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How do you make two cats get along? (vent, long)
I feel like this is a joke and the answer is "kill one". Seriously.
We are getting pretty fed up with this and it's been TWO YEARS. I got
my cat (girl) in 2003. H and I started dating 2005 at which point he really
wanted a dog (still does). I said "hey, why don't you try a cat first
because we both know you don't have time for a dog", I was totally right
about this and he now agrees. However, I think the downside is that he was an 'only child' cat...
Anyway, so he got a cat in
2006 (boy). I know I'm biased, but H agrees, my cat is the smart one.
His cat is dumber than a lamp post, repeatedly does the same thing you
just told him not to do, gets obsessed with things, causes trouble...
he's special. He's also very friendly and cuddly. My cat is very
smart, completely responds to 'no' but she's more independent, which I
appreciate because I think cats should = low maintenance. Both have their pros/cons.
His cat will NOT leave my cat alone. No matter what we try, he endlessly chases and/or stares at her :-/ If we let him do this, she would never eat or go to the bathroom. So we have resorted to keeping her in our room and then trying to let her go 'out' and put him in another room (usually when H is studying, so the cat is happy - he HATES being alone). So basically I resent his cat because my cat has to be locked up because she doesn't complain. It's like punishing the good kid.
The
WORST part is that now, when either of them is locked in a room,
they've started peeing. She never did this, but for some reason is now
quicker to do this than she used to. It's still our fault because we
have to let her 'out' to use the litter box and sometimes we lose
track. His cat will do it because he's mad (we'll put him in the office
so she can wander during the day), so we've had to stop doing that,
even though it's really only 'fair' because she's always locked up.
Basically it just makes me SO angry right now that his cat is such a
PITA and H agrees. Any ideas? We've tried just forcing her to deal with it, but it hasn't worked.
Re: How do you make two cats get along? (vent, long)
maybe put a litter box in the dungeon (the room they are locked in)?
♥ bfp1 06/14/2011 ♥ edd 02/22/2012 ♥
♥ baby jennlin born on 02/15/2012 ♥
who says you can only wear your wedding dress once?
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yes, I'm pretty sure you can't adopt cats that aren't fixed... also, we don't want baby cats
So she is locked in our room and he (if we ever do) is locked in the office. The litter box is currently in a hallway closet. And it's an automatic one, so we'd have to get a whole other thing if we did regular. Plus we really don't have room in our room/bathroom.
I think we even tried pheromone stuff one time, but there are so many and they all get mixed reviews. Has anyone tried that?
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can you get maybe a smaller one?
♥ bfp1 06/14/2011 ♥ edd 02/22/2012 ♥
♥ baby jennlin born on 02/15/2012 ♥
who says you can only wear your wedding dress once?
honeymoon bio ♥ married bio ♥ planning bio
jumped ship to the new and improved nest. back to TB for baby boards.
I don't have any more real suggestions.
Have you tried rubbing the male cat in catnip?
Has the aggression between the two been from the beginning?
Were the cats properly introduced when you brought the 2nd cat home?
If you plan to lock them up for any length of time you need a litter box in there.
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First, cat peeing sucks. Our cat started peeing on my stuff (not Derek's) when we got our dog. WTF is wrong with cats?
Anyway, i would take them both to the vet (esp. the female, since the peeing is new w/her) to make sure she doesn't have a UTI/something else. That will allow you to treat a health issue or rule it out so you can treat the behavior.
I agree. Even if it is a small, regular box, it could eliminate (or at least help with) the problem. They may require separate boxes and separate food dishes, as it could be a territorial thing they are doing (or it could be general bitchiness... i really don't understand cats).With ours, giving our cat attention all the time has helped. Weird, b/c she was previously antisocial (and still is around new people), but whatever keeps her from peeing everywhere, right?
Best sound ever: baby's heartbeat! (Heard @ 10w1d)
Basically, I don't want to keep things the way they are - we don't want to have another litterbox and they are actually fine sharing (they each have separate eating places though). I mostly want to figure out how to get him to stop being so aggressive - if he just left her alone she would be fine :-/
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If you don't want to change any of the other things, I think your best bet is to take him to the vet, have him checked out and ask your vet what you can do in regards to the aggressiveness.
yeah, that's probably what we should do, hopefully he'll have some ideas.
husky - see, aren't you glad you don't have pets?! Independently the two cats are both very nice, they're just like water and oil and we had hoped that in time the boy cat would get over it.
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No, but yes. I really admire the good pet parents bc I know it takes so much time and energy, something that I don't have an abundance of right now.
