Answer: Oleic acid. This fatty acid is found in squashed ants, cat pheromones (including synthetic pheromones like Feliway) and olives,
which explains why some people report that their cats go crazy over olives.
The facial pheromone of cats has been determined to be
anywhere from 43-65% oleic acid, which suggests that when cats "go
nuts" over squashed ants or olives, they are reacting to a smell that
tells them "this is a wonderful, familiar thing that belongs to you".
Because cats rub this facial pheromone on areas that make them feel comfortable, the synthetic pheromone, Feliway, seeks to reduce unwanted behaviors that cats perform when they are stressed by the environment (for example: moving to a new home, interacting with a new cat, traveling...). These behaviors include urine marking, scratching, hiding, and over-grooming.
On the other hand, oleic acid has a very different message to send to ants. The release of the oleic acid odor signals to the other ants that an ant has died and needs to be moved to the colony's ant-graveyard. E. O. Wilson discovered in the 1950's that if you dabbed a tiny bit of oleic acid on a live ant, other ants in the colony would pick it up and move it to the graveyard repeatedly, until the ant had cleaned itself thoroughly enough to remove all traces of the oleic acid.
Olives don't need to feel comfortable or bury their fallen comrades, so why is oleic acid in olives? Scientists think that some plants developed high levels of oleic acid to encourage insects like ants to bury their seeds. Since olives carry a seed, a fallen ripe olive, full of oleic acid would potentially attract ants or other insects to carry the olive or its seed back to the ant graveyard and "plant" it, allowing a new olive tree to grow.
So, while these things all have something in common, we do not recommend rubbing olive oil or squashed ants in areas where your cat has been inappropriately urinating, nor do we recommend feeding your cat olives to cheer him up. And we DEFINITELY do not recommend using your cat or an ant as a garnish on your Greek salad or in your favorite martini.
We'd love to hear whether your cat is intrigued by olives or crazy for ants...or both!
In light of the numerous cases of bladder stones, crystals
and inappropriate urination issues we have seen in the last month, I thought
that I would share my own experience with bladder stones, in the hopes that others
will take away the same lessons that I learned.
Marley
For over a decade, I shared my life with two lovely cats who
were brother and sister. Mina, the sister, is still with me, but I lost Marley
to lung cancer in 2013. Both cats came from a rescue group in East Lansing,
siblings from a litter of hand-raised kittens whose mother had died when they
were 10 days old. Both cats were fairly healthy during their younger years -
Marley had a congenital cataract, Mina had some foul diarrhea. Marley had
chronic skin allergies. Both cats went through a period of time when they had
adverse vaccine reactions. Mina occasionally has bouts of bronchitis. Together,
they
kept my hands full!
In September of 2009, I noticed that Marley had stopped
squatting to urinate. I was annoyed by the habit, because he would stand in the
litterbox and a big stream of urine would splatter out onto the floor in front
of the box. I watched this go on for two weeks, because he didn't seem to be in
pain - he didn't vocalize or strain when he urinated, he didn't seem to be
going all that frequently - maybe 2-3 times daily. He didn't seem to be
drinking more water than usual, and the urine wasn't bloody. I wondered if he
had developed some arthritis in his hips - after all he was 9 years old at the
time. I brought him in to work with me and after a thorough exam, we took hip
x-rays. Dr. Brooks looked at the x-ray and said, "Well, his hips are fine,
but he has bladder stones." I thought she was teasing me. I couldn't
believe it. I looked for myself. Sure enough, there they were - 7 stones (I
would share the x-ray, but it is in attic storage, now, and I don't like
attics). A few weeks later, I scheduled him for surgery - I forget now, why I
waited. It might have been a busy surgery schedule. I might have been saving up
money. Anyway, it was a dumb idea to wait, because I was on pins and needles
the whole time, worrying that he might become obstructed with a stone. This was
a little silly, not because it wasn't possible, but because it takes weeks to
months for stones to form, so he could have become obstructed at any time prior
to his diagnosis, and I had not been worried, before. Worrying wasn't going to
help him. Surgery was the only option.
