Why do cats fight among themselves?

Having decided to get a second cat, few people think about how their pet will react to the addition of another family member. Usually, old-timers are not happy about their new neighbor and attack him, trying to drive him into a corner. If you do not intervene in time in the relationship between animals, they will constantly conflict and the matter may end in separation from one of them. Let's find out how to make cats friends with each other.

How to understand how serious a fight between cats is?

Many cats enjoy play fighting and will chase each other and paw at each other. The main difference between in-game combat and real combat is noise. Game combat is generally quiet, with many pauses. Any bites are gentle and do not cause injury or pain, and the claws usually retract. In some cases, play fights can escalate, and if your cats start to hiss or growl, it could be an indication that one of them is getting too rough. When the cats are just playing, then both return to their normal state, without obvious tension between them.

If your cats start fighting every time they see each other, there's an obvious problem.

Problem cats may develop physical symptoms, such as bladder problems, or behavioral symptoms. It's not always easy to tell if your cat is upset as they are very good at hiding their feelings, so always keep a close eye on any changes in behavior and contact your vet if this occurs.

There are several signs that your cats are struggling or not getting along:

Full contact fight. They may fight like this every time they see each other, which can lead to injury, or sometimes they may feel good together, but only under supervision.
Partial contact battles. This is where cats quickly swing their paws in the direction of another cat, with or without physical contact. Body language that appears aggressive. One cat may chase another with a tense body posture. Their ears will be turned back, their back may be arched and their tail fluffed.
Aggressive sounds. This is usually a hiss, growl, or scream. Quiet aggression. There are less obvious signs called passive or quiet aggression.

Less obvious signs that your cats aren't getting along:

Your cats look at each other with wide, unblinking eyes and a fixed expression.
One cat "steals" a resting spot from another cat (for example, one cat climbs over another and tries to rest in the same spot in such a way that the cat that was originally there is forced to leave the spot).
One cat blocks passages, stairs and hallways to prevent the other cat from moving freely throughout the house, as well as blocking access to the cat hatch.

Should you get a second cat?

Getting a second pet is only possible if the owner has excess time. Simply put, you can fully care for one pet and still have time for another. Why is it important? If you don’t have free time, you simply won’t have the opportunity to make friends with your pets, believe me, your participation will be needed. The only time cats will build a relationship on their own is if you take two kittens at once and they grow up together.

The issue of the financial side is no less important. Can you fully support two animals? What if one of them gets sick and additional expenses are required? You shouldn’t be guided by the “we’ll feed you somehow” principle. You cannot be sure that your cat will not develop an allergy or other chronic disorder. Cats cannot be fed from the table; they will have to buy meat or food.

If the above two conditions bother you, give up the prospect of having a second pet. Refuse, even if you think your cat is bored. The second ward is not a toy, but a full-fledged member of the family like the first.

It is worth understanding that cats are not animals that need to have a pack. In nature, not many species of cats live in prides, and this fact is explained not by the desires of the animals, but by the principle of survival. Domestic cats need the company of their owner; they rarely accept other animals with delight and open arms. In addition, domestic cats are jealous and territorial, and are annoyed when there is another pet with a different smell in the home. Bottom line: If you can communicate with your cat enough, don't get a second pet for the sake of entertaining the first.

Last thing. You shouldn't get a second cat if you think it's normal to give the animal to other people or to a shelter. Yes, situations are different, sometimes pets have to be handed over to relatives or even strangers, but counting on this option in advance... “if it doesn’t work out, I’ll just give it away, throw it away, put it in a shelter” is very, very wrong!

Why are my cats fighting?

Your cats may fight for several reasons.

For example, if one cat has just come from a place that may have a distinctive smell (like the vet), it will smell unfamiliar and perhaps a little scary to your other cats.

Cats communicate with each other primarily using their sense of smell.