When you box up your extra Christmas ornament memories you can throw in the boy cat too.
LOL the funny thing is, speaking of Christmas, this past Christmas we had them boarded so that H's parents could stay with us (MIL is allergic). I told the vet we needed two separate areas because they don't get along. We took FIL to see the cats because he loves H's cat and we were totally shocked that they'd put them together, and they were getting along! We hoped it would stay that way when we brought them home, but it didn't. It's expensive, but maybe it's like cat therapy? lol I think they must have just been out of their comfort zone and all the hierarchy went out the window. I decided to post on the pets board to see if people have any ideas, if not, he's all yours husky
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Excellent. I might have strong armed Jenn for her little dog too... you know if her and her H bite the dust. I told her I couldn't take the big one though, those poops are way too big.
I'm going to end up with a menagerie of Nestie pets.
this sounds like an excellent plan - we'll all have the same 'stranger' written into our wills... this could be a movie...
also, H is dying to get a big dog - I said fine as long as he has the time to take care of it, giant poops scare me too!
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What kind of giant dog does your DH want? I'm dying for a St. Bernard.
Maybe you guys can take Jenn's big dog?
We need to find someone to take her baby then...
h (and the little dog) has met husky...so it won't be a total stranger taking him in when i kick the bucket.
what kind of big dog does your h want, amanda? my big one is super lovey, but will bark at bad guys. bad guys......and fallen leaves that blow too closely to his window.
♥ bfp1 06/14/2011 ♥ edd 02/22/2012 ♥
♥ baby jennlin born on 02/15/2012 ♥
who says you can only wear your wedding dress once?
honeymoon bio ♥ married bio ♥ planning bio
jumped ship to the new and improved nest. back to TB for baby boards.
lol aw that sounds cute! I don't know what kind - he's gone through different phases, but I imagine he'll just go to the pound one day and pick one out. His main criteria is that "he can wrestle with it" lol. Why are you having to get rid of yours? We probably won't get one for another couple years unfortunately because we both agreed it would be better to have a house and a yard first.
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he is very cute and loveable. i'm looking for a good permanent home for him because uwhusky thinks i'm going to die soon, and i need to divvy up my pets and child.
♥ bfp1 06/14/2011 ♥ edd 02/22/2012 ♥
♥ baby jennlin born on 02/15/2012 ♥
who says you can only wear your wedding dress once?
honeymoon bio ♥ married bio ♥ planning bio
jumped ship to the new and improved nest. back to TB for baby boards.
She's in her late 20s. It's inevitable. The end is near.
final destination? they came out with a new one recently.....guilty pleasure of mine, however i won't be watching it in the theaters.
♥ bfp1 06/14/2011 ♥ edd 02/22/2012 ♥
♥ baby jennlin born on 02/15/2012 ♥
who says you can only wear your wedding dress once?
honeymoon bio ♥ married bio ♥ planning bio
jumped ship to the new and improved nest. back to TB for baby boards.
wow, this thread took a very dark turn, lol.
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you were the one that started it saying you wanted to kill your h's cat
♥ bfp1 06/14/2011 ♥ edd 02/22/2012 ♥
♥ baby jennlin born on 02/15/2012 ♥
who says you can only wear your wedding dress once?
honeymoon bio ♥ married bio ♥ planning bio
jumped ship to the new and improved nest. back to TB for baby boards.
It isn't fair to either of them to have to get "locked in a dungeon" and IMHO, the peeing is a result. 1) Pee is also territorial marking, 2) pee is a decided way to communicate with humans that the cat is just NOT happy, 3) you need to get some sort of litter box in the dungeon ASAP, and 4) I assume you have had them both checked to make sure there is no physical problems.
I'm sorry to say this, but it looks like you are down to the point where you need to consider getting rid of one of the cats (and it sounds like to me that it should be the boy cat). Cats are like people, they all have different personalities and sometimes no matter how long they are together, they just can't get along. Cats often will settle down at some point and agree to ignore each other if they don't get along, but it sounds like boy cat just really can't socialize with other cats in the "normal" way. It sucks to do, but both cats sound like they're pretty unhappy at this point.
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I feel your pain. Our cat is an only child. We foster kittens with the hopes that she'll mellow enough to like one. We've done the long process of slow introductions. We've done Feliway. No luck. The growling and hissing was never a phase... it's our cat's long-term plan for keeping other cats away. Thankfully, there was never peeing or marking. In your case, you should get them their own litter boxes right away. There are other good suggestions... but, I would get that done today.
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