Recent Content by JAL57

They like to bat at each other with their paws through the gate — that I think is more harmless playing behavior. I’ve tried feeding them treats together at the gate and playing with two separate toys at the gate. Taking turns with the same toy doesn’t work too well. I know it sounds like I’ve...

In my relatively limited experience, the lifer ferals will not meow to you to communicate with you, they will just hiss whenever you approach and otherwise stay totally silent. If I were in your shoes, I would take the meowing as a good sign, even if it is a request to go out. If I ever feel...

It’s mostly the hissing, spitting and growling from both parties, as well as the younger one’s reaction, that make me feel it’s maybe not exactly harmless play. Every time a chase happens, it takes my younger one more than an hour to calm down and stop hissing and growling.

Yes, the younger one’s reaction is what worries me. She hides and then follows me around hissing and growling for about an hour or more afterwards.

My older cat tries to jump my younger cat every time the gates are down. We have had a few successful supervised, minutes-long meetings where they shared a room briefly, but more often than not that ends in a chase with hissing and growling.

Hey fellow cat servants. I’m exasperated because I’m approaching the two-year mark of the introduction process for my nearly 4-year-old cat and my 2-year-old cat. And yesterday, my older cat busted out from behind the gate and chased her younger sis around the house. This is only the third or...

Good advice in this thread. I too have found that handing my cats kicker toys (they like the Yeeeow rainbow, banana or catnip stuffed candy cane, for instance) when they went after my hands as kittens did the trick. It’s like, “You can’t have that, but you can have THIS.” They liked to play...

The same is true of declawing, unfortunately. That’s why we need lawmakers to step in if the market is incentivizing something that is dangerous and/or clearly not right.

So I was scrolling through cute cat posts on Instagram when all of a sudden Meta decided to cough up a post that was not like the others. It was a morally reprehensible video by some brain-dead vanity case who had a) bought an African serval, and b) filmed herself taunting it with a vacuum...

I wish I had known that two cats would not be too much to handle. I might have adopted my cat and one of her floofball brothers at the same time. But then I might not have wound up adopting my little one, who is an absolute joy, two years later. I guess sometimes things work out a certain way...

No, it’s definitely not too late to start over. I have two cats, and that’s what I had to do. I listened to people who didn’t have cats and didn’t know what they were talking about, I rushed the introduction process and ended up with a nasty arm wound trying to protect my new cat from my...

I’m glad your story had a happy ending! My concern here is the carelessness with which these people return cats — not once but three times, and due to minor issues. Diarrhea and harmless rambunctiousness are both temporary problems that often come with the turf if you adopt kittens. For serial...

Question for everyone here: How do you serve as a resource for people who don’t see cats as family members, but disposable objects? A relative of mine has next door neighbors who have now adopted and returned three kittens. With the first two, I gather the kittens got diarrhea once and they...

So, I have a short hair and a long hair (who we all think has some Maine Coon in her). The long hair is in her prime and isn’t that much more work. I do have to brush her once or twice a week and watch out for mats, and occasionally if I can’t get a mat out myself I have to take her in to the...

I don’t have a dog, but I have one territorial and aggressive cat and one friendly cat. It’s been over a year since they first laid eyes on each other and I still don’t feel comfortable leaving them alone together. But the first cat has made huge strides toward chilling out thanks to...