# Regaining household peace



## BrianRunsPhilly (Feb 26, 2014)

I have two cats, Jackson and Hannah, that are siblings and were adopted together when they were 1 1/2. They are around 6 years old. They get along very well, and have always slept and played together. Jackie is about 12 pounds and extremely active, his sister is around 18 pounds of chubby kitty. 

Recently my son and I found an abandoned cat. He's been to the vet, nursed back to health, and has glued himself to my son. So, for 3 weeks now, we've had another cat in the house.

My cats tolerated this with a lot of hissing and some swatting. Nothing unusual or too violent until last night. Something happened between the 3 of them and Hannah caught Jackson with a claw to the face, drawing blood. Jackson turned feral and it seemed like he was trying to kill her. I separated them, locked Jackson up to calm down, and two hours later let him out. He was after her like a rocket, really trying to hurt her. OK, this time I locked him up overnight. Next morning, I let him out, and they are right on each other again. She was doing most of the growling prior to the full out assault. So I locked her up, and went to work.

Tonight I picked up some Feliway spray and calming treats. Tried both, and after a little while played with Jackson just outside of the door where Hannah was locked up. I opened the door a crack and she immediately started growling at him, which he then picked up on. 

I am worried that what was one two of the sweetest cats have lost their minds. How do I get them calm again, and back to being friends again?


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## Cat'sHouse (Apr 5, 2012)

I wish you lots of luck and unfortunately have no solution for you, but:

From reading all of the various posts on this site, I finally realized that I have 

ABNORMAL cats.......In the last year I introduced two new females to a Kermit (12) and Eliza (21) and have not had any of the behaviors I have read about here, so I can only assume my cats are abnormal............which makes us fortunate.

Do they make muzzles for cats?


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## 10cats2dogs (Jun 16, 2013)

These kind of posts make me sad, its always such a shock when you've had cats that get along and then they don't...
First off, Keep everybody separated for now...
Because dollars to donuts, this has happened because of the newest addition...
Did you guys do a slow intro or just throw everyone together? 
You are more than likely going to have to start over...
Get Everyones nails trimmed, you can do this yourself or pay to have it done!
There's some Great threads on Introducing cats to one another here on the forum!
I would work first with your original two, to try and get some harmony going there...
You cannot force the process!
You will need to stay calm!
Cats pick up our emotions fast!
Be patient! 
I'm sure others will chime in with what's worked for them as they see your post...
Hang in there!


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## BrianRunsPhilly (Feb 26, 2014)

Thanks. Yes, it depresses me to see them fight. I'm used to Hannah and Jackson following me at night and assuming their regular spots on the bed. You can see that they are still agitated, any sound they hear they jump. 

I did Jackson and the new cat's (Clay) nails. I have to do Hannah's. The new cat was gradually introduced. He doesn't fully know his place yet, and still gets upset if one of the other cats tries to walk past him in the hallway.


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## 10cats2dogs (Jun 16, 2013)

Hmmm..."Walk past him in the hallway" caught my attention! 
How are the litter boxes set up?
All in one area? Or separated? 
If you've got even one cat that 'Guards' that area, its a set up for issues!
Obviously for right now, each is going to need their own while separated...
In the future, keep at least one litter box away from the 'common' area, it will help because a cat can't guard two boxes at the same time (unless, they are down that hallway...)
Anything else that comes to your mind please post! 
The more info we get, the better we may be able to help you!


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## BrianRunsPhilly (Feb 26, 2014)

One is in my son's bathroom net to his room. His cat is also fed downstairs. My cat's litter pan is upstairs, and right now I'm also feeding them upstairs. 

This situation is probably just as upsetting to them too. Stupid me tried to pull Jackson off Hannah and I got bit hard enough to draw blood. Now he can't get close enough, his tail is hanging over the top of the laptop screen as I type


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## 10cats2dogs (Jun 16, 2013)

Not to be an alarmist...
But if that bite starts feeling hot or swelling...get to the docs for some antibiotics fast!
I speak from experience! I've got one finger I can't bend now, due to a cat bite I waited to long on...:banghead:

I guess he's trying to make it up to you now!


