Cat problem

[nancylebov]

As some of you know, we acquired a third cat at PetSmart a couple or three months ago.

He's a very good cat, but things haven't worked out well between him and Gillian.

Iggy's about a year old, Gillian's about 10. Iggy's half again her weight, and probably more athletic.

So far as I can tell, Iggy was basically polite to her, but she went into a territorial rage. Sometimes things were better between them, sometimes worse, and eventually Iggy figured out that he was bigger.

Now Gillian's spending all her time in the basement. He's back to polite, including waiting for his food in the back of the basement (during the early stages when Gillian was on his case, he wanted to get some privacy with his food and preferred eating in the basement) while she gets fed in the front of the basement.

The thing is, I don't want Gillian stuck spending the rest of her life in the basement. If there isn't any way for her to make a better accommodation with Iggy, he's going up for adoption again. (I don't remember the details, but it would be with an organization associated with Pet Smart.)

Any suggestions? I like both cats, and would rather have both of them here. (Perse is the third cat. She gets along with both Iggy and Gillian.)

Comments

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

We have a similar situation, with one cat who cannot get along with the other two. The accommodation they reached (with some human guidance) is that the one cat gets most of the place, but the other two get the master bedroom (which is en suite with a bathroom, so they have their own food and box). This means that Noche (the solitary cat) winds up sleeping with the kids, which the other two more often have a human in the room with them (since M works first shift, and I work overnights).

Good luck working it out!

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

How did you work it out? Gillian *really* doesn't want to be moved from the basement.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

When we saw the way it was headed, the senior cat (then, plus the second later) settled in the master bedroom. We sealed the door as much as possible to ensure he knew it was his room, and of course he had the food, water, and box of his own. There's still the occasional spat when someone ventures across the line, but that something the cats can work out amongst themselves, as long as no blood is spilled.

As I recall, we kept the door closed about two weeks to a month, though it probably would have been possible to open it somewhat earlier, once territories were clear.

[mindyklasky.livejournal.com]

Have you tried Feliway? It's a hormone-based product that you disperse through a "Glade Air Freshener" type thing (or spray on disputed territory.) We found that it helped with our cat-integration, which had a rocky start.

We also awarded liberal amounts of treats for good behavior in proximity. We started off by trading out old cat and new cat in the house, with the other locked up in a bedroom - we'd been told to trade off for two weeks, but New Cat stopped that after about three days. I've been told that you can introduce this "trading off" of spaces several months into rocky integrations, with good results.

Good luck!

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I second this. It turns out that Feliway contains no actual cat hormones, but it's worked very well for a number of difficult cat introductions that I know of.

[captain-button.livejournal.com]

Now I'm visualizing the all-cat version of Serenity.

[jimhenley.livejournal.com]

I can't vouch for it personally, but cats are indeed supposed to be susceptible to classical conditioning. You should be able to pur them through a program of counterconditioning/desensitization if you can get the thresholds right. Start maybe with

http://www.exoticcatz.com/trainingclassical.html

http://www.cat-world.com.au/pavlovs-cats

http://www.clickertraining.com/cattraining

http://maxshouse.com/behavior/desensitization_and__countercond.htm (bottom of page)

[henrytroup.livejournal.com]

I have no personal experience, but friends have had success using the (homeopathic!) Bach Flower "Rescue Remedy" with both cats and dogs.
(I have seen it work in humans.) You add a drop. Or two to the drinking water.