If one cat comes back into an apartment with an unfamiliar smell, it may upset the other cats in the house. To try to avoid this type of fight, it may be a good idea to keep your returning cat in a separate room for a few hours or overnight when you bring them home to allow them to regain a familiar scent.
Sometimes aggressive behavior has nothing to do with your other cat. The fight instinct can be caused by something completely different. This can damage the relationship between cats that live together, so if separating them for a period of 24-48 hours does not solve the problem, it is a good idea to contact a cat behaviorist.

Options to correct the situation

It is quite easy for a person to cope with the aggression of an animal. The main thing is to understand exactly what caused it. The cats need to be separated, given the opportunity to calm down, fall asleep, feed them, and only after that, after a while, start trying to introduce them again. The following tricks will work for this. You can build a transparent wall between the cats, which will help them see each other, but not get into fights. It is especially better to start doing this when the cats are friendly and relaxed. This therapy can take up to two weeks.

You can also divide the room or apartment into zones in which cats will live separately. They can watch each other, but not enter someone else's territory. After a while, the new resident will not irritate the cat, and he will slowly begin to get used to him.

Important! It is not advisable to forcefully introduce a cat to a newborn baby. The animal itself must express a desire to get acquainted with it. The pet needs to get used to its smell

The pet needs to get used to its smell.

Sexual aggression can be removed by removing the gonads, which secrete hormones that cause animals to be attracted to the opposite sex. Males are neutered until they are one year old, and females until their first heat.

Outdoor cats are more accustomed to harsh sounds. But the home can react strongly to a sharp signal. He will confuse her, and she will dramatically change her behavior. Here a bunch of keys, which at that moment were in your hands, can come to the rescue; you need to throw it on the floor, or you can clap your hands sharply.

Note! A proven way to influence animals is to spray them with water from a spray bottle. Over time, they may develop an instinct where the animals will scatter just at the sight of a sprayer. You always need to remember one thing: you cannot forcefully raise animals with your hands and you cannot yell at them.

Disorientation is considered an effective way - placing them in different rooms, different boxes or beds

You always need to remember one thing: you can’t forcefully shake animals with your hands and you can’t yell at them. Disorientation is considered an effective way - placing them in different rooms, different boxes or beds.

You can’t punish too much; you must always understand that any aggressive behavior of an animal is caused by some factors, and which ones, the owner must figure out himself and eliminate them.

It may take several days for your pet to get used to it.

How to make two adult cats friends?

If your cats suddenly start fighting, the safest option is to separate them into separate rooms for 24 to 48 hours until they calm down.
You should also keep them inside during this time so they don't meet or fight outside.
Watch for any signs that your cats are frustrated at being kept indoors, such as meowing to be let out.
Make sure your cats are kept apart from each other long enough for them to calm down, but not so long that they become upset and potentially more stressed.

How to resolve conflict

A new cat should be brought into the home in a carrier, not in your arms. We place the carrier on the floor and do not open it. If the first cat didn’t come, it’s okay. Wait 10–15 minutes. Before opening the door, make sure that all doors in the house are open but the windows are closed. In the event of a fight, cats will need to retreat, and the new pet may jump out of the window out of fear.

They opened the carrier and slowly walked away a few meters - the moment of truth. Don't try to get a new pet, it should come out on its own . Even if this stage takes an hour, do not interfere, do not call the cats, do not make unnecessary movements, your task is observation. If everything goes fine, you will observe the following:

The newcomer carefully gets out of the carrier and looks around carefully. The paws are bent, the nose is constantly moving, the ears are turning.
Guarded - takes a dominant position, moves his ears back, does not take his eyes off the guest, and can hiss and growl.
A newcomer looks away and behaves according to the principle “we don’t care.”
He was guarding - he begins to walk around the newcomer from the side, he can hit himself on the sides with his tail.
Newcomer - moves away to the side that the guard is not protecting.
Watched - continues close observation.
Newbie – continues to move away, may turn his back.

If all these steps were successful, you are very lucky! The newcomer recognized his position, the guard was calm about his possessions, all that was left was to wait and help the animals adapt. However, things may not work out so well. It is likely that your new pet will not want to acknowledge himself as a guest.