Calcium oxalate stones
Surgery went smoothly, and 7 large stones (and two smaller
stones that were not visible on the x-ray) were removed. We sent off the stones
for analysis at the Minnesota Urolith Center and the report stated that they
were 70% Calcium Oxalate Monohydrate and 30% Ammonium Acid Urate stones. After
surgery, Marley didn't like using the clay litter we use here in the hospital,
so he urinated bloody urine on the floor and towel until we switched him back
to scoopable clumping litter. At home, he resumed urinating in the box
normally, squatting like a good boy.
After that, he switched to a canned stone-prevention diet.
Calcium oxalate stones do not dissolve with a dietary change, but they can be
prevented from re-forming in many cases. Marley had bladder radiographs and
urine rechecks every 6 months until 2012. I had a baby and went on maternity
leave around the time that he was due for a recheck. In retrospect, I should
have brought him in for a recheck early, but I was caught up in my own medical
issues at the end of my pregnancy, and I figured a few months' delay was not
that important.
But
it was. In May of 2012, four months after the birth of my daughter, I was
scheduling Marley for a
One large stone that required surgery to remove, and the many smaller stones we expressed.
repeat cystotomy. He had a bladder full of stones
again. They were smaller, this time, but one stone was large enough that it
could not be expressed. Marley recovered well from his second cystotomy and
continued to do well until July 2013, when cancer took its toll.
Mina
Shortly
after I lost Marley, his biological sister, Mina, started vomiting. She has had
occasional bouts of acute vomiting, and was empirically
diagnosed with
inflammatory bowel disease in 2005. In August 2012, she had a bout of vomiting
that lasted about a week, and I brought her in for abdominal x-rays. At that
time, she was having no issues urinating in the litterbox. She did not have any
intestinal abnormalities, but there was a shadow in her bladder, which turned
out to be a "puddle" of small stones. Fortunately, since she is a
female, we were able to express all the small stones out of her bladder, and surgery
was avoided. We sent in the stones to the Minnesota Urolith Center and they
were 100% Calcium Oxalate stones. She has also been eating a crystal prevention
diet and so far, she has had no further sign of stones on any of her followup
xrays or urine samples.
If I had taken my own advice, many years ago, and fed
canned food to my cats more often, I might
Sometimes, a lot of small stones look like one large stone
never have had to deal with this
issue, as their urine might have been more dilute and less likely to form
stones. I was very fortunate that neither of my cats decided to start urinating
outside the litterbox due to discomfort - in fact, they are both very good
examples of the fact that cats hide their problems from their owners. As a
technician, I should be more attuned to signs and symptoms of illness, and I was
unaware of the issues my own cats had. They are also a good testament to the
importance of follow-up. Even if your cat seems fine after a treatment or
procedure, it is important to follow-up on schedule. If I had brought Marley
back 3 months earlier for a recheck, he might have been able to avoid the
second cystotomy surgery. It may be that Mina will be one of the lucky few cats
that never re-forms stones after a cystotomy, but you can be sure that I will
continue to check her every 6 months!
Even though most cats do not chew bones like dogs, a good number of them will occasionally get it into their head to gnaw on one thing or another - especially at Christmas when that amazing cat toy comes out of the basement or, even better, comes in from the outdoors to stand there, just asking to become a jungle gym and oral health device!
Chewing behavior can be normal in cats - an expression of curiosity and exploration, teething behavior in young cats, or a result of play, however chewing can also be an expression of boredom or an obsessive-compulsive disorder, and can quickly become destructive!
How do you keep your cat from gnawing the Christmas tree? Here are some tricks to try:
Place a heat or motion sensor under the tree, such as the Scranimal, which emits an audible sound when the cat enters the 10 foot x 3 foot area that it protects. There are other similar products that emit ultrasonic sounds if an audible sound would be a problem at night.
Wrap tree branches in reach with tin foil, bubble wrap, or double sticky tape. Once the tree is no longer fun to chew, the cat will leave it alone and you may be able to remove the deterrent.
