Periodic strange fighting

blm14

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So we have three cats, a 16+ year old neutered male named Elvis, a 6 month old neutered female named Sati, and a 3 month old unneutered male Buttons.

Elvis is very unaggressive towards the two kittens but he doesn't like it when they try and play with his tail or attack him. Buttons and Sati have become fast friends, they roll around, sleep together, bathe one another, chase each other all over the place, etc.

Elvis and sati will sleep on the same bed, eat treats right next to one another and 90% of the time are just fine. But once in a while, maybe a couple of times a week, elvis seems to lose his patience with sati and approaches her in an aggressive manner. He never puts his claws out and he never pounces her and he will only paw at her gently with one paw, but she FREAKS! She will put her ears back, spit, hiss and YOWL like you'd think he was eating her alive. I mean she really screams, like waking the neighbors screaming.

It's not clear to me if this happens because she's bothering him or if he's the aggressor, but he's a VERY gentle cat and has never been aggressive towards anyone and was very patient with sati when she was young and afraid of him. But now it seems that she's a little older things have changed...

All three animals were rescues - sati and buttons were both found this summer in colonies that my wife and I care for and elvis was adopted 14 years ago from the ASPCA... He's also a LARGE cat, maybe she's afraid because he's so big?

At any rate I want to try and stop this behavior - elvis tolerates buttons and even bathes him and sati and buttons get along great I just want to try and prevent the "fur-flying scream-fights" as the wife calls them that seem to pop up periodically between sati and elvis... Any thoughts?
 

fifi1puss

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I don't know how to stop it but I have a similiar situation between my Female and older Male. She makes the worse sound EVER when he goes after her. But she is playing from what I can tell because she runs after him too. But if he "catches" her she freaks out, rolls onto her back and yells at him like crazy. He walks away and she will run after him.


I just let it be. I watch just in case things may get out of hand but it hasn't yet. I chalked it up to her being smaller than him too. Where she can't physically overpower him she is determined to scare him with that god-awful noise she makes.
 

aswient

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I have the same thing going on with my oldest male cat. He's 10 years old, we have other cats but the youngest (Toby) he does get along with, but sometimes Toby can be too much for Mo and when Mo is not in the mood he just has to see Toby coming and he screams at him (and I do mean screams) like, "don't even think about bothering me". I'm thinking when Toby gets a little older he'll calm down. Hopefully.
 
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blm14

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I mean it's not entirely clear to me if either cat has their claws out when this happens but I'm more worried about elvis because he's older, slower, and sweeter so he's more likely to get injured... My hope is that it just gets better as Sati gets older too.
 

aswient

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I was also concerned for Mo because while Mo isn't too old yet, when push comes to shove Toby has weight and youth on his side, but he seems to back down at certain points, when he knows Mo means business by his screams.
 

goldenkitty45

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Could be age related or it could be the fact that the 2 kittens play together and since one is not neutered, that scent will set the older cat off to attack the little female. As soon as you get the youngest done, I'm sure things will settle down.

If not, you might want to have the oldest one have a complete check up.
 
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