In a bad scenario, a failure occurs at the second point, the newcomer will meet the gaze of the old-timer and both cats will freeze. Further, you can observe several options for the development of events; cats can arch their backs, growl, scream, and raise their fur on end. A fight is inevitable if the animals begin to move along the trajectory of a circle and whip their tails on the sides.

If the cats are fighting, spray water on them, if you don’t have a spray bottle... you can douse the fighting ones (great stress for both). Next, we cover the first cat with a blanket, and take the second one out of the room. It is advisable to protect your hands so that your pet does not scratch you out of inertia. We provide assistance to ourselves and the animals if necessary and introduce a moratorium on communication between pets for at least one day.

Important! When you separate cats, it is important not to injure the old-timer. If you lock up the first pet and begin to feel sorry for the second, all the misfortunes will be compounded by the justifiable anger of the owner of the territory.

This is exactly the algorithm that meetings should take place in the first days of living together. As practice shows, already from the second or third time, the guard comes to terms with the presence of a newcomer. As soon as the cats have stopped conflicting during the meeting, they need to start feeding them at the same time - this will strengthen the hierarchy and help develop a certain order in the new way of life.

How to make two cats friends in the same apartment?

Because cats are territorial, they instinctively feel that they need to defend their territory. For your cats, this will be your home, apartment and various places within it, such as where they eat, drink, sleep, play and go to the toilet. This also applies to areas they use to get from one place to another, such as stairs and hallways. If you have two or more cats in the same apartment, then each should, in theory, feel like they aren't directly competing for all those important things.

You can help by ensuring that all of their "resources" are provided in the right places and in sufficient quantities so that your cats don't feel like they have to fight for what's missing.
You may want to give each cat her own bowl, her own litter box, and her own scratching post.
You won't necessarily have to rehome any of your cats, but you will have to make some changes to help them.

There are many options you can try to resolve the problem.
Sometimes, however, it may be a case where rehoming one of the cats is the only option. Some cats simply don't like living with other cats, and so separating them may be the best solution for them, no matter what loving owners are willing to do to solve the problem.

The process of preparing for the arrival of a new pet

It is especially difficult to reconcile two adult cats, and it often happens that despite all the efforts of the owners, same-sex cats cannot be made friends. In such cases, you need to find a new home for the pet or dare to castrate one of them. Also, the dating process is delayed for animals of different ages that their owners are trying to bring together.

Pet owners will have a much better chance of reconciling two cats quickly and stress-free by providing each with separate areas of living space. This way, the mustaches will quickly understand that no one claims their territorial integrity and will more calmly make contact with the newly acquired resident. Before getting a second cat, you need to prepare such things as:

utensils for eating and drinking;
separate toilet;
sleeping corner.

The sleeping area is the main territory of the animal

An attempt to place two pets in one bed may end in a conflict between the animals.
It will not be possible to reconcile cats with each other if the owners, due to inexperience, try to place a new tenant in the same bed with an already settled animal. Not only will the cats not get along, but the stress they have experienced will turn the cats against each other, and the conflict that arises is guaranteed to end in a fight. At first, the animals must live in two houses. This does not mean that the owners are obliged to provide the new tenant with separate housing; it is quite enough to place the cats in different rooms, and if the apartment is one-room, divide the living space into two conventional parts: the old resident lives on one side of the room, and the second cat lives on the other. When pets manage to get used to each other and the rehabilitation period is behind them, there will be no need to keep their distance. The owners will witness an idyll: cats are friends, lick each other's fur, play, lie and sleep together, not caring about violations of boundaries.