Wipe branches with a cloth sprayed with Bitter Apple. It is best not to spray Bitter Apple spray liberally in your home because some people find the spray residue obnoxious. Take small items outside to spray with Bitter Apple.
You can combine two deterrents in one and wrap the branches in double sticky tape that have been dipped in cayenne or hot pepper.
If your cat likes chewing on dangling things, you can try hanging CET Cat Chews from his cat tree to simulate the tree he is chewing on. It may help to have a cat tree located in the same room as (but not right next to) the Christmas tree. This will give your cat an alternative perch in the same room as the tree which will hopefully prevent him from climbing up into the tree.
You can offer your cat an alternative plant to chew on by growing or purchasing some Cat Grass and placing it in the same room as (but not next to) the tree.
If all else fails, you may need to relocate your Christmas tree and/or decorations to a room cat can't access. In the case of the tree itself, you can remove the lower branches (artificial or natural) that the cat can easily reach and hope that he does not try to get up higher in the tree to chew on the upper branches.
Additionally, this WikiHow Article has some great tips on cat-proofing your tree in other ways.
Does this cat look like she has high blood pressure? It's hard to tell from the outside, so routine testing, or "screening" is usually the best way to tell.
Most of the time, when we diagnose cats with high blood pressure, their owner has no specific complaints about their cat's health or behavior. That is because most of the negative effects of high blood pressure in cats are subtle, and act internally before outward signs are seen.
One of the most common causes of sudden blindness in cats is high blood pressure. This is because the tiny blood vessels are put under a lot of strain when a cat has chronic high pressure. This can cause the vessels to rupture or break and small areas of the retina lose blood supply. Once the blood supply is gone, small lesions or detachments form, giving your cat spotty vision. If this goes on for long enough, the entire retina can detach and cause complete blindness.
Fortunately, if high blood pressure is caught early, before too much retinal damage has been done, the lesions can heal, with treatment.
This particular cat was brought in to have an exam because she was wobbly and had started falling off a chest of drawers where she liked to sleep. The only thing that was found on her exam was that she had high blood pressure and some changes to the retina:
So, that's one problem on her list - but is her high blood pressure making her fall?
Sometimes, when a cat has high blood pressure, it is due to the presence of another disease, such as kidney disease, or hyperthyroid disease. In fact, 61% percent of cats with chronic renal failure and 87% of cats with hyperthyroidism have high blood pressure, according to research (citation below).
For Kitty, we took a blood sample to test for kidney disease and hyperthyroid disease. We discovered that Kitty did have some mild changes to her kidneys, too. We started blood pressure medication for Kitty, and when she came in to have her pressure rechecked, her owner told us that she was a changed cat! She had significantly improved, and was no longer wobbly or falling off her favorite sleeping spot.
High blood pressure can cause signs that owners can note, but again, most people only recognize that there was a problem after their cat's high blood pressure is being treated. We hear comments like: "Fluffy is so much less cranky!" or "Callie's appetite is so much better!" or "Smokey seems so much less restless and has stopped crying at night!" when people come in for their blood pressure rechecks.
Other symptoms of high blood pressure (besides blindness and retinal detatchment) include:
Seizures
Circling/disorientation
Dilated pupils
Hemmorrhage (bleeding) of the eye or nose
Blood and/or protein in the urine
Abnormal kidneys
Heart murmur
Weakness
Signs of thyroid disease
If you think your cat may have high blood pressure, or if your cat is over the age of 7 years and you would like your cat screened for high blood pressure, you may want to consider participating in a current high blood pressure study that is being run. For more information about the study, visit www.mycatcanhelp.com or read more about it on our blog at "Feline Hypertension: What you need to know!"
If you have read part 1 and part 2 of this series, you now may have a good idea what reasons may be behind your cat's aggression and you have a list of behaviors and locations that clarify the aggression. However, what you really want is a solution, right?
Some forms of mild territorial aggression, such as conflict
that occurs after the introduction of a new cat to the household, will resolve
themselves over a period of 4 months. Temporary aggression issues, such as
conflict after a veterinary visit or other traumatic event, may resolve in 24-48
hours.
