Cat problems

kissenger

kissenger

kissenger

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10 Apr 2008
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Hoping to get a bit of advice from the cat owners here on this situation I've got.

Girlfriend moved into mine a few months ago, brought 2 cats with her. We're on the first floor of a block of flats in a coverted house. Big garden out back, so lots of space for the cats to play. One of them, the boy, has settled in perfectly. Goes in, comes out, got a routine, no bother. The other one, the girl, is giving us no end of problems.

She goes out, but it's hard getting her to come back in. Most dinner times if we call her she meows and comes to the back door, but often she refuses to go in the building (she seems scared of the communal area because it's very echo-ey, and she's seen other residents in there before and she basically hates all humans except me and her mum). So a couple of weekends ago I built a 'cat ramp' up to our back window thinking that would solve the problem, but she's still acting the same way. It's like she wants to come in, but doesn't like coming near the back door. I think it might be because there are two other male cats that belong to other residents and I think one of them attacked her recently because she came home with a pretty bad cut on her ear. I think they've claimed the bit of the garden near the building as their 'territory' and my little girl cat doesn't like having to go through there.

Is there anything I can try to fix this situation? My other half's on the verge of giving them up and I've already tried everything I can think of (the ramp, diffusers, etc).
 
Been a few months since we moved, we have two house cats. Both go outside now but developed two very different attitudes towards each other. Female is more skittish prefers to stay indoors and the male is a bit of an explorer. The male started hissing at her but she didn't really care but later she started walking after the male who is very unsure of her. If they see each other on either side of patio they attack the glass. Weird thing is they will still sleep on different levels of chair or cat tower we have / eat next to each other etc. Time will tell if they eventually calm down but I'm at a loss to at understanding how a cats mind works other than being a bit on the dense side you'd think after three years together since birth they'd be pretty familiar with each other...
 
Dreamies. And time.

Our fence blew down during doris and now our cat is **** scared to go out because she's seen the massive dog that lives next door and he's seen her.

I'm confident she'll be fine if you just keep coaxing her in.
 
Moving home is usually very stressful for cats. When you brought the new kitties home, did you keep them in one room for a while? Give them things that smell like their old home? This makes them feel safe and more settled. I understand the issue with the other cats though... how exactly do your cats get in and out of the building? That's not entirely clear to me.

You could try helping to spread her scent around the house/garden to make her feel more at home and to show the other cats that this is her territory:

"You can help by taking a soft cotton cloth and rubbing it gently around your cat’s face to pick up their ’personal scent profile’. Dab this around at cat height in the room(s) where the cat will be kept at first so that the cat begins to feel at home and bonds with the territory. You can repeat this daily and build up your cat’s scent within the house before letting them outside."

If my kitty is being intimidated by other cats in our garden I usually pop out and shoo them away, might help if you go out with her to begin with too?
 
Recently had a stressed cat problem. One thing that worked wonders was feliway.

I would get the wall plug and leave it in the communal hallways and another in your house. My cat after 7 years of being perfectly fine started over grooming and biting chunks of fur out for about a month. Tried everything and a couple of guys in the cat thread suggested Feliway. Boom, one week later and he stopped. He hasn't done it for months now.
 
Don't under estimate the length of time require for a cat to settle in, give her time and get the Dreamies out :D

One of our cats is powerless to resist these meaty stick things Sainsbury's sell, not sure what they are called but they are in a purplish packet, he could be missing for days and hear the rustle of one of them in the kitchen from miles away, within minutes he'll appear without fail. The little git! :D
 
Reginald said:
Moving home is usually very stressful for cats. When you brought the new kitties home, did you keep them in one room for a while? Give them things that smell like their old home? This makes them feel safe and more settled. I understand the issue with the other cats though... how exactly do your cats get in and out of the building? That's not entirely clear to me.
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Yes, my girlfriend was very good about that. One room, then another, then the flat, then the communal area. They didn't go out at all for a few weeks.

Initially we let them out through the communal area back door, but one time someone left the door open and one of the cats (the scared one) got back inside the communal area when we weren't home and I think she had a real fright seeing and hearing people go into/come out of the flats all day. That's why I built a cat ramp (can't take a pic right now because I'm at work), but it's basically a piece of decking with some rubber matting I've bracketed to the wall running up to our back window, so now they don't even have to go through the communal area.
 
Avenged7Fold said:
Recently had a stressed cat problem. One thing that worked wonders was feliway.

I would get the wall plug and leave it in the communal hallways and another in your house. My cat after 7 years of being perfectly fine started over grooming and biting chunks of fur out for about a month. Tried everything and a couple of guys in the cat thread suggested Feliway. Boom, one week later and he stopped. He hasn't done it for months now.
Click to expand...

Got a Feliway. Seemed to help them settle into the flat initially, but can't do much about the outside.

I think we'll try spreading her scent around the garden a bit, and going out with her to shoo away the **** — I mean 'other' — cats.
 
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