Cats together for 3+ years and now fighting

[denrin]

Hey all,

I have two cats, both 4 years old (or 3 can't remember).... and they have recently started fighting, bad enough that one of them got a wound on their back that my wife saw and we thought it was something else... it is/was a scab thats now getting smaller and smaller. But now today (my wife and I were away from the house for day) I just came back to see the other cat with a large gash behind its ear. It doesn't look infected and i just cleaned it and applied some anti-bacterial cream to it. I am wondering what has brought this change of behaviour about.

These are two strictly indoor cats (both fixed,one male one female), although let on the patio (which I have recently restricted because our 'chicken wire' jail got a hole in it). Can the no going outside have really changed all of this behaviour?

They eat side by side with no hissing, but when they approach each other (recently) there is occasionally hissing, but I just saw them sitting beside each other and there was no hissing, they did 'fight' before but never with any 'damage.'

There is also a dog living in the house (but for a while 8 months) with the cats.

This recently(the fights with damage) happened after one of our cats had gone to the vet for the day to get its teeth fixed.......

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I don't want a fight t break out where a cat loses an eye or something ridiculous like that.

 

[strange_wings]

Originally Posted by Denrin

This recently(the fights with damage) happened after one of our cats had gone to the vet for the day to get its teeth fixed.......

The cat that came home from the vet smelled like a stranger. Some cats get over this weird smell after a few days, others do not do so well.

Get some feliway diffusers for the home, they can help. You may have to do reintroductions.

If there is even the remote possibility of illness in either of them (and there always is since cats are good at hiding this sort of thing) a vet visit would be a good idea to make sure neither of them are hiding an underlying illness. Sometimes when that happens it can make a cat smell weird and other cats in the household will respond negatively.

 

[denrin]

Yea they both seem fine, as in no abnormal amounts of sleeping etc... the one with the recent injury is now patrolling outside on the patio for the cat that lives downstairs. Those two cats have ZERO interaction as I have chicken wired my patio so that they can't get to each other.

 

[strange_wings]

But they can see and smell each other, so that could be enough to set your two off.

Give the feliway a try. Do you know if the other cat is spay/neutered or if there have been others in the area that are not?

 

[denrin]

I will take a look for the feliway. I don't know about the other cat, but I BELIEVE that it is either spayed or neutered......

I do know that as mentioned that occasionally the whole 'going to the vet seperately' can cause issues with different smells but never anything this severe

 

[ummm]

i've heard to use vanilla extra on each cat - just above where the tail meets the body, so when they sniff each other they'd smell the same.

 

[denrin]

We may take the cat to the vet, there's a large amount of puss and my wife and I don't think its worth it to see if it heals itself.... :S

 

[momofmany]

Originally Posted by Denrin

We may take the cat to the vet, there's a large amount of puss and my wife and I don't think its worth it to see if it heals itself.... :S

That is very wise. Puss usually indicates some type of infection and possibly an abcess. I hope he is ok!!

When you bring your cats home from the vet, try putting a dab of vanilla extract (the real stuff, not imitation flavor) on each of them at the base of the tail, the top of their head and under their chins. It is strong enough to hide the smell of the vets and it does make them smell the same.

If there is another cat outside, it may cause redirected aggression in your cats. It doesn't matter if your cats don't physically interact with them. All it takes is a glance or a sniff (cat's have a powerful sense of smell) to set them off.

 

[denrin]

So took it to her the vet, apparently there was a lot of dead skin (vet said it could be a week old injury....which would be crazy, b/c we never noticed it... but thats here nor there....) Vet cut out the 'dead skin' and he suggested we could let it heal on its own (its about the size of a man's thumbnail... pretty big in my opinion) or get it sutured which would mean that she would have to go under..... WAY more pricier.... but We choose to get it fixed that way because well it just seemed like a way bigger injury and I was afraid of worse things happening....

 

[nekoha]

Poor babies!
I had this happen only one time. My two cats, who had lived together for 5 years at the time, suddenly started attacking each other. The culprit? A stray cat that was living on our balcony. Apparently the cats could smell the stray's urine markings and it was driving them crazy. I took the stray to a local no-kill shelter, cleaned the balcony with an enzyme cleanser, and the fighting stopped!
Hope your baby gets better soon!
BTW - is the cat downstairs a new addition, or has it been around a while?

 

[denrin]

We recently moved here 2 months ago, so the cat isn't new we are..... The problem is the balcony isn't the only place they can 'smell each other' (the other cat is an outdoor cat and goes on the shed that is right beside our balcony, which I have chicken wired in so our cats can't escape).... but there because there is a basement suite there are stairs in this old house (we live on the main floor) that go downstairs that occasionally they will sit on each side of and meow at each other....

 

[4cutecats]

I think this might be the problem with two of my cats. One I have had for 5 years since she was 1 week old (she is the aggressive one). The other cat who is actually her mom (found out three months after I found the little one and there were two more kittens). To make a long story short the mom ended up staying and this has been about three years ago. She is an indoor-outdoor cats whereas the other is indoors only. About two weeks ago a stray started coming around and of course all the cats (4) were looking out the windows and growling. The one started attacking the mom and this has been going on for awhile now. I have to keep them separated which is a real pain. I have the pheromone diffuser in the house and have been using some cream on the aggressive one that is called Pet Ease. So, I need some advice. I have had cats on and off for years and never had this problem before.

 

[tdonline]

I just went through a period where my cats fought due to seeing a cat outside.  It's a very difficult situation and you have my sympathies.  There were periods where I was on the verge of tears as it hurt to see my my shy quiet cat so aggressive towards her sister.

There are many threads on redirected aggression.  I'm periodically updating the situation in one thread.  I noticed often people start a thread but there's no follow-up so we do not find out if the situation is resolved.  I'm hoping my thread will be helpful in covering the entire arc of a problem.

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/268349/redirected-cat-aggression-separation-making-it-worse