Expert: Karen Craft - 4/21/2011

Question
Hi,

I have two male neutered cats, both 2 years old and brothers. I've had them since they were 3 months old.

When they were just over one year old, they started having massive fights. No one would get injured but they would be hissing at each other and would take a couple days to settle down again. Going on advice I got, I did not separate them. No one was ever injured though, and things would go back to normal quickly.

A few months ago, I went out of the country for 2 months. Since they are primarily my pets, they were a bit upset but they are used to be traveling so not overly so. While I was gone, they had a massive fight again.

When I got back, I noticed that one of them is extremely frightened of the other one. Every time the other cat approaches the fearful one, he starts hissing back. Sometimes this turns into a fight, especially if he tries to run, but most times the other (non-fearful cat) just backs away from him.

However the fights have now gotten violent. Sometimes there's blood (usually the fearful one hurts the other) and they do not even sit on the same sofa any more. I still don't separate them, but they try not to be in each other's company.

Of course this is stressful on both cats, but giving one away is not an option for me so I need help with figuring out another solution for this.

Thanks,
Nida

Answer
Hi Nida,

It sounds like one saw something outside and is taking out his aggression from what he saw on the other. Here's a link explaining about that and what you can do.

http://www.sniksnak.com/cathealth/aggression3.html

Make sure you try to find what caused the initial scare. You need to make sure the cats don't see it. You can also try something called Feliway Comfort Zone. This mimics a cat's happy pheromones. It can help relax the two. If the reintroduction doesn't work you might want to give an anti anxiety drug to the aggressor to calm him down. Then try to reintroduce them. It will take time. But they should be okay. Here's another link about cat intros.

http://www.sdhumane.org/site/DocServer/BT_Cat-Cat_Intros.pdf?docID=621

Good luck and take care.

Ciao, Karen