Your Cat — November 2017

cats were now increasingly in a bad mood

the whole time.

The fighting had started when the

kittens were about four months old. Their

energy levels had increased exponentially

in the previous couple of weeks and

Simone noticed they were constantly

prowling around the house when they

were awake.

Socks appeared to be the initial

instigator of the fights, and would lie in

wait for Sarah to walk past. When she did,

Socks would jump out from her hiding

place and pin Sarah down, biting and

kicking her.

After a few weeks of going through

constant ambushes, Sarah eventually

began to retaliate whenever Socks came

near her in a speedy or unwanted manner.

She would hiss and swat at Socks, who,

according to Simone, would look a bit

shocked, as if she didn’t quite understand

what she had done to earn her sister’s

scorn. When the unrest didn’t stop and

seemed to be worsening every day,

Simone decided to call me in for help.

MANAGING FRUSTRATION

I noticed all the house’s doors and

windows were closed, and Simone said

she hadn’t allowed the kittens outside

yet. Since she worked at an

office five days a week, she

wasn’t home much during the

week, and so didn’t want to

let them out too early and risk

losing them.

Simone lived in a beautiful

cottage with a stunning garden,

full of birds. I did a little more

digging and discovered that

before Socks started pouncing

on Sarah, she would sit on the

window sill looking at birds and

chirping to get to them. When

she couldn’t, she would go

and pounce on the only other

moving creature in the home

— her littermate.

Socks had probably

started her reactive

behaviour as a result of

being very frustrated.

She was a young, confident,

and agile cat, who had

very little opportunity to

engage in normal chasing

or exploring behaviour. She

could see the birds, engage

her instinctive eye-stalk

motor patterns of behaviour,

and would then get annoyed

when she couldn’t get to

them or chase them.

She needed to be able to explore more

fully and at least chase the birds, although

Simone was well aware of the precautions

she needed to take to make sure it was as

difficult as possible for her to catch any,

such as placing the bird feeding table and

food dispensers high out of a cat’s reach

and in the middle of wide open spaces.

Sarah was the only other option for

Socks to practise her stalking and chasing

behaviours on. This might have seemed

reasonable enough to Socks, but from

Sarah’s perspective, things looked a little

different. She was by far the more

laid-back of the two, and would be

content to play gently with her sister or

owner. She didn’t understand why she

was suddenly being ambushed, and this

made her irritated.

Her response was to pre-empt any

ambush by swatting at Socks. Initially,

this worked — Simone said Socks would

stop mid-ambush, but after a while, she

changed her plan from an open charge

to lying in wait and pouncing. When she

connected, Sarah then fought back.

NATURAL BEHAVIOURS

Simone needed guidance to solve the

fighting, but it was my job to explain why

the fighting was happening in the first

http://www.yourcat.co.uk 47

Simone let me know how everything

was going two weeks later. There

had been no further incidents,

although she had to work quite hard

to distract Socks initially when she

displayed her old stalking behaviour

indoors. Socks really now only

wanted to play with her sister,

but Sarah first had to learn to trust

her again.

The two cats would now play

beautifully and gently outside

without any incident, but as soon as

Socks tried to play indoors, Sarah

would become defensive. I explained

it was because her association with

being inside and approached by

her sister meant she was going to

be ambushed. Luckily, the cats were

very receptive to the methods

I advised, and within two weeks, the

fighting had stopped completely. —

Problem solved!

place. She had two extremely confident,

active cats cooped up in a cottage, with

no outlet for their natural behaviours.

Socks needed to be able to go out,

explore, stalk, and chase things, and

Sarah clearly needed to not be ambushed

at every opportunity in the day.

Luckily, Simone was happy to consider

that it was now time to let the cats have

access to the garden. They lived in a quiet

neighbourhood and the property was

already safely enclosed, so, without any

further ado, we opened the back door

and allowed them to venture outside.

It was lovely to watch. The best

moment was when, for the first time in

three weeks, the cats began playing

with each other without it turning into

a fur-flying fight.

While the cats frolicked, Simone and

I chatted about the best way to deal

with the friction still present between

them indoors.

Simone was asked to spread all the

cats’ resources throughout the house to

reduce tension caused by competition.

She increased the number of food and

water bowls, introduced several scratch

posts, and purchased a variety of cat toys

to distract Socks if she irritated Sarah.

I showed Simone how to redirect Socks’

attention, and when to reward Sarah

when she tolerated her sister’s presence.

I also asked her to encourage the cats

to play together using the new cat toys,

since playing is one of the best ways to

cement social relationships.

Socks and Sarah.

Sarah.

CAT CARE

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