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?
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?