I need cat suggestions - my cat is a bully!

In My Humble Opinion
1

So one of my cats, Grace, aka Boo (who also happens to be the smallest) has developed some serious bully tendencies. Her main target used to be Clarice, one of my tabbies. She terrorized the poor thing until she started hanging out in one small corner of the house, peeing inappropriately, and generally just being a basket case. We made some changes (put a cat tree and a litterbox near where she likes to hang out, put in floor instead of carpet, etc) and that seemed to calm things down mostly.

Then, without warning, Clarice just seemed to get over her nervousness. She comes upstairs now and even sleeps with us, which is great.

Only problem is, it seems that Boo has now decided her new target is Nabby, another of our tabbies who is also our largest cat. Nab is a sweet-natured cat, very loving and easygoing, and she has him completely cowed. She’ll literally pin him down in rooms by parking herself in the doorway, and I have to rescue him because he won’t leave when she’s there.

The rest of the cats (we have 7) get along great. They sleep together in a big pile (Boo gets along fine with the others, aside from the occasional spat with her sister). To humans, Boo is the most sweet and loving cat ever. I pick her up and she immediately starts purring. She adores me.

I wonder if it might be jealousy since I do pay a lot of attention to Nabby (he’s very clingy and likes to sit in my lap) but I didn’t pay any more attention to Clarice than to any of the other cats and she was the target too.

I’m running out of ideas. So far aside from his fear of Boo, Nabby doesn’t seem to be exhibiting any other problems. Everybody is using the litterboxes, eating, and generally life is going along as usual except for these incidents.

We got Boo a “calming collar” (made by the people who make Feliway) and so far the only effect it seems to have on her is that now she smells like a cough drop. :slight_smile: We have a Feliway dispenser downstairs in the area that used to be Clarice’s hangout.

Any other suggestions? I love all my cats and I want them to get along. Or, alternatively, is it okay for them to have these little “sibling rivalry” problems and I should just let them fight it out? Nabby is literally twice Boo’s size. If he ever stood up for himself he could beat the stuffing out of her, but I’m not sure he ever will. He’s not a fighter.

2

I have a small female cat who has a similar personality: Loves humans, hates all other animals. She has at times bullied my gentle giant boy cat (seems to me like female cats tend to be more scrappy than neutered male cats are).
One thing I’ve noticed that having a lot of high places to get away from each other seems to make a big difference in how well the cats get along (they never fought when I was living in an apartment where the cupboards in the kitchen had space for them to walk on top, as a “cat walk” around the room). I think some of my cat’s scrappiness is because she is timid and insecure by nature. She seems to lash out because she is trying to protect herself, so she calms down when she feels safe. Is there any possibility of adding more cat trees, shelves, or a cat walk to add to your cats’ security?

3

I don’t really have any long-term solutions, but if you just want the scrapper to calm down for the night, try giving her a pillow or pouch of powdered valerian. You can just empty it out of one of the capsules they sell as sedatives for humans, or from a tea bag. It smells like you stewed Godzilla’s dirty gym socks, especially after it’s been drooled on, but I’ve never seen it not work on a cat, even the ones that don’t care about catnip.

4

Boo is just working out general hostility, and Nabby is the new convenient target. Perhaps Clarice swatted Boo once and realized that she could stand up for herself, or perhaps Boo just got sick of beating on an already terrorized target.

Calming stuff works wonders, but honestly, I’ve found that one of the best responses is a good offense.

I have a little bully, and we’re working her back to being mostly nice. It’s a long process, but it’s worked for at least 3 cats so far in my life, so we’re persevering with this one.

Here’s what I suggest: put a spray bottle full of water in every room, and *every single time *Boo does anything even remotely hostile to Nabby, Boo gets it with the spray bottle (squirt her until she runs to another room) and Nabby gets a treat.

It has to be done INSTANTLY, and preferably mid-strike, or it doesn’t work. You also don’t want any verbalization - no “I’m warning you” or “bad kitty” or anything like that. Simply the association that any physical aggression is met instantly with hateful wet from the gods.

That will work to combat physical aggression.

