Unusual behaviour

JKM

Hi all,

Hoping someone can help us. Me and my BF have 3 cats, well two are just kittens (6 months old, just nuetered today so feeling sorry for themselves), the older one, Ollie, is just over a year old. We had the usual aggression from Ollie when we introduced the new kittens about 4 months ago. Hissing, low growling, even agression towards us. He took off and only came back for food. We followed all the advised steps to introducing new arrivals and sure enough after a few very tentative days, during which I wondered what on earth i'd gotten myself into, they made friends. In fact they became very close. In fact one of the kittens, Oscar, absolutely idolises Ollie. Ollie is normally very affectionate towards them, sleeps with them, licks them, plays with them etc. Just over the past number of days however, Ollie has reverted back to aggressive behaviour. He seems to get jealous when we are paying attention to either of the kittens. Then he started hissing at the kittens, growling etc. He has been extremely anti-social, disappearing for almost the whole day and only coming back for food.This is extremely unusual behaviour for Ollie. He is normally the most placid, affectionate cat you could ever meet. Everyone comments on this. This has been quite a sudden change and very unexpected.

We haven't changed anything in their environment. The only thing that is different is we have started to feed Ollie 'Whiskas' cat food. He had been on 'Hills' cat food, but didn't seem to be eating much and we both noticed that he seemed to have lost weight. We know that 'whiskas' isn't the best food to be feeding him, especially since it took us alot of effort to wean him of it only a few months back in favour of healthier 'Hills'. But we didn't want him to be underweight either. Plus, we had already been feeding Oscar 'Whiskas' because he just won't touch the dried food. I've never trusted any of the branded cat foods but didn't like how emaciated he was looking so was willing to try anything. I'm wondering if this could be the reason for his behaviour change.

Sorry for the long post, but we are both very distressed as we love our little family of cats and hate to see any of them unhappy

Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Thanks.

Rancid

First thoughts... if Oscar is around 6 months old, he's maturing and Ollie is reacting to him as to a new full male rival on his territory?
Now that you have both kittens neutered this might settle down, given a week or so.
Also Ollie can probably detect the vet-visit-smell, and the smell of the anaesthetic will be strong on the kittens for a few days after the op.

Right now, just try having the kittens sleep on something that has Ollie's scent, some of it will transfer to them and he may react with less aggression towards them.

As regards the food, try Royal Canin, fussy cats seem to like it better.

JKM

That makes sense actually. For the past number of weeks Ollie has been getting increasingly agitated, especially around Oscar. The other kitten is a girl and even though he has been awkward with her, definately not as much. Hopefully it will sort itself out.

I'm going to try Royal Canin anyway, found a stockist in local town.

Thanks for your help.

Rancid

JKM wrote: »

That makes sense actually. For the past number of weeks Ollie has been getting increasingly agitated, especially around Oscar. The other kitten is a girl and even though he has been awkward with her, definately not as much. Hopefully it will sort itself out.

I'm going to try Royal Canin anyway, found a stockist in local town.

Thanks for your help.

Right, that might be it, so. Even neutered males react strongly to another male cat in their territory.
Keep observing them and see how it pans out.

My fussy-eater 14 year old female cat enjoys Royal Canin Senior Neutered... the first dry food she ever really took to.
They do different kinds of dry food, so check to see which is most suitable for your guys.
Good luck!