Background info:
I rescued a pregnant mama cat from the streets around Christmas 2013. She had 2 male kittens born in our house in March 2014. We kept all 3 cats, and still have them to this day! They all get along fine & we love them
A couple months ago, an injured kitten showed up on our porch. Probably 5-6 months old. He was very friendly and just seemed.....lost. He had some kind of laceration on his back that looked pretty wide and infected. Took him to the vet and was told it was an abscess - gave kitten a course of antibiotics and he is 100% healthy now! He's been living with us too - confined to the spare bedroom at first, but gradually introduced to our current gang, and that all went OK. He likes to rough-house a little more than my gang likes, but all in all, everyone gets along OK. He got neutered about a month ago (all cats are spayed/neutered).
This kitten really loves me haha - he lays in my lap whenever I'm sitting on the couch & follows me around everywhere. With the other cats, he plays sort of....aggressively.....well I'm not sure if "aggressively" is really the right word - he wants to play wrestle a lot and sometimes the other cats just aren't in the mood. When I see this happening, I give him a wand toy or laser session so he can get it out of his system.
When he goes to play wrestle with someone. he sneaks up and gets on top and bites their neck - I thought this behavior was "mating" behavior or "dominance" behavior? He never hurts anyone, but I don't know why he does that particular thing so much......... another thing that bothers me is at bedtime - before he came to live with us, I used to sleep every night with both the boy cats up in bed with me. Now that new kitten is here, if I go to bed and the other 2 boys are in bed with me, the kitten gets up on top of them and bites their necks and harasses them until they both jump off the bed
so kitten then gets me & the bed all to himself. It makes me kind of sad for the others - I try to bring them back up onto the bed, but they won't stay if the kitten is up there, and I don't blame them really - they probably just don't want to be harassed. How can I make him stop "bullying" my other 2 boys? And why won't they stand up for themselves and make him get off the bed? They are much bigger and outweigh him by several pounds..........
I try to spend one-on-one time with each of my other 2 boy cats so they don't feel like I'm trying to "replace" them with this new kitten. But I would really like it if, at bedtime, I could get them all to stay on the bed and stop the kitten from bullying the others away.........any ideas how to accomplish this? I've thought about shutting the bedroom door so the kitten can't get in - but that also means the others couldn't get out, and what if they get thirsty or have to poop or something?
I rescued a pregnant mama cat from the streets around Christmas 2013. She had 2 male kittens born in our house in March 2014. We kept all 3 cats, and still have them to this day! They all get along fine & we love them
A couple months ago, an injured kitten showed up on our porch. Probably 5-6 months old. He was very friendly and just seemed.....lost. He had some kind of laceration on his back that looked pretty wide and infected. Took him to the vet and was told it was an abscess - gave kitten a course of antibiotics and he is 100% healthy now! He's been living with us too - confined to the spare bedroom at first, but gradually introduced to our current gang, and that all went OK. He likes to rough-house a little more than my gang likes, but all in all, everyone gets along OK. He got neutered about a month ago (all cats are spayed/neutered).
This kitten really loves me haha - he lays in my lap whenever I'm sitting on the couch & follows me around everywhere. With the other cats, he plays sort of....aggressively.....well I'm not sure if "aggressively" is really the right word - he wants to play wrestle a lot and sometimes the other cats just aren't in the mood. When I see this happening, I give him a wand toy or laser session so he can get it out of his system.
When he goes to play wrestle with someone. he sneaks up and gets on top and bites their neck - I thought this behavior was "mating" behavior or "dominance" behavior? He never hurts anyone, but I don't know why he does that particular thing so much......... another thing that bothers me is at bedtime - before he came to live with us, I used to sleep every night with both the boy cats up in bed with me. Now that new kitten is here, if I go to bed and the other 2 boys are in bed with me, the kitten gets up on top of them and bites their necks and harasses them until they both jump off the bed
I try to spend one-on-one time with each of my other 2 boy cats so they don't feel like I'm trying to "replace" them with this new kitten. But I would really like it if, at bedtime, I could get them all to stay on the bed and stop the kitten from bullying the others away.........any ideas how to accomplish this? I've thought about shutting the bedroom door so the kitten can't get in - but that also means the others couldn't get out, and what if they get thirsty or have to poop or something?