Do you break up fights between your animals? I'm just curious how many intervene in the hierarchy of the household pet daily world.
With my three original cats, I let the little female cat dish out some aggressive behavior on the two males. But when the two males would fight, I would often intervene. The dominant cat learned when I yelled his name, he'd better lay down and roll over in a submissive pose. It became rather amusing and cute - he was very smart!
Now with our current three, I rarely break up the fights between the two males. The dominant male is less than half the size of the other male. I figure the bigger male needs to learn to defend himself!
I do, however, constantly break up fights between the dominant male and my female cat. She has no way to defend herself because, unfortunately, she is declawed and the males are not.
How was the female cat declawed? It is not fair for one of the three cats being declawed while the other two are not. I am against declaw to begin with since it is not natural at all.
I have heard of similar problems with multiple cats in one household having aggression problems. It might be a good idea to give each of them a piece of their own territory. Assign different rooms to them, so they can have their own little space while avoiding contact with other cats.
My animals understand the NO command, and will break up any tussle that's going on. However, in the past I've had a fair few cats that would have a good old go at one another, and I'd end up having to spray them with a water mist spray. They don't like it, and disperse immediately.
Ram, my female cat is kind of in between the previous 3 cats I spoke of & these current 3, which she is part of, of course. We used to declaw all our cats. The first female died quite young (barely 7 years) of kidney failure & we bought this current female (my Bengal), and had her declawed since we'd declawed the 2 remaining older male cats she was joining. She got along well with both males and there was a lovely harmony in our household of cats while they were together. Then the two older males died and we bought a Tonkinese male kitten & adopted a domestic male kitten from a shelter. We were persuaded at this time to no longer declaw our cats. So my declawed Bengal has always been at the mercy of my tiny, fully-clawed Tonk. He is merciless and she has several scars on her beautiful face from his unprovoked attacks. They despise each other.
I do keep her often locked up in a separate room, and always do this when I am leaving the house. She enjoys her "private room." I don't have any sympathy (cold, aren't I?! haha) for my 20 lb fully-clawed domestic male cat who can't seem to defend himself against the tiny, 8 lb dominant male (all muscle & very, very tiny. He's the size of a 6 month old kitten). My husband says the big cat is "a lover, not a fighter." Well, too bad! He needs to "man up!" He was specifically adopted to be the companion of my Tonk on the advice of a veterinarian when we were distressed at how vicious the Tonk kitten was towards our older, much bigger Bengal cat. We were told if he had another kitten to play with, he'd leave the old Bengal alone. It didn't work out that way - he terrorizes BOTH of them! *heavy sigh* The 2 males do sometimes play with & groom each other though.
Evilsprinkles, yes the water sprayer bottle is a staple in our household! The Tonk hates that & it's the only thing he really fears! I used it a couple times on the Bengal - but she doesn't mind water. It had no effect on her - she just enjoyed licking it off her fur!
The last time I intervened, one of them bit my leg. The same thing happened to my fiancee. It sucks because the younger one doesn't do anything at all so the older guy decided to pick on him when he is on his "property."
My lady now throws a little bit of water on the older one to stop him from going crazy - his ears stretch back, his pupils dilate, his tail fattens and he just becomes insane!