Rub cats around the cheeks and face to transfer scents
Re-Scent: If your cats only have problems after one of them visits the veterinarian
(non-recognition aggression), try to schedule vet visits at the same time, or
segregate the cat that went to the vet in one room with food, water and litter,
to let him regain the familiar smell of the household and de-stress before
re-introducing him to your other cats. You could speed the process by rubbing
the cats with the same towel around their ears and cheeks - the areas that cats
use to mark their territory and rub other cats - and then across their bodies.
Re-Introduce: For troubles with a new cat in the house, or long-standing
territorial issues, try re-introduction of the cats. Generally, the aggressor
cat is the one that should be treated as the "new" cat and the victim
should be treated as the "existing" cat. Use rewards to reinforce
desired behaviors, but do not physically punish fighting. It will NEVER help
the situation, and may make the situation worse. Patience is a big key to
working with remodeling your cat's relationships - your goal in cases of
aggression is not to make your cats into best buddies, but to give them the
ability to tolerate each others' presence without fighting.
Redirect: Don't punish aggressive behavior, because that will cause
stress, which may increase aggression. Don't reward aggressive behavior by
trying to distract the aggressor with treats or attention, either. Instead, try
to distract the aggressor before a fight occurs by redirecting his attention
with an interactive wand toy, a game of fetch, or a laser pointer or flashlight
and try to lure him away from the impending fight. Reward the cat when you
catch him acting neutrally towards the victim.
Resource management: Increase the desirable space in your house by adding
vertical territory, such as cat trees, perching shelves, or giving cats access
to upper levels of existing shelving with ramps and stairs. Make sure that
there are plenty of feeding and watering stations, so that essential resources
can't be completely blocked, and make sure that you have at least one more
litter box than the number of cats in your home, preferably at least one box on
each level of your house, as well. This will help prevent inappropriate elimination related to resource blocking or stress.
Remedies: Medications: If aggression issues are significant, your veterinarian may
recommend the introduction of calming medications or anti-anxiety drugs to aid
your efforts to train your cats to tolerate each other. These medications will
help take the edge off the bully's attacks, or decrease the victim's reaction
to aggressive posturing from the aggressor cat. Drugs are generally not the
cure for the problem, but can be a useful tool to aid in implementing
behavioral conditioning. Sometimes only one cat needs to be medicated, but
sometimes the problem is significant enough that both cats need to receive drug
therapy in addition to behavioral therapy. Medications such as fluoxetine,
buspirone, alprazolam, clomipramine and elavil are prescribed based on the
information that a cat owner provides about the types of aggressive incidents
that occur. Because the dosages are different for humans and cats, and because
the recommendation for medication is based on the behavior of the cat, it is
only recommended to start behavioral drug therapy with the guidance of a
veterinarian.
In addition to prescription medications, some of the
other products that we often incorporate into behavioral solutions are pheromone
products, wraps and treats.
Feliway
Pheromone products: Calming pheromones help decrease the stress levels in the
household and lower the intensity levels of the aggressive encounters. Products
such as Feliway and NurtureCalm contain pheromones associated with marking
"happy places" and the chemical a mother cat produces to calm and
reassure her kittens.
Wraps: The Thundershirt is a product based on information
from studies of autistic children and adults indicating that pressure therapy,
massage, and the use of a hugging machine can relieve anxiety. In addition,
swaddling of infants has been shown to calm them. While research and controlledstudies are still in the works for this therapy, it is not harmful to employ
them in an effort to calm hyper-anxious pets as a part of a behavioral plan.
Mr. B wears a Thundershirt to help him deal with all the cats in the hospital
Treats and Supplements: The pill Anxitane and Composure
treats contain L-Theanine, (Gamma-ethylamino-L-glutamic acid) which is derived
from the mushroom Boletus badius and Camellia sinensis tea
leaves. L-Theanine causes a calming effect without drowsiness.
You will probably need to resign yourself to the fact that
your cats will never be best friends. If aggression is a significant issue
between your cats, the best you may be able to hope for is tolerance of the
other cat's presence, and that can take months of baby steps forward (and a few
steps back) to accomplish. However, if you are patient, and if you let the cats
tell you when you can move forward, you will hopefully eventually be rewarded
with a peaceful (if not amicable) household.
