Cat has hissy fit
Dear Fisher,
I am Bella and my house mate is named Dante. Dante is an 18 lb gigantic sweet retard. I am a 9lb aggressive Tortie. We have been good friends for five years, but then I had a serious bout of redirected aggression the week before Thanksgiving and our people are very upset. I turned a scary situation around on Dante and now I’m the one afraid of him. He loves me but if I do anything to act out at him again, he will happily finish it.
Our humans have separated us and are slowly reintroducing us to each other. All is going slow, but well, and they think we will be OK together before they leave for Valentine’s weekend, but I can tell they are still scared to death to leave us alone. We do have a cat sitter coming in but our people don’t want us to get hurt if we backslide while they are gone. What should we do?
Bella
Dear Bella,
I have to surmise that your little bout of redirected aggression was an outright catastrophe (no pun intended). Your people are going to great lengths to keep such a display from happening again and they obviously want Dante and you to resolve your issues as soon as possible. I cannot help but wonder if injuries affected egos only or if bloodshed was involved. Either way, you must now help your humans regain their confidence in you.
The one thing to know about redirected aggression is that there is an underlying cause. Sometimes it is the result of just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The “scary situation” caused your adrenalin pump to turn on and you acted out. The concern is not so much what you did, but what caused you to do it. Paying attention to the original underlying source and working to change it, will help solve the problem.
Some suggestions for your people to prepare for Valentine’s weekend:
- Desensitizing your fear of Dante by leaving the two of you alone in the house for varying periods of time. If the house is intact and there are no injuries, reward with treat or new toy.
- Give individual attention to each in the presence of the other. Then give pets to both at the same time.
- If cats are not “getting it”, put both in time out, possibly through mealtime. If cats rush to food bowls in unison without confrontation, problem is close to solved.
- If confrontation takes precedence over late lunch, contact pet sitter and extend getaway weekend.
I highly recommend your people take a look at Pet Wave. And for you two, remember Valentine’s is a celebration of love and friendship. Go ahead. Give peace a chance.
Your friend,
Fisher
3 Comments
1. fisher replies at 9th February 2010, 6:04 AM :
Belle read my column in the paper and wrote to tell me how they worked things out: Trinity and I got into a fight about a month ago, I was afraid and was hissing and growling and totally out of control we were best friends for 5 years, our mom let us work it out she talked to us and played with us individually and together she gave us attention and it all worked out she said cats like humans get into arguments with each other and if we loved each other we would work it out and we did all is well now.
Belle’s mom adds: I let them work it out with giving each of the cats individual play time and love and that people argue and cats who live together sometime do too
2. Marg replies at 10th February 2010, 3:50 PM :
That all sounds like great advice. Some of the cats around here get into what I think is arguments, growling, hissing etc. and the the next thing I know, they are taking a nap together. Maybe not curled up together but in the same room.
These boy cats seem to think it is great fun to chase all the girls and so the girls have to fight back. Or argue back. Hope they start to get along again.
3. Rebecca replies at 12th February 2010, 4:23 PM :
I never thought about that…cats having arguments and getting annoyed with each other, but it does make sense. After all, people get annoyed with each other. Mine play rough, especially little Sumari,but they don’t really seem to get all-out mad at each other, thank goodness!