Male cat fixated on female one, both neutered, she cant stand him.

weltall zero

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Hello everyone,
        this is my first post on these forums, and this might become a bit long (plus English isn't my first language), so I humbly request you bear with me.
        
We currently have three cats, all rescued from various precarious conditions. Arcee, a calico, was taken in almost two years ago when she was apparently abandoned as a three month old near our house. Tigris, a black-white striped cat, was had given birth in a completely exposed patch of grass on a chilling February (2013): we took them all in, and when they were weaned, found suitable homes for the kittens, and eventually adopted her permanently. Raton is a muscular and ridiculously friendly chausie/abyssinian that was rejected for breeding (apparently he was pretty much sterile) and was forsaken by his breeders; we took him in about a year ago. He's about four, now. All of them were neutered as soon as was reasonable: Arcee at around six months old, Tigris when the last kitten was adopted, and Raton immediately. Arcee gets along very well with both of them, but, well, here is the problem:

Tigris can't stand Raton and she will hiss at him every time he gets close. Which wouldn't be a problem, if it wasn't for Raton's fixation on her. Often, whenever they're in the same room, Raton will keep looking at her with fascination for minutes at a time. Other times he will try getting close or even stalk and sometimes pounce on her. It doesn't seem like he's being actively aggressive, and he's the gentlest, sweetest cat to everyone, even other cats (we've had tons of them in temporary shelter this past couple of years, all tested for diseases beforehand of course), but he's a very strong cat and sometimes plays a bit rougher than he realizes. Of course, this infuriates Tigris even more, perpetuating the cycle.

From his behaviour, and if I didn't know better, it's almost as if Raton was smitten with Tigris. Which doesn't make a lot of sense for cats even ignoring that he's neutered, but after seeing Raton lay on his side to let kittens suckle on his nipples (yeah, they weren't his, yeah, he's a male and yeah, he was already neutered back then), I'm not ruling out anything with this cat.

My girlfriend and I are relatively well-versed in cat behaviour, having had cats since childhood, having read tons about them, having coordinated rescues and adoptions of over a hundred of them during the past two years, and having had to coach all those new adopters. Still, we're a bit stumped here. We're considering consulting with a cat ethologist but we don't even know of any here in Spain. Does anyone know of any online or can otherwise help shed some light on the situation?
 

catwoman707

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Hi there and welcome to our forum!

Your english is perfect :)

This is not so much my area of expertise, but I am sure soon enough someone else will chime in and hopefully be able to shed some light on this behavior.

Usually it's the females who don't get along well, as they are the rulers in the home, dominating the males as you know, so this is a bit different.
 
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weltall zero

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Thanks for the warm welcome! To be fair, if there was a dominant cat in the house, it would definitely be Tigris: being the one that's been raised on the street up to adulthood, she's by far the bravest of them, and the one that stands up to any aggressive intruder (in a few amusingly memorable cases, defending RATON from them, in what seemed like a "nobody can hit Raton... but me"). Raton on the other hand is on the cowardly side, as the Spanish meaning of his name (mouse) would imply. But even so, having to keep Raton in check at all times is stressing for her, and she hates it when he surprise-pounces her (you can hear the hissing from the other end of the house). The problem is that Raton seems unfazed and invulnerable to discouragement. 
 

MoochNNoodles

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Gosh i wish I had better advice!

Do you have cat trees or cat shelves where they can go up to get away from each other?  How does he interact with Arcee?
 

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Your English is better than most of the people in my neighborhood of New York.  And certainly your Spanish as well I bet! 


I am not sure there is a problem here.  Seems pretty normal situation to me.

Cats have different personalities.   Some like other cats - some dont.   Tigris is a cat that would definitely be happier to be alone only with humans.   Having other cats - especially extroverted ones like raton stresses her.   Raton on the other hand likes to play fight and this annoys Tigris.   

This will never change.   Tigris might become more tolerant of Raton as he ages and plays less.   But she will never truly accept him.

It is what it is.   Honestly, Tigris would be much happier if Raton was not around.
 
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weltall zero

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Gosh i wish I had better advice!

Do you have cat trees or cat shelves where they can go up to get away from each other?  How does he interact with Arcee?
We actually have a huge, 2m tall cat tree. Tigris, however, is an extremely sedentary cat, often spending the majority of the day in the same spot, so she never bothers to climb it. There's also assorted fluffed cat beds with blankets, so they sleep where they please (often on our beds with us). She's not the kind of cat to get away in any case, she would raher grownl when he gets too close; getting away would be too much like submitting, for her, I think.