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## Marcia (Dec 26, 2010)

I'm really sorry you are going through this. It sounds like you are doing everything I would do. I hope things even out soon. I have a similar issue with my new girl Coco. My old girl Lacey will growl at her and it just sets her off. I've tried everything and frankly I still have to separate them if I leave the house and at night. I can't trust Coco to be good while I am out of sight. She is TRYING to restrain herself, I can see her working it out in her mind: _go after the skinny snit, or incur the wrath of the mommy???? go after the skinny snit or incur the wrath of the mommy??_

By wrath I mean a loud _*NO! BAD GIRL*_! and time outs in "her" room alone with the door closed which she hates.


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## BrittyBear (Feb 4, 2014)

I had a problem like this when we got our new kitten Ashes! My two cats who are brothers and grew up together always got along great. But when Ashes came along then Shadow started picking fights with Mystery as well as Ashes. It was scary! They are good friends now but our way of getting em together again was by far not what you was supposed to do xD it was before i found this forum... or knew much about cats other than what i was told. Sooo, silly me saw my 2 cats fight and me and my sis would grab Mystery and Shadow respectively. We would confine the new kitty to a room for awhile and sit next to each other holding the cats xD sat there for quite awhileeee. Petting em and all. As we slowly scooted closer. And if they started growling we moved back over n tried again a lil later xD looking back now it probably wasnt the smartest way to do it, any other cat could have bitten or scratched us. And Shadow attempted to a few times but stopped himself so he wouldnt hurt my sis. Lolz i was quite confident Mystery would never bite nor scratch me, he dont even growl or hiss at me so that was a main reason... 
i hope your kitties work it out soon cuz ik how stressful it is to have two siblings fight. Its no fun at all


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## BrianRunsPhilly (Feb 26, 2014)

So maybe a little progress. Last night I spent some more time with the door open a crack so they could see each other. Alternated which one I would pet and play with. There was a little hissing, but nothing like it was. She's the one who is holding the grudge! Last night Jackson spent part of the night sleeping on the floor next to the door. There's at least an inch of space on the bottom of the door so they could see and smell each other. It was a little sad and cute, like he missed her. 

Today I repeated the procedure with the door cracked, an they were fine. I took a chance and picked her up and brought her to him. They started sniffing and rubbing heads against each other, no aggression at all, so I'm hoping we are close to the end of this ordeal. I'm going to give it one more day to be sure.


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## BrittyBear (Feb 4, 2014)

Thats great!  i hope that they are back to being best friends soon


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## BrianRunsPhilly (Feb 26, 2014)

This was dumb. I pushed it. She came out, and they sniffed for a minutes and then he went after her. Back to square one.


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## 10cats2dogs (Jun 16, 2013)

Patience, Patience, Patience...
You don't want to reinforce the WRONG behaviour...
Remember, you've got to break that 'attack' mode of his...
I hope Librarychick weighs in on this, she has a lot of experience with training...


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## Cat'sHouse (Apr 5, 2012)

Just want to add a little humor..............when my son (now 24) was about six and we took in another cat.......there wasn't peace at first....and the wife caught him:

rubbing cat nip all over the newbie and when asked about it, he replied:

"I just want the others to like him."

Kids.


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## librarychick (May 25, 2008)

Ok, I'm jumping in 



Cat'sHouse said:


> Do they make muzzles for cats?


Um...sort of...but there's 2 problems with that:

1. They look like a bubble and fit over the cat's whole head (the effective ones, anyways) and there's no way you'll get normal cat behavior that way - on either end of an intro

2. Muzzles (the cloth ones that hold an animal's mouth shut, specifically) should NEVER be used for intros on ANY animal. They can't breathe properly, which stresses them out, they can't protect themselves, which stresses them out, and they restrict normal behavior so much that it makes interactions using them completely ineffective if not actually harmful. Muzzle interactions - don't do it! (exception being a cage muzzle with an animal who has been trained to accept and enjoy wearing one)



10cats2dogs said:


> I hope Librarychick weighs in on this, she has a lot of experience with training...


*blushes* aw, thanks 

Ok, here's my piece.

General overview from the cat's perspectives:

-Newby arrives and is intro'd WAAAY too quickly for an adult cat. (3 weeks isn't enough time, unless your cats are used to kitty visitors coming and going - and even then!)
-Because of this the stress level was fairly high
-Something set them all off (goodness only knows what...my cats have reacted to everything from the neighbor being loud, thunder, street sweepers, noises on TV, ect)
-Redirected aggression caused an incident (I'll get into it more below)
-the behavior was allowed to repeat and become more ingrained

Ok, so more in depth.

