I’ve had cats all my life, and am pretty well accustomed to their behaviour, however odd. But this has me bogggled.
My Male cat, 5 years old, was meowing to come in, par the course, yesterday morning. His voice was off, no high end of meow, kinda rough, not his normal voice. After the door opened, his littermate, female, rushed out and attacked him, ran around the yard like he was an intruder, trying to chase him off. A few minutes later, with um, guidance, they were eating side by side, but everytime he’d meow, in his off kilter way, she would lunge at him. Normally, she is not at all aggresive. And this is her brother, they’ve always been together, and affectionate in cat terms.
Tonight, his meow is still rough, and, although Sis is not outright attacking him, everytime he meows, she follows him around, and sniffs his rear to make sure it really is him. She is weirded out by his voice, every meow is greeted with suspicion.
This seems strange; I’d think that visual and smell would be good enough fellow cat ID, but the vocal difference is freaking her out. Has anyone had this kind of experience with their cats? Prolly not, since it’s a weird one, but thought I’d ask here anyway.
As to the reason of the cat’s voice being different, I’m not sure, but he is hale and hearty otherwise. Not injured or crying, just a rough voice. If it doesn’t improve by Monday, I’ll take him to our very excellent Vet practice for an exam. I do know that when our cat at work had a similar voice roughness a couple of months ago, it was attributed to eating too many little critters, and the bones had made her throat rough. She healed up from that quickly. This might be the same sort of thing.
Anyone? Vetbridge?
