Cat problem. Help!

In My Humble Opinion
1

Now that there’s just one person in the household, I’m running out of time in the day to spend with all of the fuzzballs.

Cosmo, in particular, is acting extremely jealous and insecure. She’s my smallest cat, and by far the most aggressive. She has always been aggressive, but since Steve’s death, it’s been worse. After his death, I was living at my mother’s for a few weeks, coming home once a day to make sure food and water were both fresh. I needed to do that for me, but I think it was unfortunate for the cats.

Cosmo attempts to drive the other cats away from me. When I lie in bed reading, for example, she likes to sit on my lap. If another cat jumps up to snuggle, Cosmo is jumping off me and going to where the other cat is, glaring and growling until the other one is intimidated and leaves. Then Cosmo climbs back into my lap.

If I scold her, she takes that out on the other cats.

She’s more tolerant of Dickens than the rest. I suspect it’s because Dickens has always been my cat, while a couple of the others were very much Steve’s cats. So she accepts that Dickens gets a share of my attention, but doesn’t accept the others.

Isaac has been really sick, so she’s been getting tons of extra attention, including special feedings where I shut both of us up in the bathroom and give Isaac canned food.

Some of my thoughts:

I could start giving Cosmo that same Isaac treatment (especially now that Isaac is doing much better).

I could make the bedroom her domain. I hate to do this but will if it seems like it would work.

I could make the bedroom a cat-free zone so that no one gets to snuggle with me.

I could see if there is some form of kitty Prozac?

Any suggestions would be great.

2

Some vets will prescribe actual Prozac for cats.

3

I think all of your ideas are worth trying, including the kitty prozac. I hate it when one of my cats intimidates another, so I feel for you. If it were me, I would probably start with the extra attention (when she is being good) first. You also might want to try feliway, which is supposed to help with these sorts of issues.

4

exhaust cosmo with kitty aerobics? i find that my 3 get along better if i tire them out with 20-30 minutes of laser dot or wand toys.

catnip?

5

I second Feliway. It’s worth a try, some swear by it.

Sometimes an extra litterbox helps, for some strange cat reason.:confused:

6

You could try establishing the bedroom as a fight free zone by throwing out all the cats as soon as conflict starts. This may seem unfair to the ones who don’t "start it "but is probably the only way to stop Cosmo taking it out on the other cats if she thinksd she’s the only one getting punished.

7

Relaxing in private?

8

Make your room a one-cat-at-a-time zone, and alternate on different days? Maybe this is too complicated for your number of cats, but it works around here reasonably well with only 2 felines, one of whom is happy to share but the other of whom behaves a lot like Cosmo.

9

I second the “wear them all out with the laser pointer” idea.

10

I can’t find the laser pointer! Ack!

But I’m trying the extra attention and food treatment and the Feliway in a room diffuser treatment. I just started yesterday, so I can’t say if there’s been any difference yet.

Yesterday, Cosmo wasn’t interested in the special food at all. She just sat and stared at me when I wasn’t petting her (I was reading a book). Intermittently, I’d stop reading and pet and praise her, but the food wasn’t interesting.

Today, I tried the same thing and she devoured the food. I don’t know what changed, but she seemed delighted to have it.

11

Maybe they just need time. A lot of people think animals (even cats and dogs, not just elephants) are capable of grief and mourning.

12

Oh, I believe they are. All of them know Steve’s missing. They’re all very aware of me where before a couple of them would mostly ignore me. Things are Different, with a capital D and they Don’t Like It.

13

God, I’m not good at this at all, but I’ll try anyway…

Could you use one of Steve’s old t-shirts with his scent and lay it next to them, and gradually replace it with a t-shirt that has your scent on it?

jsgodess, I’m just a stupid male, but that’s the best I could come up with!

I am so sorry I don’t have a better idea, but believe me, even though I never knew Steve, I can tell from what I am reading that he loved his fur-babies.

Again, please forgive me if this sounds like a stupid idea, but my Bert just loves to curl up on my sweaters and I thought the change of scents might work.

I’m sorry, I don’t know what else to say! :smack:

Bill

14

Bill, I don’t think you’re a stupid male at all. I don’t think what you’re suggesting works for this situation, but it would be a perfect idea for bringing a cat into a household after the cat’s owner died, or some similar situation.

I did leave Steve’s pillows on the bed so the cats can be near them if they want. Cats, being weird, ignore them, but it was worth a shot. :smiley:

Cosmo was very well-behaved last night. I don’t know if that’s a fluke or a result of the special time together.

15

Or he’s been reading the Straight Dope.

16

I agree. They know something’s amiss and some cats are more sensitive to change than others. I’d let it ride for a while, as long as the agression isn’t causing any real physical or emotional long-term problems to the others. Let them be their little cat selves. They’ll work through it.

17

quasimodem does have a good idea. i had one cat that always had to stay at the vets if i was away from home longer than a day (meds and tummy troubles). after her first time at the vets for a weekend and the stress she had there (and she was there a lot with the tummy troubles, you would have thought she lived there full time) i found that if i packed a few t shirts with her for her to have in the enclosure she was less stressed because she smelled a familiar scent.

perhaps just a t shirt in a basket or wrapped around a pillow in a box or basket will help. when my mum passed i used a few of her shirts as a pillow cover in the kitty condo where “her” cat loved to hang out.

nod the naughty stopped meowing outside mum’s room after i did that. nod would sit on mum’s lap quite a bit so sitting on the pillow with her shirt, was as close to sitting on her lap as she could get.