You likely had no control over what set them off, it could literally be anything. Don't stress about that or you'll go nuts. Now you just have to work on fixing things.

Redirected aggression is something that happens when a cat is highly agitated. It may be looking out the window and sees another cat, gets soooo mad but can't get THAT cat - so he turns and attacks what ever's closest because he's just so upset he can't hold it in.

In your case, the newcomer likely did something that set one of your two off, that cat may have misunderstood where the attack came from, but regardless it turned and swiped at the nearest cat and then you have a fight.

You were on the right track with separating them, but you skipped a step when you put them back together. Cats and dogs remember things the same way toddlers do: GREAT or AWFUL, no middle ground unless it's regular and commonly reinforced and even then anything awful will over rule it.

Basically, they saw each other and remembered only the fight - so their instincts kicked in and you have a second fight. Repeat a few times. Unfortunately each fight reinforces the behavior.

To change the pattern you need to do a few things: keep them entirely separated for a bit, I'd go with a week. Don't crack the door, don't let them anywhere near each other - any of the three.

DO start with intro protocols. (a bonus here is that you might as well re-intro the new guy, since you're going to do a mini intro with your two anyways...with things already unsettled you can mix in a new cat and have that become the new normal much faster) Each cat has it's own room (small spaces), and each cat gets free roam of the house once a day for a certain time period, then switch. (This will mean 4 litter boxes...I'm sorry, but it will help)

Do a lot of scent swapping, each cat gets a towel and every day you rotate the towels through each cat's range. When each cat gets their free roaming time sprinkle treats out side of the doors the other cats are behind, and those kitties get treats at the same time - without allowing any interaction.

After a week of this you've hopefully gotten a good start on drowning out the 'bad fighting' memory with 'yummy treats!' ones. This is the point when you start cracking the door, but use treats or food as well. Each cat will learn that the other cats nearby means food and yummy treats. Stick to this for a week, allow some interaction at the door crack, but not a lot. Don't give them a chance to freak out.

Here's the bit you missed before: When you get to the actual re-introductions don't have the other cat be the only fun thing around! Give them other things to focus on, yummy dinner, treats, waving toys, ect. If the only new thing in the room is the other cat they'll rush right over, if you're waving cooked chicken breast in their faces...they'll be distracted and more likely to relax.

Also, make a point of playing with each cat every day, and on intro day play with the cats before letting them out. You want them tired, hungry, and as focused on food as possible! A great trick I learned from the guinea pig world is to set out many stations of food, so that they don't need to battle. Set out 3 plates of wet food and 4 piles of treats, plus 2 wand toys, if you're planning to intro 2 cats. There will be so much going on that they won't even do more than glance at each other.

Plan for short sessions, 10 minutes at the most, to begin with. Your goal isn't to have them all roaming free instantly, it's to make sure they get along and have as many small positive interactions as possible. That will set the stage for them getting along long term.

Basically patience, patience, patience - as 10cats said 

Oh, and you may find that they reshuffle a bit as far as favorite buddies goes. Your two siblings may end up getting along famously again after, but it may turn out one of them just clicks with the newby. *shrugs* sometimes that sort of thing happens.

The good news is that if you're patient, and careful, there's a strong likelihood this will all work out


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## BrianRunsPhilly (Feb 26, 2014)

librarychick said:


> Ok, I'm jumping in
> 
> (Tons of amazing advice deleted for brevity)
> 
> The good news is that if you're patient, and careful, there's a strong likelihood this will all work out


Thanks for all that knowledge. I talked to my son about maybe putting the new cat up for adoption. He told me he would move out if it came to that. Amazing how quickly they can work their way into your heart! He will move out this summer once he gets out of college, so between then and now we need to figure this out.

There have only been two fights, but I've been letting them see each other with the door cracked, or I'll hold one. I'll stop that. Not much I can do about them looking under doors - is it worth using a towel? 

Today I worked out of the house, so I was able to switch off which one gets locked up and which one was allowed free reign. I do spend time with each of them, although at night she is the one being locked up because he just cries nonstop. I tried last night and at 4am surrendered and swapped cats. She'll go to sleep on a blanket in the bathroom. 