If you read last week's blog post, you know about some of the common types of aggression that you may see between cats. This week, we will discuss how to recognize aggression and conflict between cats.
There are two main styles of aggression displayed by cats:
1) Overt - This is behavior that is obviously hostile, such as
hissing, growling, spitting, biting, piloerection (fluffed up fur), lashing the
tail, staring at the other cat, standing over the submissive cat, flattening
the ears, dilating of the pupils, and swatting. The following images can be helpful in reading the level of your cat's aggression. In general, the more aggressive cat tries to make himself larger and more intimidating, and the more submissive cat tries to make himself smaller and less threatening.
Cat facial expressions
Cat tail communication
Body postures of the cat, increasing in aggression towards the right and increasing in submission/fear towards the bottom
2) Covert - Physically blocking another cat from
resources like food, water, sleeping areas and litter, either through actual
contact, chasing, or by sitting in a position of power over the resources.
Excessive marking of territory (either with facial pheromones or with urine
and/or feces) may also occur. In addition, human contact and attention may be
deprived from the victim by physical blocking or threats. The victim may end up
urinating or defecating in other places than the litterbox if the aggressor is
successful in completely preventing access to the box.
We had one client who had introduced a new, shy cat to her house, and her older, existing cat started urinating inappropriately. She was sure that it was because he was marking territory in the house because of the new cat. However, after consulting with one of our staff members and having a thorough physical exam and urinalysis to determine that there was no medical cause for the inappropriate urination, the owner went home and watched her two cats and discovered that when her existing cat got up and walked towards the litterbox, the new cat would run to the box, get there first, use the box, and then sit next to it and stare at the older cat. He would then turn away and go urinate by the door. There was no fighting or overt physical aggression between the two cats; in fact, they mostly ignored each other. However, the new cat was being covertly aggressive towards the existing cat by blocking his access to important resources.
Even though these cats aren't fighting, one is acting aggressively towards the other
Determining the best way to find a solution for inter-cat aggression issues can be a complex process, but being able to identify all the ways in which your cat displays aggression can help give a lot of insight to your veterinarian. If you have a problem with aggression between cats in your home, you can provide some helpful information by doing the following:
1) Identify problem areas of the home - areas where most of the conflict takes place. You may even want to draw a map of your home, identifying areas of conflict and prime resource locations (food, water, litter, sleeping spots, favored perches, etc.).
2) Document the aggressive interactions that you witness - who is involved? How did they behave? How did the conflict resolve? 3) What are the relationships between the humans in the house and the cats in the house? Who spends peaceful time together and when? 4) Describe your cats' personalities in detail. How does each cat feel about visitors, food, affection, and things that happen outside? Do your cats have any health issues?
If you can provide this information to your veterinarian, you will be helping him or her help you and your cat.
There are two major reasons people seek help with their
cats' behavior. The first is inappropriate elimination. The second is
aggression or fighting.
There are several reasons that cats may fight -
1) territoriality
2) play
3) stress or anxiety
1) Territoriality
While cats do not live in packs, they do form social bonds
in wild colonies. However, in the wild, cats have much larger territories than
they do in our homes. Various studies have been performed in England and the
US, tracking feral cats and indoor/outdoor pets. These studies have found that
cats have a range of up to 2 square miles in the suburban U.S. and as large as
8.5 square miles in rural farmland in England.
Cats with indoor habitat tend to roam less than feral cats, but still cover a lot of ground.
These studies have shown that cats live more closely
together in urban areas where they have more resources available - more sources
of food, water, litter areas and "prime" resting spots. We also know
that cats establish small territories within a room, and "time share"
resources. Cats in a household can be predictably located in certain areas of
the home at certain times of day, just like outdoor cats will patrol certain
parts of their territory on a predictable schedule. Because of this, cats are
very tied to predictability of their environment, and changes to the environment
(a.k.a. territory) can cause outbreaks of aggression. Similarly, changes to
resource availability - loss of perches, change in feeding location or feeding
schedule, changes in the number of people or cats in the home, elimination or
relocating of litterboxes - can cause dominance struggles as well, as cats
re-negotiate their territories and schedules.
