Expert: Ali - 9/18/2009

Question
I have two cats - one is an unneutered 4 year old tom (purely a house cat) and the other is a 6 year old neutered female (mostly a house cat though she does go out on occasion).

The female I owned first, she is a rescue cat, once feral, very skitty in temperament. I've had her since she was 4 months old. She was literally terrified of people and spent weeks under my bed before finally coming round. She has never got over her fear of strangers and her dislike of being held but loves being stroked and as long as you respect her space is a lovely cat. The male was another rescue cat who I hand reared from approx 3 weeks old. He grew up with the female, and she would catch moths for him and play with him etc. (as in they were always friends, from the start) He has always had the most wonderful temperament - never once have I heard him growl or hiss (not even at the vets during vaccinations!) and he has always been friendly with all other cats and even dogs!

The two would sit and sleep near each other, share food etc without issues. The female would just growl and run off if he broke the boundaries, BUT about 2 months ago, the female escaped the house and disappeared for approx a month. I would spot her slinking about but she has always had a tendancy to lapse into feral behaviour when outside, so the longer I was unable to get hold of her, the more reclusive and mistrustful she got. I finally managed to get hold of her and bring her back inside 2 weeks ago, and that's when it happened - my tom literally ran up to her, sniffed her, then did a very low pitch sing-song yowl noise, and violently grabbed hold of her. Naturally she responded with screams and much flying fur - so I separated them, and gave it another week, both in separate rooms.

To be honest I was shocked at the greeting - my tom is normally the most pleasant and placid creature, but I cant really see it in any other way than he instigated the whole fight.

Anyway a week later I brought out the chicken and they both sat on the same window ledge eating the chicken (though my tom was more interested in trying to grab her again, this time neither made a noise) then the minute all the chicken was eaten she growled at him and he launched at her again. (cue screams/cat fight - no blood but he definitely meant business)

Sooo, another week separated and to be honest it has got even worse - she escaped from the kitchen, ran into the living room, saw him and froze, he started to run over to her but before he reached her I picked her up. He started yowling at her, she was growling non stop in my arms, then he actually tried to climb up my legs as i carried her away - quite the puncture marks I now have in my thighs, believe me! I didnt shout or punish him, I separated them again then stroked them both to try and calm them down (pouring blood all the while!) But now Im at a complete loss.

So that's pretty much the problem - why are two cats who used to be pretty much as good friends as cats can be, suddenly hate each other? I expected the female to be growling, hissing and off with him (she always is after going outside) but I'm completely suprised at my tom - he has lived with over 7 other cats in the last 3 years, as has she (ex-partner's moggies) and not once has he ever reacted this way to any of them, even on the first meeting let alone with a cat he has known literally all his life.

It isn't the first time she has got out, and then been brought back inside, so I honestly can't understand what could be different about this time, especially something that would provoke such extreme reactions from my tom. I mean he even accepted a new puppy into the family a year ago without so much as a sniff, and I have never heard him make that yowling noise before.

Have you heard of anything similar to this happening before? More importantly, is there anything at all I can do? I'm honestly tempted to let the female back outside and keep her as an outdoor cat (with access to the garage for in bad weather) but part of me is loathe to take the easy way out considering how close they were.

Thank you for your time, and I appreciate any advice you can give on how I can best deal with this, for the sake of all three of us!  

Answer
Nicola,

Given the amount of time that your female was outdoors it's not unreasonable for your tom to react poorly to her reintroduction - cats are very territorial and after such a long time he may not have recognized her as family and the fact that she's been outside for so long also means that she smells different than she normally does. My recommendation would be to isolate the female cat in a room of her own with all of the usual kitty comforts for a period of 2-3 weeks - be sure you spend plenty of time interacting with her. During that isolation time you'll want to feed the cats on either side of the same closed door, this helps to gradually reintroduce them to each other and helps them to associate each other's scent with something positive - food. Overall you'll want to go about reintroducing these cats as though they'd never met. If you need more information on new cat introductions please feel free to check my previous answers on this subject. You can also contact me again with specific questions you may have after reading previous answers about introducing a new cat to a household with a cat already in residence.

I would also recommend that you seriously consider seeking the advice of a holistic vet who uses homeopathy in his/her practice (and has appropriate training to do so), my own vet uses homeopathy in her practice and I've seen some amazing responses to homeopathic remedies when the right remedy is given at the right time to the right cat. In this situation I have a few recommendations as far as homeopathic remedies go, I've used Bach flower remedies for well over 10 years at this point and I've found them to be gentle, safe and effective. I would suggest the following Bach remedies in this situation:

- Rescue Remedy: this should be given to both cats to help calm and reassure them

- Mimulus: should be given to your formerly feral female to help alleviate known fears

- Elm: should be given to both cats to help foster optimism

These remedies can be administered a couple of ways, you can add 7-10 drops of each remedy to the appropriate cat's water dish filled with clean, fresh water each morning OR you can gently rub these remedies into the relatively fur free patch of skin in front of the cats' ears, just be sure not to get any into the ears as these remedies are preserved with grape alcohol which might sting if it gets into the ears. You can generally find these remedies at health food stores, naturopathic pharmacies and some mainstream pharmacies will carry them in the aisle with nutritional supplements. As far as I know you can also purchase these remedies online. I am aware of other homeopathic remedies that might be helpful in your situation, however I don't feel comfortable offering recommendations for treatments since I am not a veterinarian or homeopath and I am not familiar with each of your cats, the dynamics within the household or other variables that might make a difference when it comes to finding the best homeopathic treatments. If you have any further questions about homeopathic medicine I would urge you to go to the Ask a Vet portion of this site and send those inquiries along to Dr. Chambreau, she's a homeopathic veterinarian who will do email and phone consults within the US for a specified fee. If you have any further questions, concerns or you'd like me to clarify anything in this answer please feel free to contact me again and I'll do my very best to help you as much as possible.