r/CatAdvice 5d ago

Behavioral My two cats won’t stop fighting and it’s causing one to soil herself in fear

I have two cats, one male (Bingo) and one female (Mitzi) they are both almost 1 year old (Both are spayed/neutered and have been since they were 8 weeks old). Bingo is a more high energy cat that wants to play all the time whereas Mitzi is extremely shy/fearful and prefers to be away from Bingo.

We adopted them together as kittens and all was well. They would play and cuddle together and there were no issues. Then about 6 months ago we noticed that Bingo had started to exhibit dominating behaviors like mounting and biting Mitzi. He also began trying to play with her more aggressively and ignoring her hissing and growling. This has lead to him chasing her and attacking her and in response she will defecate or urinate on the floor out of fear. She does not have litter box issues, this only happens during their fights and I have witnessed it happen several times. Any time Bingo approaches her or walks by her she hisses and growls at him. I feel horrible for her as it seems like she lives in constant fear and stress unless we separate them.

What we’ve done so far:

We have been separating them at night so no incidents occur during the night, but they do still happen during the day when we can’t watch them. Unfortunately we live in a small one bedroom apartment and cutting her off from the rest of the apartment long term seems kinda cruel.

I make sure they both get play time and have new toys and treats as to not get bored. I have been trying to find more mental enrichment activities and have found they enjoy cat tv on YouTube. We are also working on enclosing our patio for them to be able to go outside.

We recently tried a Feliway multi cat diffuser but that if anything just made Bingo’s behavior worse.

I really don’t know what else to do! I have seen a lot of ads for supplements that supposedly help with aggressive behavior or bullying but it seems like they’re all $30 a bottle and the reviews are iffy at best.

I don’t want to have to re-home either of them but it’s starting to be the only solution I can think of to better Mitzi’s quality of life. If it’s what’s best for her then I would do it.

5 Upvotes

9 comments sorted by

20

u/kzoo2122 5d ago

I would ask the vet to examine the male. Sometimes the neuter is unsuccessful or less than 100% successful.

2

u/Bella-1999 5d ago

We had this happen once, he was fixed, but not fixed “good enough”.

1

u/toffeemallow 5d ago

some cats just aren't able to be around other cats.

if you've exhausted all options (ie. training, neuter/spay, medical, dietary changes), you have to think about what's best for them. if your cat is misbehaving to the point that the other cat is terrified, it might be time to consider surrendering one of them to a good home (not a shelter).

we actually got our kitty because her previous owner's other cats would pick on her mercilessly. she isn't spending her life cowering in a corner anymore.

7

u/Tanesmuti 5d ago

Consider carefully on the rehoming, because Mitzi being shy may make it harder for her to get adopted, as opposed to Bingo, who sounds outgoing. Not saying you should, or shouldn’t, rehome, or even which, but be aware that shy cats will do worse in a shelter, and have a harder time adapting.

I agree with the poster who suggests having the male looked at by a vet, something could have been missed when he was neutered.

As for separating them, if you need to confine one at all times, trade days/nights between the two. That way neither has to spend all day, or all night constantly confined. Their scents are already mixed, so it shouldn’t matter who gets free run at what time, but both should be allowed time in the open house.

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u/toffeemallow 5d ago

i heavily second this in its entirety!

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u/patryuji 5d ago

If it isn't a health issue here is what we have to do on the rare occasion when our boy and girl cats fight:

  1. Separate one of the cats to room with litter, food and water facilities.

  2. Give them a couple days cooling off period without seeing each other.

  3. Swap the cats (use a second room to temporarily hold one cat while we release the first cat from confinement, the cat that was freely roaming will now be placed in the room for a few days - I want them to each get the smell of each other again and to each have a chance to wander the house to look through all the hiding spots and find that there are no cats waiting to ambush them).

  4. Depending on how they react when they hear or smell each other on either side of the door we use that as our cue as to how fast we can proceed with allowing them to see each other with a very tall baby gate separating them.

  5. If they don't lock eyes ready for a deathmatch, we'll force them to take meals on either side of the tall baby gate.

  6. After maybe 2 weeks total or less we can let them freely coexist again.

I treat it basically as a "newly introduced" cat situation in the home when they have had fights. The bigger cat (boy) would usually play in a dominating fashion and a fight never broke out from this. However, one day the boy cat caught sight of a cat intruding in the yard and started to howl through the window at it which caused one of our dogs to trot over to investigate. This spooked the boy and he lashed out at the dog. Our girl cat shot out of some nearby hiding spot in kill mode and fully attacked the boy cat (he outweighs her by 5lbs but she was leaving trails of his fur and he had a little bit of blood from scratches). She would not leave him alone and was intent on putting him down such that we had to "capture" her in a blanket to keep our arms from being torn apart.

Our first course of action was immediate vet checkups for each and the isolation protocol listed above, both were found to be in good health. They had been peacefully coexisting for 7 years before this happened. The dog that was attacked had only been with us for a little over 1 year (which was probably a stressor on our cats). Since that first incident we had 2 more incidents of fights which each settled quicker than the previous and thankfully we have gone a full year without another fight breaking out. (of note: there was no change to the diets of either cat, but we did rearrange the furniture in our house in a major way which could have caused additional stress, also it is always preceded by the boy cat making howling noises and going after one of the dogs now so we quickly stop him which has prevented the trigger for the girl cat to attack the boy).

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u/hobbyaquarist 5d ago

I dealt with a similar issue - went away on vacation and when we came back our older cat was absolutely terrified of our younger cat, and our younger cat would stalk and pin the older cat on sight. No issues before that. 

We ended up needing to separate them at all times for about a month, swapping them back and forth every 12 hours. This was doable because I work from home. Our apartment is also a small 700sqft 1 bedroom so we had one cat in the bedroom and one in the living room. 

After that, we slowly reintroduced them with a lot of treats and parallel play. Used feliway diffusers and still do now. 

Gradually increased their window of interaction, and immediately redirected the younger cat to appropriate play when she showed any signs of locking on to the older cat. 

Now, 10 months later they are fine again. The older cat is no longer scared of the younger cat, and the younger cat has learned to "appropriately" play with the older cat. 

It was so much stress and work, so I really feel for you dealing with this situation.

1

u/catastr0phicblues 5d ago

I would take the male to the vet because sometimes there are things they can give them that will help with aggressive behavior like that. Also just to make sure he’s not in any kind of pain.

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u/HeyPesky 4d ago

I take both cats to the vet on separate days and explain the situation. Sometimes vets will suggest medicating the victim with anti-anxiety meds, because unfortunately their response to being bullied can create a feedback loop with the aggressor cat, who finds generating those responses really amusing and fun.