What do you do when your pets do not like each other?

Have you ever had the situation when one or more of your pets do not like each other? What do you do about it?


I have had fish do not like each other, and they would fight on sight. I had to separate them into different fish tanks, so they wouldn't hurt each other.

It is quite different with other pets walking around freely in your home.

Been there many times with cats. Most of my personal pets have been acquired one at a time as adults, so there is always a period of adjustment. The first one took two days. The next one took twelve years. The next one, he had two months of smelling and hearing her in another room, but when she was let out hissed at her for three months until he got it through his thick head that she was no threat to him. When he died, she took a dislike to the new female cat I brought in, and who also took a dislike to her. They both wanted different things, and they both wanted those things to themselves. After a month or so of cross words, they agreed to ignore each other. Then I took in a male who wanted to play with the girls, who did NOT want to play with him! So he bonded immediatly with a former feral male I took in, and they're such good friends that I can't bear to split them up. All in all, It takes time and patience, but if they're not actually attacking each other I just let them work it out. One of my girls is now getting intolerant of sharing with other cats, and I have her isolated by herself. I'm thinking of finding her another home where she can be an only cat because she will be happier that way

(04-06-2012 04:17 PM)Karenskatz Wrote:  Been there many times with cats. Most of my personal pets have been acquired one at a time as adults, so there is always a period of adjustment. The first one took two days. The next one took twelve years. The next one, he had two months of smelling and hearing her in another room, but when she was let out hissed at her for three months until he got it through his thick head that she was no threat to him. When he died, she took a dislike to the new female cat I brought in, and who also took a dislike to her. They both wanted different things, and they both wanted those things to themselves. After a month or so of cross words, they agreed to ignore each other. Then I took in a male who wanted to play with the girls, who did NOT want to play with him! So he bonded immediatly with a former feral male I took in, and they're such good friends that I can't bear to split them up. All in all, It takes time and patience, but if they're not actually attacking each other I just let them work it out. One of my girls is now getting intolerant of sharing with other cats, and I have her isolated by herself. I'm thinking of finding her another home where she can be an only cat because she will be happier that way

Have you ever had the situation where your pets physically fighting each other due to intolerance?
What does that cat you have to isolate do when other cats try to take "her share"?

Right now I only have one problem cat. Lilly is the one who has become intolerant of the others. She lives in the main part of my flat, and Chelsie has my bedroom and bathroom, and the boys live in the vacant upper. Lilly will go after any other cat with screams and threats to drive them out, but as long as Chelsie stays on her side of the door she ignores her. That's as close as I've ever gotten to actual hostilities.

Sounds like Lilly is very territorial. Sigh, if they all get along, they actually would have much a bigger space to play with.

We had one dog that I had to keep apart from our cats. She would have killed them. It became second nature to make sure they were never able to get in the same room together. That one dog was the only problem I ever had with pets living together. I have had dogs and cats that bonded with each other so much they would eat side by side, sleep together and play continually.

(04-12-2012 11:59 PM)bw Wrote:  We had one dog that I had to keep apart from our cats. She would have killed them. It became second nature to make sure they were never able to get in the same room together. That one dog was the only problem I ever had with pets living together. I have had dogs and cats that bonded with each other so much they would eat side by side, sleep together and play continually.

Never let them to get in the same room together? Wouldn't it be hard?
Who do you set off limit to? The dog, or the cats?

I had one dog, Max, for many years. He was an awesome German Shepard mix. When he got older, I couldn't walk with him anymore so I got Tinlee a Terrier mix. She was fine with Max, but when he died I got another dog, Barbie, to play with Tinlee and they played all the time.
Things were good for a few years, but then when I had a baby, Tinlee started attacking Barbie. It was strange. I think Tinlee didn't like the fact that I had a baby and she took her anger out on Barbie.

Years later, I still have to keep them apart, because Tinlee has tried to kill Barbie. When I separate them, Barbie does something really stupid--she tries to go back to Tinlee and tease her. I don't know what to do so I just separate them. It is really hard to live this way. Barbie gets along with all the other dogs. Tinlee, well, I don't know what happened. I think she wishes she was the only dog.

When introducing new pets, we always separate them. We got our kitten about 5 months ago and kept her in our bedroom for 2 weeks until introducing her to our 3 year old cat. They were able to smell each other under the door and played that way until they met.

I really think it made a huge difference, because after a couple of days together, they were friends!

