Please Help On Behaviour With Our Blended Cat Family

[Hannahnz]

Desperate for help!
Our 12 year old male Bengal cat is extremely unwell with inflammatory bowel disease. since becoming sick the other 2 bengals in the house (who have lived there 8 months) (one in particular) has become quite aggressive to him. Snow (the sick cat) is so frail that I have to keep him locked in a room thru fear of what the other cats may do. snow was always the boss so this is very sad to see.

Does anyone have any recommendations on how we could get them to live together harmoniously?

 

[ArtNJ]

Cats recognize other cats mostly be smell. Its therefore pretty common for cats to be hostile to a cat that spent the night at the vet and comes home smelling different. The sickness itself could affect your cat's scent. When a cat doesn't recognize a former friend due to scent issues its called "non recognition aggression." If its just the vet visit impacting the scent, you could try rubbing your cat with his favorite blanket to get some of his old scent. Most likely though, that won't work, and you'll either need to let them work it out over time, or if that isn't possible because of the aggression, you need to treat them like stranger cats and do a full formal introduction process. The last thing you need right now I know, but with a little effort things should settle down.

How To Deal With Non-recognition Aggression In Cats

How To Successfully Introduce Cats: The Ultimate Guide

 

[Furballsmom]

Hello, and welcome!
Just a note, are you familiar with these?
IBDKitties – Helping Save Lives…One Paw at a Time
Raw Feeding for IBD Cats
Also, Blue Buffalo Basics, Merrick Limited Ingredient,, Koha Limited Ingredient, also Natural Balance and Instinct Limited Ingredient foods, Wild Calling.
And here's a thread Single Novel Protein Grain Free Wet (not Raw) Food? Help!
Also, if you're having to feed him differently from the other two, you could try a microchip bowl.

So, back to the original question; You could try calming products; there are collars, diffusers, wipes, treats...
Some cats such as my Big Guy are completely unaffected by Feliway, but there are other products with different ingredients such as L-Tryphophan and casein.

there is Zylkene, Calming Care, Calm-o-mile, Sentry, Natures Miracle calming spray, Vetri-Science's Composure is another item to look at, Pet Remedy (it has valerian) is yet another, as is Essential Pet Pet-ease, Only Natural Pet (brand and website) has a calming product, Pet Naturals also has one I believe.
Lambert Vet Supply is a website to look at, and of course amazon and chewy, also there's Petwishpros, drsfostersmith, animaleo.

There are a couple of recent discussions about calming items, here's the link to one thread. Post #6 in this has a link to the second discussion.
Calming Treats?

 

[rubysmama]

Hello and welcome to TCS. So sorry it was your kitty's illness and his siblings' behaviour that brought you here.

I hope before too long Snow will get his strength back and will return to being the "boss" cat.

You've probably done a lot of research on IBD, but TCS does have an article on it, which might have some helpful information:
Inflammatory Bowel Disease In Cats

I can't advise from personal experience on how to get your cats to live harmoniously again, but perhaps once Snow is stronger, you can do a re-introduction between him and the other cats.

How To Fix An Unsuccessful Cat Introduction