Cat fight

by Penny
(California)

I have 3 adult cats, all have been raised together from kittens. One female, Sassy and one male Freddy, both age 7 . The other male, Rascal, age 6. Sassy has always been the alpha cat with Rascal vying for the position off and on, but no serious fights.
At 2am I woke to blood curdling cat screams like I've never heard before and Freddy had Sassy in a corner and there was cat hair all over. This has never happened before. Freddy has always gotten along really well with the other two. Usually he is afraid of his own shadow, if there is any loud noise or if I sneeze he runs under the bed. This time he would not back down no matter what I did. He chased Sassy into the bedroom making that horrible cry at her. I finally caught him and separated them. Right now I have Sassy in the bedroom with me with the door shut and Freddy and Rascal are in the living room. All cats have been fixed. since they were kittens. Help whats going on??
Thanks

RESPONSE:

Penny:

Firstly, we hope neither on was injured during this altercation! For reasons we may never know, Freddy has decided that he no longer wants to play "second fiddle" to Sassy. Maybe Sassy has been picking on him? Or maybe she took over his favorite place to sleep. Sometimes cats just need to work out their differences once and they may never have that type of altercation again.
Occasionally, something sets off one of our cats and there are blood curdling screams and hissing and growling and fur flying. And every once in a while, someone gets hurt. We always isolate the aggressor not the one defending itself. The aggressor is put in the isolation room (a bathroom) for an hour or so until things calm down. Then he is let out again. If he acts out again, it's back into isolation.
We also keep toys and squirt bottles everywhere in the house. If we notice a cat trying to intimidate another into a fight we pull out a toy to distract them or, if it's to the point that a fight could break out, we squirt the aggressor.
To help avoid disagreements among the cats, we make a point to have plenty of play time for them, especially the more aggressive cats. A tired cat is a happy cat! We also use Peacemaker by Spirit Essences (see the link on the left to learn more about Spirit Essences). We add it to the water and rub it on the more aggressive cat (or the one causing trouble!) until thing calm down. You may want to try this if the problem between Sassy and Freddy continues.
We don't recommend keeping Sassy isolated. They will eventually learn to get along again or will simply avoid each other. If Sassy is too traumatized to come out from under the bed or stops eating, you may want to try some St. John's Wort (100mg twice a day). It works really well to calm severely anxious cats. We use the liquid form and just add a few drops mixed in the anxious cat's food or in some baby food. We only use this in severe cases when the cat is dysfunctional or sick from anxiety and stress. Hopefully, Sassy hasn't reached this point!
As we said, you may never know exactly what set Freddy off. Just keep a close eye out for aggressive behavior on the part of both Sassy and Freddy, provide lots of play time for them, put some Peacemaker in their water, keep toys and squirt bottles handy, and see what happens! Hopefully, they have settled their differences and will be friends again!
Let us know how it goes!

Donna
The House Full Cats Mom