For the past week and a half my cats have not been getting along. It started a week ago Friday when they got into an actual fight (clawing, hissing, shrieking). This lasted on and off through Sunday morning when they seemed fine to be in the same room again without hissing or meowing at each other.
They had a couple spats the beginning of last week but seemed to be getting better by the end of the week. Sunday morning they had another fight and again last night. They are still hissing on and off.
I don't know what to do. We squirt them with water if they hiss or fight and remove them from each other (even closing them off in separate rooms) when they do actually fight.
I'm going to try calling the vet for advice tomorrow now that their actual fighting has relapsed. I'm worried they will hurt each other. We keep their claws trimmed but they really go at each other. The only other time they've hissed and shrieked like this was the last time they went to the vet (Oct'09) and when we moved (also Oct'09). I'd never seen them really fight before until the other weekend. Does anyone have any advice?
Re: Cat Owners: Advice
Ok, this is going to sound weird, but let me tell you a story.
My cousin Risa had three cats that got along really well - no problems at all, for years. One day, out of the blue, they started fighting. She had to put them each in separate rooms. They tried everything, talked to the vet, etc. and they just could not figure out what was going on.
Finally, they tried a pet psychic. The pet psychic "talked" to each of the cats and "learned" that the problem was not between the three cats, but was due to an outsider. Well, my cousin and her husband spent some time looking around the house and found that there was this big tom cat from the neighborhood that was hanging around outside their house. They realized that when that cat was outside (her cats were indoors only) the cats would all start fighting with each other. They live in FL and they installed some motion-detecting sprinklers in their yard and problem solved.
So anyway, I don't always believe in the pet psychic thing, but you could give it a shot if nothing else works, or see if anything else in the environment has changed - could there be a neighborhood cat hanging around outside the house? I really don't know anything about having cats though. We had two when I was growing up at one point and they never got along, but they just avoided each other at all costs.
That's just weird...
My three cats get along great, they play fight all the time and sometimes it gets too rough and they will hiss at each other and that's about it. If one of them happens to get outside, they others will hiss and bat at each other but never fight. They also did this when we moved into a new apartment but they got over it quickly.
My mom's two cats don't really like each other and only tolerate each other but if her younger cats gets too close to the old cranky one it's all over, those two cats go outdoors though.
I agree with Claire that something is going on to cause this.
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