Hey everyone, I have a question about cat dominance. I don't know what's important, so this may be a bit long winded.
My family has 4 cats, 2 females and 2 males, all fixed. All four cats we found as strays, 1 as an adult (f), then 2 siblings as young kittens(f,m), then 1 as a slightly older kitten(m). Their names are Kit, Autumn, Summer, and Bat, respectivley (f,f,m,m). Each "group" was found I believe about 2 years apart. The oldest and youngest cats eat, sleep, and potty in my room and the two siblings "live" in my sisters room.
The oldest cat has bascially been mine and when we found the two siblings I was going to keep the female. My cat clearly didn't like that idea so I just let my sister have them both. Kit has never gotten along with Autumn, but she's just fine with the two male cats. About a year ago we had a problem with the older male, Summer, marking on the couch... no other cat marked, just him. We still don't know why he did it, nothing was different when he started except Bat was about a year old. No other cat marked so we fixed the problem by keeping Summer in my sisters room as he didn't mark in there. Bat has always liked Autumn, he follows her places and when she wants back in the house (sissy lets her outside sometimes) he does a cute meow until she's back inside. Our problem is between Autumn and Kit. Since before Summer started marking and before we found Bat, Kit dominated Autumn. She'll get on top of Autumn and bite her neck, holding her down.
When it started happening we would get Kit off of Autumn because that's what we thought we should do. It wasn't so bad at first, we'd catch her doing it once or twice a week and we'd stop it. There were periods of time when Kit wouldn't do it at all for weeks or months, but then it'd start back up again. The problem has gotten worse in that now we get Kit off her, and a few minutes later she'd be doing it again. We have caught all three of the other cats either dominating or attempting to dominate Autumn, but Kit is by far the worse (every day vs hardly ever). We never see any of the other cats dominating each other (though since the marking Summer doesn't see my cats very often). Autumn is a jumpy cat, she'll put her ears back, get tense and watch another cat with angry eyes. She also will just be jumpy and watch them like a hawk. We don't know if something's wrong with Autumn's social skills, or if she's just at the bottom of the pecking order and if so, what do we do about it? Autumn and Summer also fight, they always have. It usually starts with Summer grooming Autumn, then she gets ticked and a fight starts. She always glares at him even though they grew up together and are siblings. As far as I know Bat bugs her but she doesn't really glare at him unless he's chased her all around the house (which he began doing frequently until I squirted him for it). Has anyone ever had a problem like this? Did our interveening mess up the pecking order? Anyone know what we should do?
My family has 4 cats, 2 females and 2 males, all fixed. All four cats we found as strays, 1 as an adult (f), then 2 siblings as young kittens(f,m), then 1 as a slightly older kitten(m). Their names are Kit, Autumn, Summer, and Bat, respectivley (f,f,m,m). Each "group" was found I believe about 2 years apart. The oldest and youngest cats eat, sleep, and potty in my room and the two siblings "live" in my sisters room.
The oldest cat has bascially been mine and when we found the two siblings I was going to keep the female. My cat clearly didn't like that idea so I just let my sister have them both. Kit has never gotten along with Autumn, but she's just fine with the two male cats. About a year ago we had a problem with the older male, Summer, marking on the couch... no other cat marked, just him. We still don't know why he did it, nothing was different when he started except Bat was about a year old. No other cat marked so we fixed the problem by keeping Summer in my sisters room as he didn't mark in there. Bat has always liked Autumn, he follows her places and when she wants back in the house (sissy lets her outside sometimes) he does a cute meow until she's back inside. Our problem is between Autumn and Kit. Since before Summer started marking and before we found Bat, Kit dominated Autumn. She'll get on top of Autumn and bite her neck, holding her down.
When it started happening we would get Kit off of Autumn because that's what we thought we should do. It wasn't so bad at first, we'd catch her doing it once or twice a week and we'd stop it. There were periods of time when Kit wouldn't do it at all for weeks or months, but then it'd start back up again. The problem has gotten worse in that now we get Kit off her, and a few minutes later she'd be doing it again. We have caught all three of the other cats either dominating or attempting to dominate Autumn, but Kit is by far the worse (every day vs hardly ever). We never see any of the other cats dominating each other (though since the marking Summer doesn't see my cats very often). Autumn is a jumpy cat, she'll put her ears back, get tense and watch another cat with angry eyes. She also will just be jumpy and watch them like a hawk. We don't know if something's wrong with Autumn's social skills, or if she's just at the bottom of the pecking order and if so, what do we do about it? Autumn and Summer also fight, they always have. It usually starts with Summer grooming Autumn, then she gets ticked and a fight starts. She always glares at him even though they grew up together and are siblings. As far as I know Bat bugs her but she doesn't really glare at him unless he's chased her all around the house (which he began doing frequently until I squirted him for it). Has anyone ever had a problem like this? Did our interveening mess up the pecking order? Anyone know what we should do?