I do the treats when the cats swap, or if I'm playing with the one that's locked up I'll make sure the other one gets treats too when I come out. 

I was thinking of using a couple Feliway diffusers too. Kind of expensive if they don't work, but a bargain if they do. Thoughts?


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## librarychick (May 25, 2008)

IMO you don't need to get rid of the third cat, because everything is changing already it actually makes it easier (although not less work, lol) to intro all three cats to each other at once. *shrugs* If you're not prepared to have 3 cats then it's a different story, obviously, but problems between the existing two cats don't mean you can integrate the third as well.

Don't worry about them peeking under the doors unless it becomes an issue. If there's no growling ect then it's actually a positive thing - especially if they're playing footsies under the door gaps 

The swapping all sounds good. If you want you can train him to stop crying by ignoring it...but it'd make for a few rough nights and maybe the added stress isn't something you need right this moment.

As for the feliway, they do work quite often...seems to me about 75% of the time you'll see some improvement. You're right, though, they are expensive. You can get the same product in a spray bottle, the down side is you need to spray it in every room every day, but the up side is it's cheaper and works all over your home. I think it's worth it to try that before you go all out and buy a ton of plug ins, just to discover your cats are in the 'immune' category.


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## marie73 (Jul 12, 2006)

BrianRunsPhilly said:


> I was thinking of using a couple Feliway diffusers too. Kind of expensive if they don't work, but a bargain if they do. Thoughts?


Didn't have *any* effect on my problem girl. Pretty hit or miss product in my opinion, but when it works, it's awesome! Definitely worth a try. I bought it knowing it might not work and I don't regret it, at least I tried.


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## librarychick (May 25, 2008)

IME it works on cats who are anxious, and cats who are aggressive because they're insecure...if your cat just REALLY hates other cats they will still REALLY hate other cats when there's feliway involved. *shrugs*

It seems to mostly just take the edge off and smooth things over. Definitely not a cure all though.

(Side note: I was not intending to make this post a 'use as many cliches as possible' post...oops, lol. Time for bed.)


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## marie73 (Jul 12, 2006)

Well, we've had enough people here say it didn't work at all, I think the OP should know that up front.


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## 21Rouge (Jul 20, 2013)

10cats2dogs said:


> There's some Great threads on Introducing cats to one another here on the forum!


Is there a _sticky_ for such an important topic?



10cats2dogs said:


> You cannot force the process!
> You will need to stay calm!
> Cats pick up our emotions fast!
> Be patient!


I did none of these things when introducing our kitten to our 14 year old cat this past summer and because of that we did consider, albeit very reluctantly, rehoming the kitten. It was only because the kitten was not intimidated by the much older cat's continuing bad behaviour that we muddled through. And we are so grateful that finally about 5 months in (yes I did say 5 months) the older cat did come around. It sure does make things so much easier when there is pet peace in the house.


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## BrianRunsPhilly (Feb 26, 2014)

Thanks all. I will try the Feliway. If it doesn't work I suppose I can donate the diffusers to the shelter or something. 

I miss this.


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## BrianRunsPhilly (Feb 26, 2014)

Slowly getting my two reintroduced. This time I'm erring on the side of caution. Did 3 sessions of about 5 minutes, highly supervised. No hissing, lots of sniffing. Still some anxiety. 

My sons cat needs a sedative. He really must have had a terrible time of it outdoors.


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## Marcia (Dec 26, 2010)

BrianRunsPhilly said:


> I talked to my son about maybe putting the new cat up for adoption. He told me he would move out if it came to that. Thoughts?


Ha,ha! I wish my son would have threatened me with that when he lived here. I'd of said OK and started my Craigslist posting immediately! :crazy

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/anti-anxiety-medication-for-cats.html

Talk to your vet about an anti anxiety med for a period of time. They work! Read "The cat who cried for help" by Dr. Michael Dodson.


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## BrianRunsPhilly (Feb 26, 2014)

Slowly but surely my two are relearning how to be together. They have some 30 minutes to an hour sessions and no fights. She's hissed a few times, and they did the slappy paws once, but 20 minutes later were sleeping on my bed. You can see they are still somewhat on edge and jumpy, and lots of one keeping an eye on the other, but it's getting there. I still won't let them wander around when I'm not nearby, and I do lock one up at night. 