Feeding utensils and meal procedure

Not every cat will let another cat near its tasty morsel. If you bring a pet into your home and it covets the food of an old-timer, problems are sure to arise. Cats do not like to have their peace disturbed during a meal; even people passing by a feeding cat may receive a soft blow from their paw or a malicious hiss. What to talk about if an outsider feline covets the bowl and its contents. Until the new arrival and the cat live on friendly terms and get used to each other, it is better to place food plates in opposite corners of the room. When the pets manage to make friends and get along with each other, the dishes can be moved. But this does not mean that the cat and cat should eat from the same container. Otherwise, only one picture arises: the once affectionate pet hisses angrily, arches its back in an arc, rushes at the food invader, and a real fight breaks out between the cats. Such situations are very dangerous and can end badly for the following reasons:

To prevent unnecessary stress, it is recommended to purchase separate bowls for cats and feed them in different corners.

It is difficult to reconcile cats with each other.
Animals may get hurt.
Other residents of the apartment suffer.
Stress can make pets sick.

The situation is different when a cat brings a small street kitten into the house. The animal's maternal instinct is triggered, the cat takes care of the baby, hides it in its sleeping place and allows it to eat from a plate. If an adult cat lives in the home, the female will protect the small cat, because it is almost impossible to make friends between a cat and a kitten, since the male representative will feel from the whisker a threat of destruction of the relationship that connected the adult cat with the cat. Cats often hit babies, and this is very dangerous. It is impossible to separate a voluntary mother from a kitten, otherwise in the future the kitty may refuse the born offspring.

Toilet space: separate area

If you decide to take another pet into your home, you should not forget about an individual tray. Two cats will not use the same toilet together; otherwise, if the animals have to go to the same place to relieve themselves, conflict cannot be avoided, and in the future the cats may categorically refuse to be friends. There are also cases when a new cat visits the potty of an old-timer without any problems, who, in turn, impartially observes the manipulations of the new resident. The secret of the previous owner's peace of mind is simple: he gave up his litter box without a fight, and he regularly dirty the corners of the apartment, not wanting to go to the seized toilet. A simple but very effective trick helps to teach a new cat to use a separate litter box: pour fresh litter into the new litter box, and do not change the potty of the first cat. Each animal can easily identify its toilet area based on its specific smell.

How to make friends with pets?

You shouldn’t push them together or, on the contrary, lock the animals in different rooms; they will make contact on their own.
The main thing is to properly introduce animals and teach them how to communicate, to know what can and cannot be done. A hasty clash will start a cold war between two cats, because among animals, as between people, the first opinion is the key to the success of further relationships. You can avoid “dark” days if you don’t make the following mistakes:

Push. The animals will decide together when to make contact.
Lock the old-timer and the new cat in the same room. Unfamiliar cats will immediately start fighting and you will not be able to get a friendly cat family.
Lock in different rooms. This will cause a feeling of anxiety in the animals; cats smell the appearance of a competitor. There is no need to isolate, you need to introduce.

cat litter box

Particular attention should be paid to organizing a place to relieve natural needs. Under no circumstances should there be one tray for two pets. The cat's latrine must be clean, otherwise even an animal accustomed to the litter box will mark the living rooms out of character traits (banal, harmful).

In this case, the “old-timer” tray should not be moved. Cats do not like to change their routine, so they can take revenge by relieving themselves in shoes or on unattended clothes. As a result, the cat's litter box should be separate for pets and kept clean.

Feeding

The cat and the cat should eat separately, from different bowls. Otherwise, the male may steal food from the female, growl and fluff his tail. Do not allow the cat to eat by any means, since males are dominant individuals and are not ready to share food with strangers.

Only after the animals get used to each other is it possible to place food bowls next to each other . There are a number of simple recommendations for owners:

If possible, the cat and cat should eat at the same time to distract the animals from possible disagreements and adjust their daily routine.
When feeding separately, it is not recommended to change the place for food or move the bowl to another place.
The owner must feed the pets the same food, with equal portion sizes. Unless otherwise advised by your veterinarian.

Are they fighting or grinding?

Don't confuse fighting with building a hierarchy. Accept that one of your cats will be alpha. The older member of the pack can growl at the younger one, hit him with his paw, demonstrate his superiority in every possible way, and this is not a conflict, but a form of communication.

