Background: We have 4 female cats. The oldest is 8 years old and I got her as a kitten, the next oldest we "adopted" as a stray 2 years later, and the youngest 2 we adopted a little over 3 years ago as kittens. They have always gotten along pretty well, they play together and usually sleep beside eachother without any problems.
2 weeks ago, the day started out as it normally does, I didn't notice anything different about any of the cats. Later in the morning, I hear a loud commotion in the basement and all 4 cats bolted up the stairs, fighting. That was the start of it. The oldest cat, Chelsea, ran into the pantry where their food and water is kept and stayed in a defensive position growling and hissing, even if the other cats weren't around. It took her a while to calm down and then she ran out and into another room and hid. She continued this for the rest of the day and we decided that it was time to give her, her own space. So we brought her some food and water and a litter box and put her in our bedroom where she seemed the most comfortable. After keeping her in there, she calmed down and was back to her usual self. She hasn't had any problems with us (my husband and I, or our children) but she continues to get aggressive as soon as the other cats come around. She hasn't been downstairs in about 10 days and has barely left our bedroom. There's been some small improvement, we can leave the bedroom door open and there is only the occasional fight, but she does stay in our closet most of the day if the door is open. We keep the bedroom door closed at night to give her some downtime away from the cats and to keep from being woken up by fighting. After a few days of this, we bought this collar for her: http://www.petsmart.com/product/inde...at+Health+Care
After putting that on her, she seemed to show a little improvement, enough that she didn't immediately hide and hiss the minute she saw another one of our cats. She is still far from being her usual, relaxed self. Today I finally broke down and bought the Feli-way diffuser, because we need to do something. We can't continue to keep her away from all of our other cats, and I was really hoping to see more improvement than this after 2 weeks.
I called out vet and after a detailed description, they said as long as she seems healthy (she does, she is eating and drinking well, using the litter box, no signs of health problems) that it sounds behavior related and to try the Feliway and give it time. Does anyone have any other suggestions?
I'm starting to stress out about this all a bit, I really don't want to think about where we might end up if I can't get her to get along with the other cats again.
2 weeks ago, the day started out as it normally does, I didn't notice anything different about any of the cats. Later in the morning, I hear a loud commotion in the basement and all 4 cats bolted up the stairs, fighting. That was the start of it. The oldest cat, Chelsea, ran into the pantry where their food and water is kept and stayed in a defensive position growling and hissing, even if the other cats weren't around. It took her a while to calm down and then she ran out and into another room and hid. She continued this for the rest of the day and we decided that it was time to give her, her own space. So we brought her some food and water and a litter box and put her in our bedroom where she seemed the most comfortable. After keeping her in there, she calmed down and was back to her usual self. She hasn't had any problems with us (my husband and I, or our children) but she continues to get aggressive as soon as the other cats come around. She hasn't been downstairs in about 10 days and has barely left our bedroom. There's been some small improvement, we can leave the bedroom door open and there is only the occasional fight, but she does stay in our closet most of the day if the door is open. We keep the bedroom door closed at night to give her some downtime away from the cats and to keep from being woken up by fighting. After a few days of this, we bought this collar for her: http://www.petsmart.com/product/inde...at+Health+Care
After putting that on her, she seemed to show a little improvement, enough that she didn't immediately hide and hiss the minute she saw another one of our cats. She is still far from being her usual, relaxed self. Today I finally broke down and bought the Feli-way diffuser, because we need to do something. We can't continue to keep her away from all of our other cats, and I was really hoping to see more improvement than this after 2 weeks.
I called out vet and after a detailed description, they said as long as she seems healthy (she does, she is eating and drinking well, using the litter box, no signs of health problems) that it sounds behavior related and to try the Feliway and give it time. Does anyone have any other suggestions?
I'm starting to stress out about this all a bit, I really don't want to think about where we might end up if I can't get her to get along with the other cats again.
