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/Why are my 2 male kittens not getting along? I brought home a 12-week-old kitten and followed the introduction period rules, however my resident kitty is biting the new kitten and only wants to attack him. What do I do?
I hate to bear bad news but I have not had good luck introducing a new animal into my home. I would try to reintroduce them slowly to see what happens. Is your older cat neutered? If not neutering the older one and then the younger on may be your best option. You may have to keep them separate until you can do this. Two male cats/dogs don't often get along unless they are both neutered. If nothing works, ask your vet for suggestions.
It’s quite simple…. you introduced another male cat into the territory of your existing tom-cat ! Your ‘resident kitty’ - has already established that your home belongs to him - by spraying everywhere he needs to place a ‘scent marker’.
The ‘new’ cat will have to learn to accept that your other feline is the ‘boss’ of the household - and will have to defer to him anytime he chooses to assert his authority !
Take all your pets down to “Petsmart” or some other qualified adoption center, and put them all up for adoption, because you dont seem to have a clue on how to raise pets.
Squirt bottles with water or noise deterrents like a hiss sound or an air canister can be very effective but only if used within the first few seconds of the unwanted behavior to startle the cat and not scare it badly. If your kitten bites or scratches you during play, say “Ouch” loudly, stop playing and walk away. The weaning process usually continues for about another month until the kittens are fully weaned between eight and 10 weeks of age. During this time, the kittens will still occasionally nurse on their mother but they will also start to eat liquid kitten food. Go to my Profile and you can find all about Cat and Kitten material there...
I am curious as to what the interaction was before you let the kitten out. Was there no sign of hostility when you chose to do that?
Okay, two possibilities here….
If the attacks are not terrible and the new kitten is not getting hurt or acting generally fearful, you can wait it out. That's especially true if this is only happening when the kitten approaches him. It can take a while for things to settle down, and swatting or biting at the new cat to get it to kerp its distance doesn't mean things won't settle down. As long as both cats are functioning okay when not engaged you can try this.
If the attacking is serious, the older cat is deliberately going after the young cat, or the young one is disturbed enough that it is affecting his quality of life, then You need to go back to introduction tactics. A few techniques are:
Separate them with a fence or screen for now, so they can see each other but not attack
Put a sock on your hand and pet one, then the other, to mix smells.
"Site swap" by putting the old car in the kitten's room and letting the kitten out in the house.
Use food to get them to learn be near each other peacefully, feeding them and giving them treats near the barrier.
Play with them near the barrier, so the old cat gets distracted with a toy while it can see the kitten.
Basically you want to associate good things with the other cat.
If you go watch some episodes of My Cat From Hell online, Galaxy deals with this problem often and you will be able to see all the different suggestions he makes, and what signs to look for to know if things are progressing okay.
While cats are instinctively territorial, cats who are not yet sexually mature don't yet have the sex-driven instincts that drive males to fight. If your first cat is old enough to be neutered and hasn't been yet, please do that right away. Blossoming hormones could be part of the problem.
Gender rarely matters with kittens, but as they approach adulthood it can be a problem.
Are the cats neutered? It’s always best if they’re neutered. Second, when you bring in a new cat you should keep them in a separate space for at least a few days for your established cat to get used to their scent. One of the things you can do is to make them smell the same. I like to use Valerian personally because cats react very well to it. The other answers I saw have other good suggestions.
I highly suspect the resident male is older than the new kit, and he MUST be neutered or he will continue to bully the younger one, instincts say he is intruding on his territory and wants him out.
Your home will be covered in cat urine/spray in no time, and that unneutered male urine scent is the worst smell ever.
So much simpler if he had already been neutered prior to the age of sexual maturity, but your best bet for them to work out their positions in the home is to get him neutered ASAP, since it takes a good 3 weeks for his hormones to adjust to a neutered state.
Then re-introduce in a slow fashion, from scratch.
They both need to be neutered, get the younger one done within the next 2 months so this isn’t repeated.
If both of your cats are intact males, there will be problems. Both of them should be neutered as soon as possible. When you say resident kitty is biting the new kitten, does he bite hard enough to make the kitten cry out ? The same question about him attacking? A lot of times what we think as being mean is cat play or the older cat letting know that he is the boss. I have brought kittens that were offspring of feral mothers inside to be tamed. Smokey my now 16 yr. spayed female did let them know that SHE was the boss cat. Did not matter what gender they were, they were too young to be fixed. I watched her carefully and if she got too rough with them I told her in a quite but firm voice, BE EASY. If she didn't, I used my spray bottle and gave her a spray on her hip. I never left her alone with them until I was sure that she wasn't going to hurt them. I had a medium size dog training cage that the kitten or kittens were placed in. They could see and smell each other but have no contact. This sometimes took several days for them to get along or simply ignore each other. There's been other cats that for whatever reason simply hated each other but got along with everyone else. In C. S. Friedman's answer (which I really liked) she mentioned Jackson Galaxy's Cat From Hell, where he has dealt with problems like yours. Just ask Google to show you the episode on introducing a new kitten into your house hold. I am also a big fan of his and have used some of his methods. At the time I was working with the kittens I mentioned, I was trying to get a feral and semi-feral cat colony, on the property we bought that was a dumping ground for unwanted cats and some dogs under control. Too many cats and not enough time to use his method. If I were to get a new cat or kitten now I would definitely use it. Oh, he has a fit about using the spray bottle. Good luck with your fur babies. After a while they should be best buddies. ☺