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 doesnt 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.