A return from the vet issue

Allright, i am new here, and this may have been answered in the past, but this site is just too huge for me to backread everything.

So i'll give some background and the issue, and hopefully someone can provide some insite.

I have 2 cats;

Noah, Male, 5 years old approx. Dominant cat
Cleo, Female, 3 1/2 years old, sub-dominant

Noah recently had an infection, that required he be taken to the vet on monday, i took him, and the vet cleaned the wound, and gave me anti-biotics to give him. No big deal, we were out of the house for less than 2 hours.

I come back, release him from the kitty carrier, and Cleo looks at him and hisses. Now i assume, given that he reeks of the vet, and whatever they used to clean his wound, that this was going to happen. I take him, wash off whatever the vet used from around the wound(but not the wound itself). The hissing continues all night long.

I wake up the next morning, everything seems allright, then Noah comes to greet me and Cleo hisses at him. it hasnt stopped since. She wont let him get within 5 feet of her, if he tries, she flattens out, raises her front paws, lowers the ears and growls. If he makes eye contact with her from anywhere, shes hisses. She gets so irked she will even hiss at me, or even take a swipe or two.

Noah, however seems totally unphazed by this behaviour and contiues to try and interact with her in the manner he used to.

These 2 cats used to get along great grooming each other, and often sleeping rolled up in a ball together, and have lived together for almost 3 years now.

Can anyone help, bc its starting to drive me nuts!

Hi there, this is a common problem and easily fixed-

If you have a bottle of vanilla extract, take it and put a small dab on each cat in three places. Under their chin, between their shoulder blades and on the base of their tail. This will knock off the smell of stress and medicines, and whatever else kitty brought home from the vet and make the cats smell the same.

If it wasn't for the wound, another thing you can do is bathe both cats in a safe pet shampoo, but you don't want to do that with a wound.

Another thing to do if you have no vanilla extract, is take a clean dry towel and rub one kitty, then another, then again, and again and again switching back and forth to transfer scents-


Good luck!

hmmm, vanilla eh?

Will do!



*giggles*

WOW, do they ever look confused!

Actually...it probably has more to do with the fact that your cat now smells like a "stranger" to the other cat (I think it is because of all the other cat and dog scents that are in the air at any vet location). Everytime I take my cats to the vet..even for a check up they come home and hiss at each other. What I recommend you do is use a dryer sheet and rub it on your cat (the one that went to the vet)...or even a dab of your perfume (be careful not to overdo it..just a "dab")...that way the other cat smells you on the cat that came back from the vet. Over time they should get back to loving each other...but you just have to give them time.

Katie

Yeah i assumedit related to the vet scent. But i figured by now that it would have been replaced by the various 'home' scents they are used to.

How quick should i see results? bc i just had a fight at my feet...

Ok, the vanilla trick is to help both cats smell the same and make the other seem less threatening.

However! Since Noah isn't 100% healthy, it is more than likely Cleo can sense this and will show hostility towards Noah. Healthy cats do not like unhealthy cats. In addition to this, medication, especially antibiotics can alter the scent of a cat so this won't be helping Noah's case much at all.

Make sure he has somewhere to escpae from Cleo during his recovery. If things do progress to more than territorial fighting and blood is being drawn, isolate both cats until Noah is given the thumbs up by the vet and slowly re-introduce the two cats.

I can tell you that the vanilla trick worked for me! I brought my Simon home after four nights at the vet (for a urinary blockage) and my other cat, Max, didn't want anything to do with him. I took Hissy's advice and tried the vanilla. I did it for a few days and after that they were best friends again!

Good Luck!