Pet care: Senior cats hate each other’s guts

Q: Three months ago, I adopted a 12-year-old female cat from a friend who is in hospice care. I was hoping she could be a friend to my 15-year-old female who likes other cats. However, our new girl does not like my cat. They can be in the same room but if they get close, it’s growls, hisses and claws. I mostly keep them in separate rooms to keep the peace. None of us is happy.

Dr. Nichol: You were most kind to welcome your friend’s 12-year-old kitty into your home. If these two feline social security recipients were human, you could mediate a ceasefire, a hostage exchange and maybe a truce. It’s more complicated than that.

We love our cats like little people in furry suits but they are actually quite different. You can bet that your 15-year-old girl, with her a history of accepting other cats, first learned to play nice as a kid. That newcomer, on the other hand, never attended kitten kindergarten. Her essential early socialization window (ages 2 to 7 weeks) is long closed. Besides fearing your sweet resident kitty, the new geezer (I say that in kindness) is stressed by the loss of her old territory and her former person. She’s wandering aimlessly on the foreign planet of your home.

Forget giving these retirees more time to work out their differences. Repeated fight or flight reactions would only intensify their mutual enmity. Knock down, drag out altercations may ensue. You would all get a lot unhappier with fight wounds and stress-induced urine soiling and upper respiratory symptoms.

You’ve done the right thing by keeping these warriors separated. The longer they’re apart, the more likely they are to ultimately bury the hatchet.

A deep dive into the particulars would necessary to chart a path forward. Antianxiety medication may help your new addition adapt and accept her roommate. Start by visiting my website, drjeffnichol.com. Click Behavior Help, then Pet Behavior Topics and then Fighting Between Household Cats. You are welcome to contact my office for more help.

For help with behavior problems, you can sign up for a Zoom group conference at drjeffnichol.com

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