Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My family has five indoor cats. All Tonkinese. All female.

There is Ophelia and her four daughters (who are about two years old). This weekend Ophelia escaped from our house, she was gone anywhere from 25 to 47 hours, we're not quite sure. It was raining the first night, and by the second, we heard her scratching at the front door.

When we took her into the house and presented her to her sleeping daughters, they hissed and growled at her before scattering about the house. We assumed this was because Ophelia smelt different from being outside. We even gave her a bath...

But since then the kittens have taken to growling and hissing at each other, as well as Ophelia (who is the only one not hissing). Until now, they've been best of friends. Sleeping snuggled together and playing together... We have no idea what is wrong.

Does anyone have any ideas?

- Morri

It's pretty common for cats to react to a familiar cat that's been in a different place, and therefore smells different, as if they were a stranger. I'm not at all surprised -- my cats are suspicious of any of mine when they've had to stay overnight at the vet's for surgery or dentals. They don't react as strongly because I've adopted about one new cat a year all of their lives, so introductions are not too shocking for them.

Even though you've taken care of the smell on Ophelia, the shock of the introduction of the "stranger" is still there. It sounds like the other are just having some mild re-directed stranger aggression right now. Kind of like, now that the stranger (who looked JUST like a familiar cat, the sneaky devil!) is gone they're not sure where the stranger is and suspect everyone. On top of that stress, there's the perpetuated stress of hearing everyone else showing their tension with the hissing and gowling...so it's kind of like they're feeding the cycle.

I know, it's confusing, but it's pretty normal. I would keep things as stress free as possible -- I would limit or even eliminate window gazing for a bit so they won't see anything outside that gets them worked up, no guests or visitors for a few days, no surprises at all.....just their usual nice, soothing routine, like clockwork. That should help everyone calm down and settle back into their usual patterns.