I have two male cats, a shorthair and a longhair, both neutered, that I adopted together as kittens about a year and a half ago. They have always gotten along very well and neither has ever been aggressive in any way, I had never even heard either of them hiss and growl before. They are both exclusively indoor cats. The longhair is definitely the dominant of the two, he is the larger of the two, but only asserts his dominance in passive-aggressive ways, nothing violent. They are both very mellow cats, especially the longhair who is usually very easygoing and loving.
Last week, my shorthair somehow broke his leg. This itself was not a problem, in fact, the longhair seemed a bit concerned when he saw the shorthair limping and heard him meowing in pain. The next day I took the shorthair to the vet and had to leave him there for most of the day so he could get xrays. When I brought him home, the longhair started hissing and growling at him and became very upset, he was even aggressive toward me and my husband. We took the injured cat back to the vet a couple days later for surgery and brougt him home the next day. The aggressive behavior from the longhair has continued. It isn't as severe as it was at first and he is no longer being aggressive with us, but he won't have anything to do with the shorthair anymore and hisses at him if he gets too close. The shorthair occassionally hisses and growls back. This behavior is breaking my heart, they were such good friends before and it is very upsetting to see them acting like this... it has been a week since it first started.
Will it get better, will they get over this and get along again? Is there anything I can do to get them past this? Any advice would be appreciated!
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Cats not getting along after injury and vet visit
Replies (3)
hi there. i can tell you about our cats. we have 2 that are littermates and they got along great too, untill they were around 2 years old. both females. they are going to be 4 now. it got worse when one had to go to the vet also. jaffa got real sick from we dont' know what so she was at the e-vet and also are regular vet. when we brought her home jazzy was freaking out. our only guess is jaffa smelled different so jazzy thinks she is a different cat. a 'new' cat.
i've read and we tried to rub both with the same towel so they would smell like each other. this helped a little. its been a couple months now and they are better but they still don't want to be near each other.
i hope yours in time will accept each other again. another thing we did was we had to keep them seperated at times. this helped also. one got free run of the house while the other we shut the door to the bed room.
oh, i didn't mention we do have 5 total cats in the house. only jazz & jaffa are littermates. the others are older. like 6,11 an 13. only jazz and my older daisy hang out now. the others don't.
Your situation is almost identical to another post - and the answer is basically the same too:
Probably the biggest factor is that the shorthair smells different and maybe looks different than he did. The long hair probably doesn't fully recognize him. Rub both cats with a towle to exchange scents. Keep them separated for a day or so and let them sniff each other under a door. You could also try putting one in a carrier and let the other sniff around it, then reverse the process.
They will more than likely be good friends once again, as long as you don't force the issue right now.
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