by Alicia (Napa, CA, USA)
Punch time at Lunch time
I have a two year old female cat who has grown up with an older male who is no longer around. we recently got a younger male cat and they get along perfectly. But I have been noticing my female cat acting strange the past few weeks. The male cat is almost one year old so I think hes going through some hormonal changes. could this be the cause of my older female cat hiding more than usual or acting out of character. the cats aren’t fighting or be aggressive with each-other at all. I’m just worried about our female cat since she has been acting slightly stressed out and skitish which is not like her at all. Has anyone experienced this with their cats if so please leave me a comment below.Hi Alicia: Thanks for your submission and question. Not only is it a very good question but one I believe many multiple cat owners deal with. Although your situation is non violent unlike at our house I think they are related. Note: I removed your e-mail address because I did not want some evil bot to come by and get it. If you want me to put it back in let me know and I can change out the top picture also (contact instructions in the footer). I hope that after a while this page will get some traffic and others will add their 2 cents. But for now let me get the ball rolling. This is a problem we deal with and I shot a 40 second Cat feeding time video and added it below. Our feline family is just like yours. We have an older female cat and a young trouble making little boy cat. Both have been fixed. Although they get along great for the most part the male cat (Thomas black and white cat) starts to exhibit dominant male behavior as can be seen in the video. He does things his older sister does not like and she lets him know about it. We wind up with a few scuffles a month unlike your non violent interations. We try to avoid this by distracting one of the cats when they start to exhibit this undesirable behavior. Example Thomas will start licking the top of his sisters head. Although this is real cute it’s the start of a dominance gesture. We distract him with a round of play with his favorite cat toy. Again We thank you for your excellent question and hope other site visitors will leave their thoughts as well! Thanks~ Mark