Despite the other posts on this topic, I have a somewhat unique situation.
My husband and I moved overseas for one year due to my husband's job. During that time, my parents took in our cat Shakespeare, a rescued female Maine Coon mix who is now seven years old. Before we left to go overseas, she had been downright aggressive when we temporarily housed (in our spare bathroom) other cats in the process of getting them to shelters or other homes.
While we were overseas, we adopted two male feral cats, who are now completely at home with me and my husband. Now we are back in the states, and our new rescue cats have all of their vaccinations and a clean bill of health, and both are now neutered. (Yes, our girl Shakespeare is spayed.)
In the process of moving back into our house, we turned our front bedroom into a safe room filled with cat toys, cat furniture, a window perch, litter area, food and water area, and plenty of space to play, sleep, climb, and hide for our newest cats, Mew and Earl Gray. This room also served as a natural quarantine area while we were getting our boys checked out by our veterinarian for a clean bill of health and then letting them become acclimated to our house. During this time of acclimation, we started letting the boys have access to the house half of the time with Shakespeare in our bedroom (our bedroom has always been her safe room) with the door shut, and then Shakespeare has access to the house the other half of the time with the boys in their bedroom with their door shut.
As soon as she smelled their scent in the house, she was understandably upset, frustrated, and jealous. We tried to use their scent on our hands to reinforce positive associations with, feeding, and playing, but she only hissed at us and walked away angrily. We tried letting them see each other through a crack in each other's bedroom doors, and she hissed at them angrily and walked away each time. Now, we are putting up double stacked child safety gates in the door jams so that they can see each other and get used to each other through the metal wiring, but she is just angrier and angrier.
The boys both seem to be interested in her and show signs of submission by rolling over onto their sides and backs and meowing invitingly at her. Neither one of the boys has hissed or growled at Shakespeare, but she continues to hiss and growl menacingly at both of them. She has slapped at them through the child safety gates.
This is been going on for a full month now. We love Shakespeare dearly and understand her frustration and possessiveness, especially since she has always been an alpha cat. However, we also love our two new boys dearly and fought extremely hard just to get them back into the country with us and into our home. In other words, we are their family, and rehoming is not an option for us.
We put up three cat pheromone diffusers, one in the common area of the living room and one in each of the bedrooms for the cats. We are feeding them the Royal Canin Calm dry food with calming agents. We are giving them Zylkene calming agents in their wet food. We are giving them the calming cat treats that contain a blend of tryptophan and colostrum proteins. This all seems to be working just fine on the boys, but our alpha girl seems to be immune!
We simply don't know what to do next, and we don't even want to think that our babies will have to spend the rest of their lives apart from each other and behind shut doors because Shakespeare can't get along with Mew and Earl Gray.
Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions? We would appreciate any ideas at this point!
My husband and I moved overseas for one year due to my husband's job. During that time, my parents took in our cat Shakespeare, a rescued female Maine Coon mix who is now seven years old. Before we left to go overseas, she had been downright aggressive when we temporarily housed (in our spare bathroom) other cats in the process of getting them to shelters or other homes.
While we were overseas, we adopted two male feral cats, who are now completely at home with me and my husband. Now we are back in the states, and our new rescue cats have all of their vaccinations and a clean bill of health, and both are now neutered. (Yes, our girl Shakespeare is spayed.)
In the process of moving back into our house, we turned our front bedroom into a safe room filled with cat toys, cat furniture, a window perch, litter area, food and water area, and plenty of space to play, sleep, climb, and hide for our newest cats, Mew and Earl Gray. This room also served as a natural quarantine area while we were getting our boys checked out by our veterinarian for a clean bill of health and then letting them become acclimated to our house. During this time of acclimation, we started letting the boys have access to the house half of the time with Shakespeare in our bedroom (our bedroom has always been her safe room) with the door shut, and then Shakespeare has access to the house the other half of the time with the boys in their bedroom with their door shut.
As soon as she smelled their scent in the house, she was understandably upset, frustrated, and jealous. We tried to use their scent on our hands to reinforce positive associations with, feeding, and playing, but she only hissed at us and walked away angrily. We tried letting them see each other through a crack in each other's bedroom doors, and she hissed at them angrily and walked away each time. Now, we are putting up double stacked child safety gates in the door jams so that they can see each other and get used to each other through the metal wiring, but she is just angrier and angrier.
The boys both seem to be interested in her and show signs of submission by rolling over onto their sides and backs and meowing invitingly at her. Neither one of the boys has hissed or growled at Shakespeare, but she continues to hiss and growl menacingly at both of them. She has slapped at them through the child safety gates.
This is been going on for a full month now. We love Shakespeare dearly and understand her frustration and possessiveness, especially since she has always been an alpha cat. However, we also love our two new boys dearly and fought extremely hard just to get them back into the country with us and into our home. In other words, we are their family, and rehoming is not an option for us.
We put up three cat pheromone diffusers, one in the common area of the living room and one in each of the bedrooms for the cats. We are feeding them the Royal Canin Calm dry food with calming agents. We are giving them Zylkene calming agents in their wet food. We are giving them the calming cat treats that contain a blend of tryptophan and colostrum proteins. This all seems to be working just fine on the boys, but our alpha girl seems to be immune!
We simply don't know what to do next, and we don't even want to think that our babies will have to spend the rest of their lives apart from each other and behind shut doors because Shakespeare can't get along with Mew and Earl Gray.
Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions? We would appreciate any ideas at this point!
