Very violent aggression

[lovely2011]

We have now had cat #3 for about 10 weeks, and she is worse with cats 1 & 2 than she was when we got her.  I am almost at the end of my rope.  We have isolated, swapped clothing, towels, swapped rooms, used Feliway, fed in crates next to each other, and everything else and she is just violent.  And an escape artist.

We are currently renting a vacation home where the bedroom doors don't shut very well and the new cat got out of her room this weekend and attacked cat #2.  I just dropped her off at the emergency vet to have a huge bite wound sutured shut and an abscess drained.  We bought a huge dog crate to leave her in when we leave the house, but I feel so bad keeping her in there.  I just don't know what else to do.  Cat #2 is on regular steroid injections and the risk of infection with these bits is too high for this to happen again.

What else can I do?  We will be back home in early January, so at least our doors will shut, but she's still very fast at getting out the door between your legs.  And how to integrate them?  How do I keep her from escaping her safe room?  She was fine in a foster home with other cats, so this is just very confusing and stressful for me and all the cats.

(The crazy thing is, she travels in her crate while cat #1 roams the car on a harness.  There is ZERO aggression on her part in the car, even when cat #1 sticks her paws in the crate and hisses at her.)

 

[lovely2011]

No one has ANY ideas?  My husband is trying to convince me to return her to the rescue, but there's no way she'll ever be adopted again.  She really needs to be an only cat, but she has (slight) people agression issues, so I know no one who doesn't understand cats will take her.

 

[lokilove]

I'm so sorry you have to go through this. 10 weeks is a lot of time...have you tried maybe just cat #1 and #3? Keep #2 safe since it's on steroids. I don't have any experience with that sort of aggression so I'm just throwing out some ideas. What I've found kinda works with my angry cat is when she's getting hissy I put a wand toy between the two cats to distract them. Maybe she's frustrated at all the isolation (I don't know if cats get like that) but I do notice Isis is more angry when she first comes out of her room and eases up with the more freedom she gets.

Have you tried contacting the rescue/foster home? Ask them how they managed to integrate her.

Good luck

 

[ldg]

I sent you a private message.

 

[lovely2011]

I do know it took her foster mom 3 months of isolation before she was ready for even supervised social time - but even then, there is no attacking.  The funny thing is, her people aggression is better the more time she spends alone.  People aggression I can deal with - the cat she attacked was feral and pretty crazy - but this cat on cat thing is new to me.

I wonder if she knows the other cat is sick?  She's currently doing very well, but if I look closely enough, I can find issues (skin issues and enlarged lymph nodes), so maybe the new cat is picking up on her being "weak"?  Although she's attacked our older cat as well (escape artist), it wasn't NEARLY this bad.

 

[ldg]

I do know it took her foster mom 3 months of isolation before she was ready for even supervised social time - but even then, there is no attacking. 

Then three weeks is very little time! It may be an issue of needing more time. :nod:

I wonder if she knows the other cat is sick? 

This is definitely something that happens and is a cause of cat-cat aggression. :nod: I don't know what to do about it, but hopefully the suggestion in my PM will help. :cross: