I have an almost two-year-old male neutered cat, neutered before sexual maturity and front-declawed. We adopted a neutered, reportedly 2-year-old (but much smaller and acts more kitten-like) male cat from a shelter.
We've been carefully keeping the two cats apart and introducing them for limited amounts of time under controlled circumstances. Our current cat (B) has stopped hissing/growling and has shown nothing but curiosity toward our new cat (S). S still hisses and growls gently when B gets too close.
Today we let them be together in the same room and they ate near each other and slept near each other on the bed for a while. S began to let B get close.
Finally, for the first time ever, S let B get close enough to touch noses, and meowed at him. B immediately made a sharp meow noise and tried to bite S on the neck. Not on the back of the neck, but rather close to where I assume the jugular is.
This caused S to back away quickly and hiss. They got close again and B tried it again.
They ran to separate rooms and I shut B in his room to separate them.
Is this aggression, or is this play? It seemed like they were making a lot of progress and I'm not sure why B started trying to bite the new cat after showing all curiosity and the desire to play!
I had them separate and kept S in his own room (they still stay separate) for about a week. I think I will continue to keep them separate for another week before letting them interact.
The new cat is not declawed, but I will be having him front-declawed next week. Although I find cat declawing unnecessary and do not prefer it, my landlord requires it and the procedure and healing went really well for my first cat. This should even out the playing field for both cats when they start interacting again.
We've been carefully keeping the two cats apart and introducing them for limited amounts of time under controlled circumstances. Our current cat (B) has stopped hissing/growling and has shown nothing but curiosity toward our new cat (S). S still hisses and growls gently when B gets too close.
Today we let them be together in the same room and they ate near each other and slept near each other on the bed for a while. S began to let B get close.
Finally, for the first time ever, S let B get close enough to touch noses, and meowed at him. B immediately made a sharp meow noise and tried to bite S on the neck. Not on the back of the neck, but rather close to where I assume the jugular is.
This caused S to back away quickly and hiss. They got close again and B tried it again.
They ran to separate rooms and I shut B in his room to separate them.
Is this aggression, or is this play? It seemed like they were making a lot of progress and I'm not sure why B started trying to bite the new cat after showing all curiosity and the desire to play!
I had them separate and kept S in his own room (they still stay separate) for about a week. I think I will continue to keep them separate for another week before letting them interact.
The new cat is not declawed, but I will be having him front-declawed next week. Although I find cat declawing unnecessary and do not prefer it, my landlord requires it and the procedure and healing went really well for my first cat. This should even out the playing field for both cats when they start interacting again.