To fix the actual bullying, you also have to do the following (which is harder to keep track of): Every time both of them are in a room together for longer than 5 minutes, and Boo is either ignoring or being nice (preferable) to Nabby, they BOTH get treats at the same time, and more of them than usual. Then try and engage them in a game, or some really good pettins - again, with both of them together. Keep that up for a really low time period for a good while - at least a month. After that, start slowly (like every two weeks or so) working up to longer and longer times - 7 minutes, then 12, then 18, then 25…

Because you are rewarding a pattern of behavior, not a specific action, you don’t have to be quite as on-top of those interactions, but the more often you notice and reward happy or neutral interactions, the faster Boo will figure it out, and start associating Nabby with happy times and treats. This will make her more happy with Nabby in general.

Finally, try to keep Boo worn the crap out. Play vigorously with her for at least an hour every day. Get her a fake hampster in a ball to chase, invest in laser pens, tie a milk bottle cap to a string… something. Just run her til she drops. Go until she’s actually panting, at least once a day. If she’s tired and getting her exercise and stimulation from you, she won’t be as interested in getting it from bullying and chasing Nabby around.

5

Thanks for the advice!

lavenderviolet, we do have a lot of vertical space in the house (we watched that show called “My Cat from Hell,” and the guy on there suggested that too, so we got some more cat trees and such. It has definitely helped).

Arabella Flynn, I haven’t actually even tried catnip yet–we’ve got a bag that we need to open. Boo does respond well to it, so maybe it’ll give her a nice buzz and calm her down. :slight_smile: If that doesn’t work, maybe something stronger is in order.

Lasciel, great ideas! I’ll have to think about the spray bottle thing–unfortunately we have a lot of electronics and computer stuff, and I don’t want to be squirting water on that. But maybe I can station some bottles around the house and at least hit her with it when she’s not pinning Nabby under my computer desk or something. :slight_smile:

I like the idea about playing with them together and keeping Boo tired–though I’ll have to temper that because there’s no way I’ve got anything like an hour a day to do nothing but tire out my cat. :slight_smile: As it happens, both of them (and only those two) are absolutely addicted to playing “chase the laser” (we call it their Red Bug game). They will both literally lead me to where the laser is and ask to play. I tried it last week when they were together and they played quite nicely together, both focused on the laser dot and pretty much ignoring each other even when they were in close proximity. So maybe more Red Bug is part of the answer. Unfortunately, though, none of my cats much care for treats (other than meat baby food, and I can’t carry a jar of that around all the time) so I’ll have to either figure out another treat they like or skip that part.

Thanks again. :slight_smile:

6

At a certain point you can’t make cats like each other.

My cat Bandit has hated my cat Ashes since the day he laid eyes on her, and will die with hate in his heart for her. Actually he hates all cats except his dearly departed brother, Smokey.

He used to beat her up regularly, for no reason except he didn’t like her face (she is friendly and retiring). Now that he’s 19, the fights have stopped, though he still keeps his pimp hand strong by smacking her upside the face now and then. BTW he is literally half her size, is arthritic and has a heart murmmur. Oh yeah - Bandit is front-declawed, while Ashes has all claws.

As long as there aren’t any eating, pooping, peeing problems, just accept that you have two cats that don’t get along. Eventually they’ll either sort it out… or they won’t.

7

I have a little bully cat, too, and think for her, it is anxiety and need for attention, so I try to address those. Lasciel, you gave some of the best advice I have seen in a cat thread.

8

Thank you - I’m running on just past a dozen cats worth of experience, in different configurations and foster situations, so I’ve had lots of practice. You mostly think that because you don’t know about all the millions of things I tried and they didn’t work. :smiley:

Also, Hello Again has a great point - Boo may just be a little bully, and nothing you do will change her basic personality.

That said, all you are really trying for is changing her behavior, which CAN happen. You have to keep at it, but while the two of them may never be bestest buds, you can most often move cats towards mutual detente, which is often all that is necessary to keep the peace.
I will warn you that sometimes cats are awful little shits and nothing you can do will keep them from expressing their hatred towards each other. In those cases (I’ve had it happen to two of mine) the best option is to decide who is more attached to the family, and try and rehome the other as soon as possible (friends are great, so you can continue to see the kitty regularly). It seems really rare from my experience, but it does happen.
In addition, I would go ahead and warn you that any life changes (anything from having carpet-cleaning people in, to moving, to a change in the people/pets in the household, will most likely trigger a resurgence of bullying, even if it had completely tapered off. Cats … aren’t fond of changes to routine. Sadly, if that happens, you get to start back from the beginning and train them back out of that behavior all over. Yay fun!
I know I’m just a ray of sunshine here, but it really is very possible to fix this. Also, when you get into a routine of noticing and reinforcing good behavior, and interrupting the bad behavior, it isn’t so noticeable or a hardship to you. The only real time drain is the playing, and as long as she’s staying mostly active and stimulated, that isn’t actually necessary, it just helps a whole heck of a lot.

