Re: OT: question - getting along

[Nina]

Man Terri, you have your hands full with their personalities!  Poor Siggie, he had such a rough start, his behavior makes more sense now.  How lucky he was to find you.  I'd definitely start adding RR to the water dishes, if you aren't already. I meant the suggestion of feeding them treats next to each other to give them good associations of being in close proximity.  It doesn't really matter how long they've lived together, they still haven't resolved their issues enough to cohabitate peacefully.  I understand Dan's being upset with the two of them, but yelling and squirting are last ditch efforts, could they be dissuaded from quarreling in a more subtle way?  His getting upset, might be creating a spiral that keeps them in the same patterns.  I've found that if I have to scold, then lavishing love immediately afterwards goes a long way to easing resentments.  Maybe you could shoo them off the bed before he enters the room, or right afterward.  Then start to give them the chance to stay on the bed with warnings that they'll be booted off if they can't get along.  Does Guinevere have a place of sancuary?  Someplace that she feels is her's alone?  When my Ursula was spraying her displeasure at new arrivals, I fixed her a "perch" on top of a bureau in the bedroom and chased all the other cats off when they tried to use it.  I'd tell them, this is for Ursula, everyone else stay off!  Ursula loved having a place that no one else was allowed to use and she stopped spraying, (until something else pissed her off!). If you really want to "hear" what they're thinking you should contact an animal communicator.  Don't tell whoever you call too much, let them do their job and reveal things to you that will convince you that they are really in communication.  Once you're sure they are really "talking" with your guys, you can open up more and see if between the bunch of you, you can resolve this stuff. Nina Terri Brown wrote: Well, they've lived together for 2 years now, so introductions are long past!   She is fine as long as he isn't "in her space".  They will sleep on the bed at the same time, but if he goes within a foot of her, she gets defensive immediately.  Doesn't seem to matter what his attitude seems to be.  She will growl and slap at him as she crouches really low to the floor.  It looks like she's trying to say that she respects his position over her but she doesn’t want to socialize with him.  He appears to take this quasi-submission/aggression as a challenge and that's when he bites her.   It mostly happens in the mornings, and usually when my husband is trying to wind down from work (he works overnight).  Dan yells at Siggie and squirts him with water to get him away from her and it's over.   The thing is too that Siggie is the cat I had to retrain.  He had SERIOUS kitty cat issues when I adopted him at 11 month old -- things that were with held from me.  He was VERY aggressive with everyone and everything.  History:  he was the only kitten in a litter born to a feral mom that she did NOT reject (no sibling contact or socialization).  Then he was taken away from her before he was ready (5 weeks old) and taken in by a young couple with a disabled baby who already had a 12 year old tomcat who wanted NOTHING to do with him (he was beat up by the tom).  So he bit and scratched and clawed out his existence to the point that this young couple just wanted to get him out of the house because he was hurting the baby. (He was advertised "free to good home", so I took him).   I had to teach him who was Top Cat (me).  I had to teach him the difference between a love bite/nibble and a bad bite.  He is almost 6 years old now, and he has kitty cat OCD....   As for Travis, a stern word from me is usually enough to get him to back off enough so that either he will walk away or she will run away.  She reacts to Travis the same way.  If he is feeling punchy, she senses this and gets defensive.   I'm wishing I could "hear" her so she could tell me why she feels the way she does.  But no matter how hard I listen, I don't get anything.