Don't get involved in cat fights unless they are threatening. When a kitten appears in the house, the older cat accepts it almost immediately. You may not know this because the alpha will act very strict and distant. The kitten will pester the cat, bother her and eventually receive a well-deserved slap with her paw. In most cases, an older cat will not even use her claws because she needs a reason to use force.

If you see that there is going to be a fight, you can do the following:

Stomp or clap loudly - fear changes priorities.
Throwing a towel towards the cats is a sudden switch of attention.
Throw a blanket over both cats - when a cat suddenly finds itself in the dark, it instinctively presses itself to the floor.
Throwing water at cats is a distraction factor.

There is another method that owners do not use due to ignorance. Seeing that cats are going into conflict, freeze, stare at the aggressor and start hissing. Make sounds that are as close as possible to the hissing of your pets, usually a combination of “kh” and low “y” sounds, do not hesitate, growl and even scream like a cat.

What will you achieve? First, you will show who the main “cat” is in this house, and this is important. Secondly, even if the demonstration of your feline importance seems unconvincing to your pets, they will definitely be surprised by the screams. Take advantage of the surprise and stupor to isolate the new cat. This method should not be used on hybrid breeds, since the cat may become confused and attack you.

What to do next?

The choice has been made, the candidate is known, it’s time to arrange life. It is recommended to purchase a second set of “equipment”: bowls for food and water, a tray, a carrier and a bed. A cage or exhibition tent will not be superfluous - you can buy them, or you can rent them from familiar cat breeders.

Of course, it is better to prepare everything in advance and, as a last resort, make do with an existing carrier. Prepare a place where the new resident will feel safe, such as in a different room. If this is not possible, do not neglect the already mentioned cage or tent: each of the animals should have a “safety territory” for the first month, or even longer.

Factors influencing the behavior of cats

There are many factors that influence the coexistence of two felines. This includes the age of weaning from the mother, experience of being in the family and in the company of other cats, patience and correct behavior of the owners, hereditary traits, and character.

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If the kitten was separated from its mother before the age of 3 months, then the cat did not have time to teach it how to behave with other animals and people. In this case, you will have to rely only on the instincts of the animal. As a result, the pet can be calm and get along well with other cats, or vice versa, behave aggressively and be afraid of other animals.

It is also important whether the cat was in a human family and whether it saw other representatives of its species. A mustachioed person, familiar only with his bowl, sofa and the inhabitants of the apartment, will be wary of the new guest, perhaps afraid of him.

If you have experience communicating with your relatives, your pet will be able to understand what to expect from this. Here the positive or negative experience of a previous acquaintance plays a role. If a cat had to fight with other cats, he will show restraint and be wary. If the meeting was more pleasant, then the behavior will be appropriate.

It is important that the owner does not punish pets for fighting. You need to be patient, separate the animals with a spray bottle and simply take the fighter to another room. Direct punishment will only turn cats against each other.

An equally important role is played by heredity, the character of the mustachioed and his breed. Knowing the character and habits of a local cat, you can to some extent predict its reaction to a new resident. But with regard to the guest, you will have to make inquiries or rely on chance and determine the reaction already in the process.

Sterilization

People often wonder: will a male cat get along if one of them is not sterilized?

During the period of active breeding, the cat behaves extremely noisily: it marks corners, sharpens its claws on furniture. But in urban conditions it is not so easy to carry out mating for various reasons. If a cat lives with the cat, this will cause additional headaches for the owner.

Obeying instincts, the pet will go to any lengths in order to leave offspring. And stopping him will be problematic. The owner should take care of possible sterilization in advance. Moreover, take into account the fact that the operation is much more important for the female in order to avoid unwanted offspring.

IMPORTANT! Private births will adversely affect the mental and physical health of the cat.

Thus, responsibility for castration or sterilization lies entirely with the conscience of the owner. If he is not embarrassed by such aspects as aggression, loud yelling, marking of territory, the appearance of a cat litter, then there is no need to carry out sterilization. But in practice, such a choice is extremely rare.