Funny how they are interacting. He is constantly sniffing her. She doesn't sniff him. Right now I'm just incredibly happy to be sitting in bed with both of them again.

As far as my son's cat, we had him at the vet today for bloodwork. He's just a high energy cat, hopefully not hyperthyroid, and they said more toys and more playtime. We're going to try prozac for a period of time and see how he responds. As he's getting bigger and stronger he's gotten very territorial and aggressive. He's also turned into a beautiful looking cat, and very affectionate. So we need to make this work.


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## Heather72754 (Nov 1, 2013)

Wow, this sounds so positive. Good for you for finding a solution where neither cat gets hurt and they can find their way back to being buddies again. Hope the calming measures you are taking for your son's cat are effective.


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## BrianRunsPhilly (Feb 26, 2014)

Heather72754 said:


> Wow, this sounds so positive. Good for you for finding a solution where neither cat gets hurt and they can find their way back to being buddies again. Hope the calming measures you are taking for your son's cat are effective.


I was enjoying having them both on the bed while I was reading last night, and wound up falling asleep. Woke up and they were curled into a ball on top of each other. Caught them grooming each other this morning. So happy they are back together.


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## Heather72754 (Nov 1, 2013)

Oh awesome!! I'm so happy for you. :kittyturn


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## BrianRunsPhilly (Feb 26, 2014)

*Chemical treatment of aggression*

So we are dealing with integrating a stray into our home with my two cats. Clay is about 2 years old, very active, and extremely aggressive. We've tried the new cat introduction techniques twice. As he gets healthier and stronger he's gotten even more aggressive. 

We had him at the vet yesterday for a full blood panel and to discuss medication. The vet recommended fluoxetine as a start. This would be for about 6 months, as my son will be moving out sometime this summer, and it's his cat. 

I'm looking for experiences, suggestions, why fluoxitine over a benzodiazepine (chlordiazepoxide), etc. Thanks!


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## cat face (Apr 4, 2013)

As far as cat experience, I cannot tell you. (I've not had a cat on these medications)

Personal experience, yes, I can tell you. Fluoxetine is the chemical name for Prozac. Actually Prozac is just a brand name of the drug. But the name Prozac is more widely known.
The fluoxetine is a serotonin reuptake inhibitor. Without going too far into the weeds on this, I can sum it up by telling you that it is designed to level out the serotonin your brain receives. This stabilizes moods. 
The half life in Prozac is between 48 -72 hours. This means it stays in your system a long time, allowing the drug to do what it was designed to do, .. even out the mood of the patient.

Benzo's as they are commonly called, are for situations like panic attacks. Even at that, they are risky to take/give. They are highly addictive. While there are many variations of Benzos their half life is an average of about 12 - 20 hours.
They are not designed to level out your mood they help relieve the effects of a situation commonly known as panic attacks.
It is meant for the short term. (no more than 2-4 weeks) anything longer and it starts to loose it's effect.

Your vet is looking to stabilize the cat's mood over the long haul as safely and reliably as is possible with any drug.


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## BrittyBear (Feb 4, 2014)

Congratz  that is awsome ^_^ its always nice to have cats getting along

Sent from Petguide.com Free App


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## BrianRunsPhilly (Feb 26, 2014)

cat face said:


> As far as cat experience, I cannot tell you. (I've not had a cat on these medications)


Thanks for the information. I'm actually a scientist and spent the last 21 years of my life in pharma/biotech, so I understand quite a bit about the mechanism in humans. Cats are harder to figure out! 

I was curious to see why one over the other in cats, and people's experiences as related to aggression against other cats.


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## BrianRunsPhilly (Feb 26, 2014)

Sigh, nothing is working. We've had the new cat, Clay, on Prozac for a couple weeks, but he is still aggressive. Primarily with my boy cat, the girl and Clay semi-tolerate each other. My son is pretty crushed but it looks like we have to find a new home for Clay. We've been through two cycles of having to reintroduce my two after something set them off. 

Sadly, I'm at my wits end in trying to make this work. He's such a cute cat, and loves people. Just not other cats. 

If anyone had anything new to try, I'm willing to listen.


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## marie73 (Jul 12, 2006)

Prozac didn't work on my mean kitty, either. But she has a great new home and my girls are happy, so win-win. Except I miss her, she was so sweet with me. 

Rehoming is not a bad word, sometimes we're just meant to be a step between happy homes.


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