Sometimes it just takes time for animals to adjust to each other, and realize that they are not a threat.
However, our dogs and cats, too, are sometimes just like our kids, in that they will deliberately pick a fight or antagonize each other. When you know that this is what they are doing, then we have to scold or discipline them, just like we do with children, or they think that it is fine to argue and fight.
If one dog is actually attacking the other dog, then it is time to do something more than just scold them, or you can end up with one or both being badly chewed up and injured.
Something that has always worked well for me is to use a muzzle on the aggressive dog, or both, if necessary. once they know that they can't protect themself, they will usually change their attitude and stop attacking.
This is what I have had to do with horses when they attack the other horse. if you tie up one front leg on the attacking horse, he knows he can't fight and win, so he settles down and starts to get along with the other horses.

We haven't had that issue come up really until about 8 months ago. Our dogs always have gotten along so never a problem there. Even the numerous cats we have had in the past never really had any problems. We have a cat that is 12 and we got a new kitty about 8 months ago. They just don't get along. They were ok when the kitty first came home but as he got bigger he would attack the older cat.

The older cat has always been very laid back, even when he was younger so he's not a fighter in any way. It happens all the time and I find myself always having to be on the look out when they are close together so the older one doesn't get attacked.
We have tried everything... feeding them together, monitoring their time together, scolding the younger cat so he's knows what he is doing is wrong... everything.
I am just hoping as the younger cat gets a little older, he won't be interested in fighting as much.

We will see,
Danyel

Danyel, I have had similar situations before where one cat was deliberately picking on the other one, and sometimes that happens with dogs, too.
One thing that always worked for me was using a small squirt bottle. I would fill it with water, and then keep it close by where I could easily grab it when the agressive or playful cat pounced on the older cat.
Then , I would squirt the playful cat with the squirt bottle. Usually one squirt would be enough to discourage him, and make him run off; but sometimes, it might take several squirts, especially when they are wanting to fight with the older cat.

Once the agressive cat learns that attacking the other cat will get him squirted and wet; he will pretty much stop attacking, because he doesn't like being wet.
If just the squirt bottle with water doesn't seem to have enough effect, try adding just a little bit of vinegar to the water, and it will have a smell that the doesn't like, as well.

Our labrador doesn't really like my cats. So, when the cats are out playing, we make sure that Bruce is somewhere else. We had a dog once who hated all animals except dogs. He killed rabbits, chickens, and stray cats. He was very sweet with humans though. We couldn't do anything to stop him even if we already tried everything. What we did was we just take him out for walks then put him in house dog house.

(09-27-2014 09:21 AM)Happyflowerlady Wrote:  Danyel, I have had similar situations before where one cat was deliberately picking on the other one, and sometimes that happens with dogs, too.
One thing that always worked for me was using a small squirt bottle. I would fill it with water, and then keep it close by where I could easily grab it when the agressive or playful cat pounced on the older cat.
Then , I would squirt the playful cat with the squirt bottle. Usually one squirt would be enough to discourage him, and make him run off; but sometimes, it might take several squirts, especially when they are wanting to fight with the older cat.

Once the agressive cat learns that attacking the other cat will get him squirted and wet; he will pretty much stop attacking, because he doesn't like being wet.
If just the squirt bottle with water doesn't seem to have enough effect, try adding just a little bit of vinegar to the water, and it will have a smell that the doesn't like, as well.

Thank you so much for this advice!!! We are going to start doing this today... We are having a really hard time and we will do anything at this point to stop the one cat from being so mean to the other. Like I said, he is a bully and pretty much thinks he owns our house! Love them both to pieces but we need to nip this one in the bud. Spray bottles are armed and ready!!

Thank you so much again!!

Danyel

There is most always a period of adjustment when introducing a new cat to a household, with differing levels of tolerance depending on the cat. When I took a feral adult into the house, the two of the three cats that I already had, who were about the same age, hated her and continued to dislike her for the next fifteen years, but they quit trying to hurt one another. Their mother didn't mind the new cat at all, although I can't say they were fast friends.

It turned out that she was pregnant when we took her in. She had four kittens, three of whom we found homes for, and every cat in the household adopted her kittens as their own. As an adult, the one that we kept often sided with the other cats against her mother in disputes.

As with people though, there is only so much that you can do. You can't make one cat like another; the best you can do is to keep them from hurting one another until they've had a chance to work things out.

That means the slow introduction that others have mentioned here, which we weren't able to do with the feral (Bird), as we were in the process of moving at the time that we took her in.

They did learn not to hurt one another, and Bird seemed to enjoy annoying the other cats as much as they persisted in letting her know that they didn't like her, and there were times when I caught them huddled together. In fact, I would sometimes keep the temperatures down at night to encourage that.

For the most part, I think it's best to let cats work out the cat things.