Help our cats be friends again!

December 21, 2024 1:58 PM

This morning, in a case of mistaken identity, our male cat (Max) attacked our female cat (Milo). Does anyone have any good ideas on how to get them to reconcile? Or just some reassurance that they will be friends again! What we've tried already and some more background below the fold.

They are 3 year old siblings who generally have a pretty good relationship although Max can be a little boisterous and Milo is much more timid. They are both quite highly strung and needy cats - they like their routine and are often quite anxious with visitors.

So this morning Max mistook Milo for a neighbouring cat and attacked her. Afterwards they seemed to forget they knew eachother and have not yet settled, even though it's been more than 12hrs. She is now terrified of him and growls and hisses anytime he goes near her. He seems a bit confused by the situation and wants to greet to her. However when he gets too close she hisses and runs away which seems to trigger something in him and he chases her as if to start fighting again. This has happened a few times before and generally within a few hours, and with plenty of treats, they have booped noses and all is forgiven.

Unfortunately today was the worst day for it to happen as we had friends round for dinner and so spent the day tidying and vacuuming which tends to put the cats on edge even in the best of times. So instead of a nice stable environment for them to recover, they were just even more unsettled and anxious by our activities. They then had another smaller fight just before our friends arrived and so we separated them in different rooms for the duration of the dinner. Now everyone is gone and we are trying to restore peace.

So far we have tried just letting them be in the same space but Milo just growls as soon as Max gets close and then he tries to chase her. We've tried giving them treats and soft food which they both eat readily and even right next to each other but as soon as they've finished they resume growling/chasing. We tried putting Max in the carrier so he couldn't chase her and they could see/sniff eachother safely but no luck. Now it's almost midnight and we are no closer to peace but we need to go to sleep (did I mention we have a 7month old baby in the mix?!). The plan is to keep them in separate rooms overnight and then tackle peace again in the morning... any ideas on how to reconcile them? Or at least some reassurance that they will be OK?

Sorry for the wall of text and no cat tax (I don't know how to post pics and I'm too frazzled to try figure it out!)

posted by toebeans to Pets & Animals (10 answers total)

This might take a few days--my first inclination would be to separate them overnight and then let them be together tomorrow and let them work it out. They'll pick up on your anxiety.
posted by purplesludge at 2:20 PM on December 21, 2024 [6 favorites]

Can try Feliway. Can also take an old t-shirt or the like that smells like one of you and rub them both down with it.

My brother/sister pair tussle all the time but it rarely gets serious. When it does we separate them but they are generally ok again within a few minutes.
posted by leslies at 2:25 PM on December 21, 2024 [4 favorites]

My two bois occasionally have this problem. It's caused by my territorial one seeing a certain stray cat outside. My cat will then attack his buddy. I then usually separate them for a couple of days (which is a PITA) and then they go to being a bit uneasy around each other and eventually get back to being buddies.
posted by mightshould at 3:01 PM on December 21, 2024

feliway everywhere all the time.
also you can try putting butter on the cats' foreheads so they lick each other.
posted by evilmonk at 3:20 PM on December 21, 2024 [2 favorites]

Cats will do what they’ll do. There is a reason for the metaphor “like herding cats.” You could try separating them and let them explore each other under the door, and if they’re hurting each other that might be necessary, but I think (hope) time will repair things.

Good luck to them.
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 8:40 PM on December 21, 2024

Rub them with familiar smells.

Whenever one of my cats had to go to the vet, the other cat would attack when they got home despite them being littermates who had been together for 15 years. The smell was wrong and thus the sibling was perceived as a stranger.
posted by Jacqueline at 8:52 PM on December 21, 2024 [3 favorites]

Agree about rubbing them with similar smells. I usually take a towel and rub down one cat and then rub the towel over the other cat. Sometimes I need to do this twice, but it has always worked for me.
posted by poppunkcat at 6:11 AM on December 22, 2024 [4 favorites]

I would also separate them for a few days and do the gradual reintroduction tactic. Sometimes these things take time to sort themselves out, and they can do each other real injury until they become familiar again if you're not careful.
posted by rednikki at 8:21 AM on December 22, 2024 [1 favorite]

What we've done with my cats when this happened (sometimes triggered by seeing another cat outside):

1. Separate them, immediately. Sometimes this is all it takes and it subsides in two hours or so.

2. Give them some treat called Calm or something I got from a pet store. Don't know scientifically that it works, but I usually combine it with 1.

3. Sometimes we have some plug-in Feliway around, and I plug it back in.
posted by bluedaisy at 2:37 PM on December 22, 2024 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks for all the suggestions. Cat tax, now that I've calmed down a bit!

We have managed to negotiate a tentative peace deal - currently the cats are happy to exist together in one of the rooms. When we let them out together in the more open-plan part of the house they immediately started hissing and fighting so we haven't tried that again for a few days. At this point I think it is just going to take a long time for them to be 100% comfortable and settled again. We'll just slowly keep increasing the space they're allowed. We also went and bought Feliway and a product called Calm-eze that the vet recommended. So, hoping it all works and they're friends again soon!

Thank you for the advice that it would take a while- it helped me not stress that things were not resolving more quickly!
posted by toebeans at 8:09 AM on December 27, 2024