He looks like a big softie, doesn’t he? And for most of his life, Sasha has acted pretty much the way he looks: soft, sweet, easygoing. While we don’t know whether he really has the Maine Coon forebears that his appearance suggests, he has had the gentle temperament for which they’re known, as well as the small, trilling voice.
In our feline family, Sasha has always been, seemingly happily, the low cat on the totem pole… until two weeks ago, when the fighting began. It hasn’t stopped; rather, it has escalated, and Sasha is clearly the aggressor. Very early last Friday morning, Paul and I startled awake to the sounds of cats fighting. Sasha and Lyra were going at it in our front bedroom, and when I rushed in to break up the fight, I found Lyra cowering under the bed. When we eventually coaxed her out, her tail was soaked with urine. She had lost bladder control.
That morning, we sequestered the badly frightened Miss Lyra in the guest bedroom, and have kept her there for much of the past week. We’ve been letting her out during the evenings, when we can supervise the cats’ interactions. While there has been no overt fighting, there has been hissing and posturing, and the occasional low-pitched rumble. Poor, sweet Sergei seems perplexed by the whole situation; the brother to whom he’s very attached now hisses at him, and Lyra now startles and bats at him when he rubs up against her. It’s all so very confusing.
This week, we’ve taken all three cats to see their vet. Thankfully, they’re all healthy, though Lyra should lose a few ounces, and Sasha, who is not aggressive with me or Paul, went into full feline fight-or-flight mode in the exam room. Dr. Spencer, putting his difficult patient in the best possible light, noted that Sasha’s hissing and yowling provided him with a very good view of Sasha’s very healthy-looking teeth. He also recommended we take a look at the Indoor Cat Initiative, a project of Ohio State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. I’ve been reading, learning more about feline behavior, and making plans for some changes around here. We need to create an environment in which Sasha won’t feel that he has to compete with Lyra or Sergei for resources: food, toys, the litter box, our attention. We’ll also be working to make a small, high place in most rooms to which a cat who feels threatened can safely retreat. If we find that our environmental changes don’t help the cats to resolve this soon, we’ll call in a professional.
I’m hoping that Sasha will be back to acting like a big, sweet softie again soon. I miss that cat, and so do Sergei and Lyra.
The animals always get along aboard the Friday Ark. It’s A Byootaful Life for cats at Weekend Cat Blogging.
Tags: 7 Comments
7 responses so far ↓
Oh dear, how upsetting. You can’t help but feel there must have been some trigger, but what could it have been? I hope there will be an equally swift return to the gentleman cat of the past. It is so hard to guess what’s up with them sometimes. Ever since I returned from my 5 day holiday,Anyanka, my offbeat, touchy little female, has been following me around and meowing at me.It is as if she is trying to tell me something, and I am being stupid.
And she is usually so quiet…..she even woke me up in the middle of the night, standing on my tummy and scolding. Not nearly so upsetting as your situation, but very confusing- so unlike her.
Any connection between the CO2 tank recently acquired and the cat’s behavior? Any other physical changes in your house recently? Just a thought.
[…] of Music and Cats is a big softie, but lately he’s been a little more aggressive and it’s worrying his […]
We have 7 (yes, 7) indoor cats, and found that when cats seem to be suffering from anxiety the drug amitryptilene (not sure of the spelling) seemed to help a lot. And the effects seem to last even after stopping the medication. It’s an inexpensive drug and doesn’t seem to have any side effects such as lethargy.
One caveat - the stuff must taste terrible, so make sure you get the pill down on the first try or forget it for a few hours.
At first pass I just looked at Sasha’s picture and smiled so I’m only now reading this in detail. This is pretty distressing to have a behavior change like this. Abby’s big sweet cat, Grey, that I took her last fall had a brief period much as you describe- not towards other cats because he’s on only cat- but just a marked aggressiveness. That one was clearly triggered by a trip to the vet where he got frightened by a larger still, more dominant cat. But, I’ll tell you- his fear turned wild was enough to get the vet and us to back off quick from a cat who is consistently sweet. After a couple weeks of cutting him a wide berth at home- basically just putting down his food and quietly cleaning his box- he settled right back down and has been fine since. The one thing that Abby did do was leave a small lower cupboard open in the kitchen where they store bags- and he spent a lot of time in there for those couple weeks. So maybe, hopefully, Sasha will settle with some safe havens. Poor Lyra and Sergei- this must be when cats whisper to each other, “Do you think he could benefit from medication??” Good luck with this one.
Don’t hesitate to ask your vet about anti-anxiety drugs such as buspar. We’ve used them with great success. However, think about which cat you want to use them on; we found using them on the aggressor cat made that cat even less inhibited. Using them on the victim cat was what worked in our case; she stood up for herself and the bully stopped bullying. (The bully needed a mild sedative, it turned out.) We only used the drugs for 5 days; once normal behavior was re-established, it stuck without drugs.
I had a similar problem with a couple of cats, solved by having the cats live away from me, kid took one. Nice couple took other one. They wanted to be only cat. One of them got quite terrortorial (spelling intentional) and would mark out his territory and defend it which territory happened to be the kitchen. I was not amused. Obviously, my solution wouldn’t work for everyone but I had eight cats in too little a house so I had to do something.
I was surprised amitriptyline doesn’t make them lethargic. It’s highly sedating in humans, is an antidepressant.
Oh, despite Sasha’s aggressive streak, cat makes lovely desktop wallpaper, thankies much.