Territorial aggression issues tend to develop when a new cat
is introduced into the home without giving the existing cats a chance to
acclimate to the idea. It can also be related to the loss of a cat, either
because the cat has moved out of the house, has been hospitalized at the
veterinary office, or because the cat is no longer living - this can open up a
valued resource in the home, causing cats to fight. It may also develop over
time as a confident cat starts to guard resources and threaten other cats over
these resources, escalating over time (the dominant cat becoming more
aggressive and the victimized cat becoming more anxious or fearful). This
situation may progress beyond growling and hissing to inappropriate elimination
issues (this can be due to due to litterbox guarding by the aggressive cat,
territorial marking on the part of either cat, or due to extreme fearfulness on
the part of the victim).
2) Play aggression
Cats under two years of age are still honing their hunting
skills. It is not unusual for these cats to dash
Play fighting is usually silent, while real fighting is very vocal
madly around the house with
the "kitty crazies" as often as several times a day! They pounce and
attack anything that moves interestingly - from the dog's tail to your ankle
(especially when you're under sleeping under a blanket at 2am!) and this is considered normal and natural behavior at this age. This type of aggression includes all sorts of predatory behaviors that will aid cats in hunting when they are older - pouncing, biting, climbing, stalking, chasing, attacking, running, ambushing, leaping, batting and swatting. This also
means that your 14 year old cat may get his fur ruffled when your new kitten
wants to pounce his tail 26 times a minute. Most of the time, the wary can
avoid attacks from a kitten - watch for a lashing tail, the
"butt-wiggle" as they prepare to pounce, a sudden dilation of pupils. Kittens learn "bite inhibition" through play with siblings, and those kittens that were not raised with a litter or who were removed from their mother and siblings at an early age, may be more aggressive than kittens who stayed with other kittens of their age until they were 8 weeks of age. Kittens that spend long hours in a house by themselves, or kittens that are encouraged to view human body parts (hands, arms and legs) as acceptable toys may display more intensely aggressive play behaviors than cats in a multi-cat household.
3)Stress or anxiety
Many times, cats will become aggressive when they are
uncomfortable with a situation. Perhaps your
cat is frustrated that he can't
hunt the chipmunk that teases him through the window, or go out and
Stress and frustration can cause cats to act aggressively
explain to
the neighbor's cat that the back yard is HIS territory, not hers. Perhaps you
have a pregnant female who becomes anxious when you handle her kittens. Perhaps
your elderly cat becomes stressed when you pet him over his arthritic hips. All
of these scenarios are potential causes of stress or anxiety in a cat - in
addition to the stress of living in a multi-cat household, establishing time
shares and territory in an indoor range, sharing litterboxes and feeding
stations.
Now that you know some of the reasons that cats may fight, stay tuned to discover what you can do about it!
Hi, I need some advice. Unfortunately I have to move, and I have to move to a place that is probably going to make Venus and Serena pretty unhappy. I am moving to a home where there are 2 male cats and a boxer. I know in the beginning I'm going to have to have everything in my bedroom. Litter box, food dishes and their beloved tree. This is all making me pretty anxious, I really worry about their transition. Can you give me any advice on how I can make them more comfortable? This is going to be a huge change for them, and as they are older I want to do whatever I can to make sure they are happy girls. And how I can stop freaking out over this because I don't want them feeding off of my anxious feelings? I appreciate any thoughts on this.
Thanks! Aggie
*****************************
ECVH answer:
In addition to other suggestions that focus strictly on the girls' behavior, we would recommend bringing them in for a check-up, if possible, to ensure that they have no underlying health issues that would make the transition even harder - this would also hopefully help relieve some of your anxiety, if they both check out to be in good health. This way, we also have a current weight on your cat, so that if we need to eventually resort to medication, we can correctly dose it.
Prepare for some hissing and growling as you go along, even if things are going well.
