please help w/ aggresive cat from exposure to stray

hi,

thanks in advance for everyone's help. i checked out your forum and the community here seems very nice...i guess that's a given because you like cats

here's the history:

two male cats named huck and blue. they're both male and they are brothers. they've been together they're whole lives (2 years) and they have never fought. they truly love being around each other.

the problem:

tonight a stray got into the house. huck and blue have never seen another cat (besides at the vet and their other siblings) blue seemed curious for a second and then huck attacked the stray like nothing i've ever seen.

we got the stray out of the house and tried to calm huck and blue down. huck seemed fine, his tail was all puffed out, but he seemed fine. blue went and hid. when blue came out of hiding, huck attacked him worse than he did the stray. it was awful and truly frightening. we seperated the cats into different rooms.

about 2 hours later we let them back out and huck did the same thing. we now have them seperated and we're not sure what to do.

we're terrified that (this sounds stupid) our cats are "ruined" and that they'll never be able to be around each other again.

my wife and i are truly scared for their health. please help with any suggestions or referals.

thank you so much,


jtc

Hi jtc and welcome to the community.

I am sorry that a stray cat has done this to your cats. There's several things that will help ease the tension. For right now, though leave the two cats in separate areas.

Feliway spray would be helpful. Right now in your home all these stress pheremones are lurking. You can't smell them, but your cats can and that is partly why Huck is responding as he is. Spray the Feliway liberally all over the room where the fighting occurred.

When ferals fight they usually lose some urine due to stress and excitablity. You could have urine spots in your home and that could be launching the battle as well. The best way to find urine is in the middle of the night with a black light flashlight (available through Petsmart)

Also Feliway makes a Comfort Room Diffuser you should plug that in a socket in the room where the confrontation occurred.

Vanilla Extract- if your wife bakes, she probably has a bottle in her pantry. Take in and dab it in three places on each cat, under their chin, between their shoulder and at the base of their tails. Do this three times a day- you are neutralizing their scent, and taking away from huck's stressful smell that is pumping him up to fight his brother.

Play classical music softly it really does work. I deal with new ferals all the time here, and i have found that music classical, especially anything with harps in it, has great potential to soothe even the most stressed out cat. You don't have to play it very loud, they have excellent hearing.

Good luck to you and your cats!

Here is a link that shows the comfort zone room diffuser- not a bad price either

http://www.biovets.com/feliway_41_ctg.htm

thanks for your post. we got the feliway spray and the plug-in. we're using the vanilla and we'll see if it works. this morning they're still off the charts.

thanks again,

jtc

Can you bathe them? Bathing them will also work to move any offensive smells that are lingering on their fur. Also be sure that huck is not injured. Cat bites are quite serious and they start out small but if undetected they can abscess and get quite nasty. Typical places to look for them are under the legs, in the neck, belly and the tail. One of the best ways to find troublesome bites, is have the cat napping. Go up to him and run your hand above his body just mere inches not touching the hair or skin. Look for heat spots radiating up to contact your palm. If you feel heat, stop there is likely to be a bite there. Carefully search for the bite, clip the hair, use betadine and or hydrogen peroxide and an antibiotic creme, a veterinary one is preferred, but if you use neosporin, only use a little. Then make sure that the bite does not become infected and fester. By the sound of the confrontation, I would be very surprised if huck was not bit.