiding under the bed. We had to grab her as she hissed and scratched and put her back in the back bedroom with litter, water and food. My submissive cat is resting comfortably for the first time in almost a month. But I don’t know what to do next. How, when to let her out. Please let me know how to proceed. We are clueless and alone and probably causing more harm than good. Thanks!
It’s a miracle!!
Peace in the valley.
I recalled the comment on your site from Dahlia about “redirected agression”. I decided to keep Sascha inside for 24 hours and away from the suspected source of the problem, the new neighbor’s cat. While not going over, Sascha was staring at the neighbor’s fence for hours a day I guess waiting for the new cat to come over or something. I decided to remove her from doing that as it might be re-igniting her aggression. She did seem to be even more aggitated toward Lily than usual after being outside in the afternoons.
Not having to be on gargoyle duty, Sascha got mellower and mellower and slept for 2 days straight. Lily, in the meantime, snuck out of the bedroom for the first time in 25 days!
That broke the cycle! And they are getting along better than EVER, eating together, sleeping side by side, happy! :)
We had also gotten the ComfortZone plug-in 10 days ago. So we don’t know if that helped or what.
But thank you to Sanjee, too, for recommending the pherimone product.
Wow, our home is happy again. Thank you so much for your Web site. It was a godsend!
Thank you so much for this article. Last night my other cat got locked outside of the house accidently. I have two cats and they have never been outside. Well, I woke up in the middle of the night hearing the cat that was in the house hissing at my other cat through the window. When I brought in my other cat, Chino (the one that didn’t go outside) started hissing and attacking Joey. Maybe this is a case of redirected agression. They can both be in the same room now.. but they stay far away from each other. It’s such a sad thing to see because they were best of friends.
Dear Belinda,
It’s such an easy thing to accidently lock cats outside. They are literally quicker than the eye! I’m very optimistic that this will pass and your kitties will be very close again soon. Cats are soooooo emotional. It just takes a little time to pass for them to get over stuff. It seems like your cat in the house didn’t recognize its friend out the window, probably thought it was a strange/new cat. As was my experience, “NEW CAT” is not a good thing in the world of cats. I would just let things get back to normal on their own. They just need a little time to get over it – such sensitive creatures! Good luck :)
Thanks for this article and all the comments – it’s been very helpful in trying to understand what’s going on in my house!
We have 2 indoor cats – they both escaped for about an hour and when I got them both back in the house all hell broke loose. The fighting was crazy – extremely loud/violent and scary to watch. I just learned from comment above not to “break up” the fight as I had to visit the hospital for this one.
We have taken one of the cats who is usually the dominant one out of the house for a few days – this is killing me as I miss him. I want to bring him home after 3 days – is this a good idea? It will be supervised to make sure they are okay – I will try the advice of introducing them at meal times and play times.
How long is too long for them not to get along? I would hate to have to separate them forever..
i have a female cat 3 years old, fixed and all the usual work weighs about 6-7 pounds, i also have a male going on 8 months old, hasnt been fixed yet weighs more than the female. Ive had the male since he was a kitten and the two cats have been great together so far up until today. I heard the cats fighting and “screaming” which was very out of the ordinary. I found my female cat had the male pinned in a corner and taking a beating. I seperated the two of them and she continued to hiss and growl at him which was the first time ive heard any of that from her since owning her. she continued to try and get at him so i locked her up so i could examine the damage of both cats. I finally brought them together again and she gave him a quick sniff and went right back to attacking him and beating him. I have to sit in the room with her or else she howls like crazy to get out, she is also pacing the room and looking at the door constantly. Is this possible that the male has tried to mount her? i didnt see any evidence of this besides the bizzare behaviour. Please help.
Just looking on the computer for a reason one of my cat has suddenly turned on the other after living together for almost two year. As it turns out when this started we had a stray un-fixed male hanging around my house. It has been two weeks and that is when the trouble started. Last week my fixed mail just walked over to my female and clawed her face which just happened to leave her blind her in one eye. I just started using a spray bottle with water when I see it happen which does seperate them but this one little female is getting all beat up. Thanks for advice, I will try seperating the two for awhile.