Arcee and Raton get along super well, often playing together and grooming each other. So it's not like Raton doesn't have who to play with or that he's bored. The thing is that when Tigris is in the same room, he becomes like bewitched.
 
Your English is better than most of the people in my neighborhood of New York.  And certainly your Spanish as well I bet! 


I am not sure there is a problem here.  Seems pretty normal situation to me.

Cats have different personalities.   Some like other cats - some dont.   Tigris is a cat that would definitely be happier to be alone only with humans.   Having other cats - especially extroverted ones like raton stresses her.   Raton on the other hand likes to play fight and this annoys Tigris.   

This will never change.   Tigris might become more tolerant of Raton as he ages and plays less.   But she will never truly accept him.

It is what it is.   Honestly, Tigris would be much happier if Raton was not around.
Thanks for the compliments! (yeah, my Spanish is much better, being my mother tongue :) ).

OK, the problem is that this has been going on for about a year. As mentioned above, it's not the usual introverted/extroverted cat case, as Arcee is available to play as well. Also, his reaction isn't the spontaneous "let's play!", more like fascination. We do think Tigris would be happier without Raton, but that would mean letting one of them go, and even though it might be feasible now that we have a much bigger network of contacts for adoptions, it would be heartbreaking.

Tigris gets along well with other cats, including Arcee and the myriad cats we've temporarily housed; on the other hand, virtually all of those cats have been below eight months old; she might simply not be willing to accept an adult male. It doesn't seem likely that age will improve the situation, as Raton is four years old already: he's just very playful and kitten-like because of, well, being a chausie/abyssinian.

BTW, that's Raton on my avatar for the curious. :)
 

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I've been having a very similar problem with the 2 cats we adopted several months ago. Sinbad is absolutely fascinated with Tempest and tries to snuggle her any chance he gets. He just wants to be friends and cuddle, but every time he sees her he charges like an excited bull and tries to hug her. She ... does not like this.

We turned one room into a cattery of sorts, and put up 2 kid gates. Tempest can jump over it easily, but Sinbad can't (he's very bad at jumping and climbing), so she does have a place she can hide out. The problem though is she just won't come out at all because of him. :( Every time she comes out, he hears her and charges up the stairs trying to get some Tempest love, which causes her to immediately flee back into her room.

You can see my thread about it here: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/283930/cat-introduction-woes

We also compare it to a crush. Sinbad will sit there for hours if we don't interrupt him, staring at Tempest through the gate. It seems like it's developing into something that will allow them to interact at some point, but it's still very slow. So far the key seems to be to just make sure she has a place she can flee to that he can't follow, and being patient.

We're still working on it and trying to find a solution. I'd love to know if you find one that works for you!
 
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weltall zero

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I've been having a very similar problem with the 2 cats we adopted several months ago. [...]
Wow, that's matches our problem exactly. Right down to the uncanny resemblance to human enamourment. It's kind of comforting to know one's not the only one in the world with this problem.

Unfortunately, your solution wouldn't work for us, as the physical aptitudes of ours are reversed: Raton is athletic and can climb pretty much anywhere without problems, while Tigris seems either unable or unwilling to climb anything above waist level. In fact we think she might have some sort of fall-related psychological trauma, vertigo or acrophobia, as she gets really scared when picked up, too (or at least she did a year ago, she might have gotten better).

Well, I disgress. Back on topic, Tigris usually spends most of the time in a bedroom, while the others tend to be where we are, usually the living room. But recently, Tigris has moved to the living room and while Raton did try to pounce her once or twice as she did times, as of today we've not had such incidents for a couple of days. This makes me ponder if the solution was the opposite, i.e. having them spend more time together so that Raton doesn't get so excited when he sees her. I'll post here if I keep noticing significant improvements to the situation.
 

losna

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 This makes me ponder if the solution was the opposite, i.e. having them spend more time together so that Raton doesn't get so excited when he sees her. I'll post here if I keep noticing significant improvements to the situation.
We have had this thought, unfortunately we have yet to come up with a way to do it other than leaving her door open all the time for gate viewing. We can't even get them into the same room, she still flees to the safety of her gate at the very sight of him. I think it's slowly working, as his "threshold" for Tempest sounds has risen. He used to charge up immediately at even the slightest sound, but after several months of open gate viewing we're at the point where if he's napping or playing with one of us, he'll just pause for a moment and look up at her room, and only charge up if she makes an excessive amount of noise.

Hopefully you manage something more timely than how we're doing here! 
 
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weltall zero

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Well, the best I can say is that the occurrences of Raton harassing Tigris are about as frequent as before, which I guess is an improvement in itself since they now spend most of the time in the same room. In fact they might be getting into fights less often; it's hard to gauge. I'll keep observing.
 
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