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- Feb 4, 2022
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I have a theory I'm curious to hear your feedback on: My cat Boaz is a little bully to our other 3 cats- Asher, Posie, and Javier. I think these are his reasons with each cat: Asher is just as much of a bully as he is; both Asher and Boaz are full of themselves and look for any opportunity possible to fight with each other, even if it means swatting, growling, hissing or howling at each other through a fence or a window. They're anything BUT conflict averse and find it reinforcing to fight with each other.
Boaz finds it reinforcing to be a bully to Javier and Posie for a different reason; Javier and Posie are very passive cats preferring to avoid a fight, and Posie is a scaredy cat. Posie makes a lot of angry noises at Boaz when he starts to walk close to her while she's sitting or laying down, but she doesn't back up her warnings with a physical reprimand, so he's learned that he can ignore her warnings, pounce on her and get into a fight with her, because even when he and she are fighting, she's not really fighting- she's just desperately running away and making a lot of noise.
My theory is that Boaz needs in his life a cat- possibly a female- that is bigger than him (he's only 8 pounds) and that has a balanced temperament: one that's not super fearful nor is she eager for a fight; she's one who won't go looking for trouble but she isn't afraid to really wallop him if he's not respecting her.
The best-case scenario I'm seeing is that if I ever got a cat with that kind of a personality (not super likely since I also want dogs), Boaz would get tamped down enough to understand that there's nothing fun about relentlessly trying to assert his dominance with other cats. What about worse-case scenarios? What do you think could go wrong with this kind of arrangement?
Boaz finds it reinforcing to be a bully to Javier and Posie for a different reason; Javier and Posie are very passive cats preferring to avoid a fight, and Posie is a scaredy cat. Posie makes a lot of angry noises at Boaz when he starts to walk close to her while she's sitting or laying down, but she doesn't back up her warnings with a physical reprimand, so he's learned that he can ignore her warnings, pounce on her and get into a fight with her, because even when he and she are fighting, she's not really fighting- she's just desperately running away and making a lot of noise.
My theory is that Boaz needs in his life a cat- possibly a female- that is bigger than him (he's only 8 pounds) and that has a balanced temperament: one that's not super fearful nor is she eager for a fight; she's one who won't go looking for trouble but she isn't afraid to really wallop him if he's not respecting her.
The best-case scenario I'm seeing is that if I ever got a cat with that kind of a personality (not super likely since I also want dogs), Boaz would get tamped down enough to understand that there's nothing fun about relentlessly trying to assert his dominance with other cats. What about worse-case scenarios? What do you think could go wrong with this kind of arrangement?