Older Cat Aggressive After New Kitten Comes Home

ckassin

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Help! I just got a new kitten on 4/15. My 12 year old Bengal (Rajah) is acting aggressive...not so much toward the kitten...but toward the other 8 year old male cat (Jake) in the house. He just hisses at the kitten. His attacks of the other cat are almost constant and very vicious. He makes very strange growling and howling sounds and fluffs all his body furr and tail up huge. He actually will chase Jake down though the house if Jake tries to get away from him. When I try to stop them he tries to bite me and swats and pounces on me. The other male cat is not aggressive at all...but does now growl when Rajah comes near him now. This aggression seems to have gotten worse over the past 1-1/2 weeks. These two cats have always had their occasional moment...but this constant attack mode is very scary. I have also tried to give him as much of my attention as possible but the kitten gets some of the attention of course. Rajah is used to all of my attention. I am going to call the vet when they open this morning to see if they have any ideas but in the meantime if anyone has any experience with this or tips of any kind please feel free to email me at [email protected]. I was locking the kitten up just in case...but now I've got Rajah locked up in another room by himself. Thank you! Cheryl
 

rblaude

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Have you tried putting several Feliway plug ins around the house? Did you introduce them slowly over several days? If not, maybe you could go back and try that now. There are some great instructions for that around here.
 

opilot

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This is displaced aggression. The old cat is re-directing aggression towards the kitten (new member of pride) to the submissive cat Jake. Generally cats are inhibited towards the young kittens/cats - that is won't attack them due to the age... is the kitten a female by any chance?

Unfortunately, this could go on for some time, and get worse before getting better. Old top cat must re-assert to Jake that Jake is submissive and old cat is on top, in part due to arrival of a "new" cat. It may never improve, but generally it should die down if old cat and Jake were once on good terms.

When I brough Lexi home as a kitten/young cat, Diablo got mad at her and growled at her all the time. Eventually the reached a truce. Now that I have a foster kitten 6mos old, Diablo lets foster get away with stuff he won't let Lexi get away with. Now, he even "goes" for Lexi sometimes. she gets out of his way, and because he is old and tired, they really never come to blows.

But, interestingly, he hasn't whapped the young foster cat at all. (She's female, so's Lexi and Diablo is male top cat...)

Gender may be a factor to consider too.

Use Feliway, separate only if they look like old cat is going to bite/harm -
otherwise, let them work it out.
 
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