Sharky's becoming JAWS

Hi Catarina,

I have only seen this behaviour for a few days at most. One of my cats is very calm (he is not the Alpha cat), sometimes he gets pissed off by one of the other and will stalk the other for a few days. Generally it will calm down by itself. However he doesn't seem as agressive as your Sharky seems.

Who is the Alpha cat in your household? Since this problem has been going on for 3 weeks now, maybe Sharky needs to see the vet? Something might be off balance there, lack of something in his food?
Are your cats spayed/neutered? If it were a few days I would say that it needs to be solved by itself but 3 weeks is a little scary...

Anyone out there with better suggestions?

Anne-Claire

Cat,
I hope you find out what's going on with Sharky...
Poor Ninya!
Oh no, Sharky's found out about Nomar!
The cat's out of the bag now.. :laughing2:
All kidding aside, I hope you find out what's wrong..
Kisses to Ninya

Nomar's mommy

Is it possible that Ninya is sick? I have seen many cases where one cat will begin attacking a former friend cat for apparently no reason. Then it turns out that the victim had a very mild urinary tract infection or other mild illness. The aggressor detected a subtle change in scent because of the fever or illness and now sees the victim as an intruder. Try taking Ninya back into the vet for a check-up and have the vet check for a urinary tract infection and see if that helps.

Good luck!

Catarina....I moved this to the Behaviour forum, I hope that's okay...I thought maybe you'd get more responses here! I sure hope you find out what is going on with Sharkey!

I actually have a similar problem. What I have noticed is that Lunette is my poriah cat. She is very timid and stand offish. Tabby who is the little witch in the family, will stalk her to no end. Tabby picks up on how vulnerable Lunette is and just keeps picking on her. In the wild, cats who live together will usually do this to the weak one. The weak ones slow them down and could cause harm to the group. Lunette at this point is so stressed out she is peeing in a corner of the house. The next step for these 2 loves is rescue remedy. With 11 cats, I guess I should be thankful that it's only 2 of them!!

LOL, trust me I went through the same thing. I even had everyone in the house tested for FELV among other things.
With domesticated cats, you may have taken most of the wild out of them but it is still there. Of course we somewhat know this because it is instinct to use sand to bury their poop, why you ask...because a preditor may smell that they have been there. Cats mark their territory to tell others to stay away. I am sure you have even read the threads saying that the cat is scratching at or near the food to put the scent there. Cats will bite and claw as natural instinct.
Okay, now that I have rambled on about that This tension between the two may have been building. As sharky went through the whole bunch, he may have found that he could only beat up Ninya which is when he figured out she is a poriah cat. However it could be something completly different. It is called re directed aggression. Senerio...Sharky and Ninya are sitting near each other, Sharky see's another stray cat through a window or in a distance. Now Sharky is upset and the closet feline to take it out on is Ninya. You are not home so you can't stop it right away. Now every time Sharky see's Ninya he is thinking about this traumatic experience. Can you think of anything that might fit in somewhere?

Sorry, I forgot you said she has always been like this. I am by far an expert here, but It sounds like Sharky has had it and is bound and determined to be top cat of the house. As with most females in the house, they want to be the alpha cat.
Besides Lunette and Tabby here in the house, we have the Sebastion and Ariel situation. Sebastion is a very skiddish boy, but he was the 2nd boy in the house and always Alpha male. Ariel once she hit 1.5 years decided to take her role of Alpha female. This was not sitting well with Sebastion. Over a period of 3 months it had gotten so bad that they could not be in the same room without it sounding like I had lions in the house. Okay, so I tired to reason with them and it did not work. Since that time, I have had to put Sebastion and his sister in my daughters room. I have tried several times to re introduce and re establish roles in the house. I am still in the process but I have decided that they only way I am going to get this to work is to try Prozac or something similar. I am eventually going to give it to Sebastion and once he is out and all is okay, I can taper him off of it. By this time, he should adjust to life with 10 other cats okay. I am not willing to give any of my babies up because of this. Unfortunatley with cats, they are much more stressed with a multi cat enviroment. I am sure they would be happy if it were just one or two of them. Of course, my reasoning with forcing the issue is that I would never neglect,abuse or dump them. I keep telling them that life could be much worse, but they dont seem to get what I am telling them

I've had a situation like this twice that I can remember, in many years of owning (being owned by) cats. The first was some years ago, two neutered males that started off life together when one was 18 months old the other a kitten (I had other cats as well). They were the best of friends for maybe a year and then the relationship soured, I have no idea why. They spent the next 15 years of their lives together sparring, occasionally (maybe once a month) having an all-out brawl sometimes requiring separation. Mostly they just avoided one another, didn't press one another's buttons, so to speak, and it wasn't a major problem.
Then two years ago I acquired two male kittens from the refuge, they absolutely idolised one another, best of mates, until they were about 18 months old when I acquired another kitten. Both of them wanted the new kitten and that drove a wedge between them. They don't cuddle up together anymore, one often chases the other and will down him if he can get his paws on him, and occasionally they have a fairly serious fight. All cats in this scenario are neutered. Again it's not a major problem, but then my cats are indoor/outdoor and can avoid each other if necessary. It seems these sort of conflicts are not uncommon in multi-cat households. I think, as someone else posted, that once past young cathood, many cats would prefer to be the only one in the household. They sure appreciate a mate while young, though.