Definitely, you are starting out right, by getting your cats used to one room where they can feel safe. Things like Feliway spray or diffusers have a calming pheromone that can speed up your cat's ability to acclimate to a new environment.
We also have NurtureCalm pheromone collars which they can wear (One of our technicians feels that they have really helped settle things down between her two old girls and her two new boys). We do warn that if they are not used to collars, the NurtureCalm collars may add stress, though, as some cats don't like having something around their necks. We have also had one patient who had a pretty impressive skin irritation after wearing the collar for 3 weeks.
Composure or Anxitane are non-medicated treats and pills that you can give (L-theanine and B vitamins) to elevate mood and calm stressed cats. In severe cases of anxiety, we can discuss the use of anti-anxiety medications such as Elavil, Buspar, and Xanax, if needed.
Under-the-door interactions are a good step forward!
When you feel that your cats are comfortable in their new bedroom, you can start to work on introducing them to the resident pets. I usually recommend putting the resident pets in the bedroom where the new cats have been and giving the new cats a chance to explore the rest of the house on their own. This also allows the resident pets to smell the scent of the new cats without seeing the new cats. When introducing cats, it is 99% about smell. The more the cats smell like each other when they first meet, the less stress there will be. They will be less likely to first think OMG STRANGER!" and more likely do think "You seem familiar - do I know you from somewhere?" Trading unwashed blankets between pet beds, using the same brush on all pets are other things that you can do to facilitate this.
Feed all pets near the bedroom door for a while. You can try encouraging play under the door with two cat toys tied together dumb-bell style and placed on either side of the door so both cats can play but can't steal the toy away. Eventually, prop the door slightly open so they can see each other while eating once you are sure that they will eat by the door. You may also consider replacing the door with a screen door for a while, or a tall baby gate, if your cats are not jumpers. If this is not an option, you can put your cats (the newer residents) in carriers and feed place the carriers in the room where the other pets eat and feed everyone - this allows visual interaction but not physical interaction, and allows the resident pets to feel non-threatened by the newer introductions to the house. Food lends a positive note to the experience. Once the animals are eating harmoniously, you can start to allow short, supervised interactions without the crates or screens. These interactions can gradually increase in length until you are comfortable letting them interact when they are not supervised.
The important thing to remember in this situation is that you need to relax and let the cats drive the progress. In some situations, the process of introduction can take a few days, in other situations, it can take months. However, the more willing you are to take a step backward as needed, the more likely you are to have long-term success.
Watch your cats for subtle signs of relaxed or stressed behaviors:
Cats usually try to avoid direct physical confrontation by warning off a strange cat, or ignoring them completely. When it does come down to a real, physical fight, here is what to expect. As it mentions in the article, aggressive cats stare at each other, trying to gauge the other cat's next action. You can de-escalate an aggressive interaction by blocking the cats from each other's sight. This gives a cat who doesn't really want to fight a chance to escape, unnoticed. It also distracts the aggressor by making him relocate the cat he is trying to provoke. This is not a long-term solution, but can calm things down if they start to escalate.
One of our techs introduced two new cats into her house this past year (August and October - she introduced the October cat to give the August cat a young playmate and deter attention from her old ladies) and there are still occasional altercations - nothing too serious, but some yowling and growling when one of the youngsters gets too feisty. She uses a combination of calming collars on her old girls and Composure treats for her young boys, and it seems to keep everyone fairly happy. Initially, one of her old girls became extremely distressed whenever one of the young
Often cat aggression involves conflict over a distance. The cat on the right is being aggressive and the one on the left is submissive, but neither is happy with the situation...
boys pounced on her playfully. One of the young males would posture over her in an aggressive dominance pose - about a foot away from her), which would also cause her to roll on her back, scream and urinate in defensive-submissive posture (both almost exactly as in the photo above). Now, she just growls a little and hisses to warn them off, and they have learned to respect her wishes and keep their distance (most of the time...). Each situation is unique, though, so we can help guide you in your decisions to help ease Venus and Serena's transition.
We also have a blog article with some additional suggestions here:
