Expert: Jessica - 5/11/2011

Question
I have a major problem. Yesterday, I decided I would cat-sit for my boyfriend's mother, I thought for 2 days it would be fine. She has a male cat (neutered but not declawed). Anyways, I currently have 2 male cats (fixed and declawed) and one female cat (fixed and declawed). Immediately after bringing this new cat in the house (while he was still in his carrier) my cat Rex starting making loud meowing sounds and hissing at Max (my bf's mom's cat). Max was still in the carrier so I just moved him into the bedroom. Anyways, I was trying to get my 2 other cats out of the bedroom so I could have Max in there by himself. Unfortunately, my two other cats would not leave. So I grabbed Rex (my cat that initially started hissing at Max) and I put him in my bedroom so all 3 cats were in my room. I let Max walk around the living room and kitchen and he kept sniffing and hissing at everything. I'm assuming it was cause he was in a new environment and could smell my other cats scent. So anyways, I eventually put Max in my bedroom when all the other cats left it. He was the only cat in there at the time. My boyfriend had gone to the bathroom and when he opened the bedroom door my cat Rex started growling and bolted in my bedroom and started a fight with Max. Max was also hissing but Rex was the one who initially ran and attacked Max. Anyways, since Max has claws he clawed up Rex and my boyfriend broke the two up. I immediately took Max back to my boyfriend's mom's house. I thought all of it was over until I came back to my house and Rex started making a loud meowing howling noise and his tail flared up and he attacked my cat Tiger. Tiger is a very non-aggressive animal and didn't start it at all. So we seperated the two for the night and today we tried to see if Rex would be nice to Tiger but he attacked him a few more times. I tried everything to fix this. I washed both cats, I cleaned the entire house (mopped,vaccuumed, swept, washed the bedding) and Rex is totally fine until he sees Tiger. I tried putting the cats in cages next to each other so they wouldn't hurt each other but get used to each other again and that didn't work either. I have had all of my cats for 4 years and I have never had a problem. I don't know if things will ever get better. I mean, I had Max here for a couple of hours and now my cat Rex is insane and I fear that he will hurt my cat Tiger, please help! What can I do to make things good again (they always got along before this) and how long will this last?

Answer
Hi Allie,

Redirected aggression, as this is called, can be troubling to deal with. The best way is to separate the cats completely, for at least several days. I recommend starting with 4-5 days. This is a pain to work out, but it's really what the cats need to de-stress and settle down. Rex is having trouble letting go of his negative experience, which he is associating with Tiger because the real cause of his upset is unavailable. Giving him plenty of time to recover from that trauma is necessary before he can begin to accept Tiger again.

After 4-5 days, see if he can tolerate Tiger again. In many cases, the cats will need to be separated for a couple of weeks, and you'll need to reintroduce them slowly, giving them short visits for the first several days and working them up to a point where they can stay together for long periods.

If Rex is still very upset after a couple weeks, I recommend that you have him see a vet. Some cats will need treatment for a few days with a mild sedative or for a short time with an antidepressant to help them come through this time.

Good luck!

Jessica