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Bengal wont stop grolwing at his sister.. help?

post #1 of 8
12/6/10 at 11:18am
Thread Starter 
I have a pair of bengals, a brother and sister about a year old. Our house is fully netted in so they cant go anywhere and they have a very good relationship.

Yesterday the female managed to escape into the garden for a while unattended (apparently the cable keeping the gate shut was loose), but anyway I brought her back into the house and since then the boy has been growling and hissing at her non-stop...

He will still talk to me happily and doesnt mind being picked up or petted, and he's not attacking her, just being agressive and loud. Hes been at it for a good 24hrs now. This is very unusual behavior for him and I don't know what to do.

Any advice at all would be helpful, thanks in advance.
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post #2 of 8
12/6/10 at 11:27am
Since they're brother and sister I assume they're both neutered and spay? There's a chance that the sister encountered another cat outside or found something funky to roll in. She now smells weird to her brother. You can try real vanilla extract at the base of their tails and under their chins - I've never had it fool cats into accepting new cats more quickly, but it might work on two cats that do recognize the sight of each other.
Otherwise she just needs to get to smelling like she used to. It can take a couple of days.
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post #3 of 8
12/6/10 at 12:00pm
Thread Starter 
Yes they are both fixed. Ive just given her a bath in the hope of washing off offending smells and seperated the two for a while.
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post #4 of 8
12/6/10 at 12:14pm
Well, that might not fix it either. Now she smells like shampoo and not sister. Your best bet might be to bathe both so they both smell the same, that's what the vanilla trick is for.
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post #5 of 8
12/6/10 at 12:55pm
One of my cats always does this to the other one when he comes back from the vets. I take them for routine checkups together so she doesn't have a problem with my male kitty smelling differently. I have even took them together when I take my male kitty in when he is sick. Unfortunately a couple of times he had to stay at the vets for a few days. It seems to take 3 or 4 days for the vet smell to wear off of him so she recognizes him again. I have tried rubbing vanilla and catnip on them but it didn't seem to work for them. I just had to keep them separated until they started paw playing under the door.
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post #6 of 8
12/6/10 at 12:59pm
Same thing happens whenever I have to take one to the vet. I use a bit of talcum powder, rub my hands in it then rub it over the cats so it doesn't aggravate their lungs with the powder. The cats have always gone straight back to playing with each other, and I know it works because the one time I didn't do it, the cats didn't speak to each other for a couple days. It has to be both cats, the idea is to make them smell the same because it's the strange foreign odor that is making them growl.
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post #7 of 8
12/6/10 at 3:25pm
maybe it's because she smells of the outside, and he isn't familiar with that smell? I read you gave her a bath. You might want to try giving him 1 as well, that way they both smell the same.
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post #8 of 8
12/6/10 at 5:13pm
Thread Starter 
Haha yeah I would like to bathe him as well but I would have to be ready to sacrifice an arm at least, he's too deadly. I see everyone is in agreement that its the smell though so ill continue to keep them seperate untill he gives up.
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