9

No suggestions, just commiserating.

Basil and Elsie are both about 3, have both been with me most of their lives, and constitute the entirety of my animal entourage. Most of the time they are delightful, but sometimes they’re just jerks. Basil (big mop of a cat) used to be fairly dominant, and is still the undisputed arbiter of Who Eats What When, but otherwise the power gradually shifted to Elsie (wiry little shorthair). I have a big house with lots of cat-friendly spots, but the cats are nonetheless territorial. They are also perversely, well, perverse. You might say they are copycats. If one develops a preference for a particular spot, the other will eventually notice, forsake their own current favorite spot, and start a campaign to acquire the new spot. The tide is constantly shifting. The spot-du-jour is inside the cat tunnel/tube. Elsie is there now, and Basil is on the windowsill (a recent SDJ), looking totally put out. (Same situation applies to toys.)

The main problem, though, is that Elsie sometimes decides, usually arbitrarily (or so it seems), to launch an unprovoked attack on Basil. She absolutely wears the pants. Despite this pattern of behavior, Basil, who ought to know better, will sometimes provoke an attack by getting too close and staring too intensely. When Elsie is in a Mood, this will generally set her off. Sometimes, though, she will just slink off, in her weird, super slo-mo way, as though she thinks she’ll be invisible if she moves slowly enough. She also does this if Basil is camped out somewhere (in a hallway, for example) and she wants to pass by. I don’t know why she does this, since I have never seen Basil initiate any actual skirmishes. Maybe Elsie has a guilty conscience and just wants to put him at ease? (Ha.) Sometimes she won’t pass him at all, and if he’s got her trapped in a room (he plops down in doorways sometimes, apparently just to mess with her), she’ll start meowing for rescue.

I lavish them both with affection. Playing can be awkward, because although Elsie is a tireless dynamo, Basil has a slightly enlarged heart and gets out of breath after a few minutes of anything vigorous. The spirit is willing, though; he always wants more and will come galumphing in whenever he hears me playing with Elsie. (By the way, anyone other than me have a problem with lasers? I feel like they present a highly desirable but inherently unobtainable object and are more frustrating than fun.) Both cats also luuuuv to be groomed. Elsie will materialize out of nowhere when I groom Basil, lurk a few feet away and give him the Evil Eye until he eventually gets rattled and leaves. Basil comes running when he hears/sees/eerily senses that I’m grooming Elsie. He matter-of-factly inserts himself, usually belly-up, into whatever space there is between Elsie and me so that I have to reach over him in order to continue grooming her. When he does this, she’ll slink off and glower.

I find myself just saying, “Guys, WTF?” a lot.

10

Totally. She’s nailed it. Suggested exactly what I was going to, except I was going for the kitty Prozac while she had a more natural suggestion.

11

I’m reviving this thread because I have the same type of problem and my Google search brought this up - seems like the best advice I’ve seen.

I have this variation on the old-cat-terrorizing-new-cat scenario:

The old cat is a 14 year old female. Never liked other cats although she likes dogs and is a fantastic people-cat.

This time, we figured we’d try an adult, laid-back male. We go what we asked for. He’s 5 years old and the gentlest little animal we’ve come across. Sweet, playful, laid back. Acclimated immediately to the litter box. Living in his own separate closed room although we allow “supervised” interaction between the two.

In addition, the new cat came from a cat refuge where he lived his whole life, which makes his adaptation to living in a house so much more amazing. We also figured that a cat who lived with 250 other cats would have the “tools” to deal with our 14 year old and, indeed it seemed that way in their first encounters. The 14 year old would hiss and the 5 year old would look at her with a “yeah, what else is new” look. On top of that he’s at least twice her size and weight.

Trouble is, a week later, and the 14 years old (who is relentless) has the 5 year old completely cowed. Even when she is not around, if the door to his room is open, he constantly looks over his shoulder, worrying about her coming along.

We really want to keep this new cat. We know how difficult it is for a 5-year old to be adopted, even one as sweet and friendly as this big boy. Any advice in addition to that already given would be appreciated (and yes, the water squirter and treats are standing by)