Old friends / New enemies

My wife has two indoor house cats. One is an 8 year old male mixed and the other is an 11 year old female Tortie Persian.
She has had both cats for 6+ years and they have always behaved well together, even sleeping together. As a matter of fact, the Persian has always exhibited a nurturing, kind of mothering attitude towards the male, such as licking it to clean it.

Last Monday we had the Persianâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s teeth cleaned as she has some gum problems. The vet had to extract a front tooth that he found was bad. To do this, he sedated her with Ketamine. My wifeâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s biggest worry was that the cat would not survive the procedure, but the cat came home later that day.

That evening is when the problems started. The Persian became very aggressive towards the other cat and cornered it. This traumatized the other cat, which has not come out of hiding for almost a week. He has used the litter box to defecate only once. My wife has kept them separated and is now running two litter boxes in hopes that she can ease them back together. The Persian exhibits no aggression towards us and is actually very gentle.

Today, my wife left the doors open to the respective areas, as she thought the Persian was over the Ketamine trip and that only the male was still paranoid, but as soon as the female saw the male she gave chase, cornered the animal and removed a large chunk of fur before we could intervene,this again caused the male to retreat into seclusion.

My wife is distraught. Can anything be done short of finding another home for one of the cats?

There may be a smell about him from the vet's visit that is upsetting the other cat. If he had bad teeth and they are now gone, that smell is different. That is all I can think of, but I am sure some of our other members will have some ideas about what to do. Good luck with your problem.

I am really surprised that it is the cat with the tooth missing that is being the aggressor! The only thing I can think is the cats sense of smell is off? Usually it would be the cat that stayed home that would aggressive. I do think that over time things will work out seperate them for a couple of days and take it slow.
Good luck! Keep us posted.
Denise

I would check out "Introducing cats" it is a great article here on this site. Being seperated for even one day will couse them to smell each other differently. You can also try putting a drop of vanilla on her nose. This will mask all smells, and every thing will smell the same.
She may resent having a procedure done and he got to stay home. I know my torties are more sensitive than the other cats.
I'm sure time will work this out. It may take a month or longer just hang in there!

The other cat is reacting to the smell of the vet as well as the high stress smell the cat who had dental work done is probably exuding. You can take some cornstarch and work it into each cats' fur and brush them both. Try a gentle massage on the latest patient to calm the Persian down. It is fairly easy to do. Settle the kitty on your lap with his head facing out. Take your thumbs and gently follow the spine, and use two fingers to make soft circular motions all around the spine. Follow the line of the body and just get the cat to relax. Most cats really love this type of attention, but don't be to rough with it.

I can't help but wonder whether the Persian is still in pain and is behaving so aggressively because her mouth hurts. Perhaps a call to the vet might be in order.

Also, given the trauma that both cats have been through, you might need to go through a reintroduction process. Please check out this link to a thread about introducing new cats and then go to the other links you will find within that thread. http://www.thecatsite.com/forums/sho...&threadid=4280

Although a reintroduction will be time consuming and stressful, if the suggestions given by Hissy and the others don't work, it might be what you need to do.

Please keep us updated on what is going on...we might be able to provide further help as you work through this stressful time.

Good Luck!

I want to thank all of you wonderful people who have posted suggestions to our kitty problem. We have contacted the vet and are going through the "new kitty" reintroduction process by initially using the smell methods, swapping towels and now rooms on a daily basis. We hope to use our crate in a couple of weeks to enter into the sight methods by crating the aggressor and allowing the "attackee" to roam freely around the crate, in conjunction with some simultaneous positive reinforcement via yummy treats.

Your responses have calmed both Ruth and me and we hope to be back to normal soon.

Happy New Year to all.

Mike