cats keep fighting on sight
context for the house: i have a 6yF spayed cat, and a 1yM neutered cat. i adopted F cat when she was about 4, and she’s always been very skittish/shy. i’ve had M cat since he was born due to taking care of a ferals kittens after birth. F didn’t really care for the kittens but tolerated them, was never aggressive. now the 2 of them co exist perfectly fine. they don’t cuddle or anything like they’re bonded but they will play a little together when F cat is feeling up for it.
8 months ago I moved in with my current roommate. she has an 11yM neutered cat. she warned me beforehand that he’s been a solo cat for majority of his life (one other before adoption that he tolerated but never particularly enjoyed). we did the slow introductions and everything. surprisingly he got along really well with my 1yM. now my boy is still young and playful so he definitely instigates a little but the 11yM swats once and corrects him.
the problem comes in with the 11yM and my 6yF. we’ve have done the scent swaps. we’ve done full separation while one or the other explores the house alone. we have done a baby gate to separate them (he’s too old to jump it, she’s too lazy) when we thought they may be able to start seeing each other. incredibly wrong. it’s genuinely so on sight with them, they were knocking the gate over just to fight. i have a cat hole in my door (just a hole, no flap or anything) and i let the 11yM wander a bit sometimes to get his scent around the room and my 6yF is 90% of the time under the bed because that’s where she feels most safe. once he realized that’s where she camps out, he will sneak his way in just to terrorize her. there have been nights my roommate and i have gotten woken up bc 11yM got in and chased her under the bed and it’s a whole episode trying to get them out from under the bed. that’s not to say my girl is innocent because once he starts leaving, she will often sprint out from under the bed just to swat at him again. its the whole hissing and yowling and spitting noise. i’ve never seen hair tufts or blood, and they both just go about eating normally. i keep a litter box in my room for her because i think she’s too scared to use the one outside my room, and he has a litter box in her room just from when we were fully separating them.
i thought we were making some progress at one point because there have been a few moments where she is just chilling in the middle of my room and he pokes his head in the cat door and they just observe each other until one decides to carry on. outside of that, like i said it’s on sight for them. one or the other is chasing until someone in the house can catch up to separate them. i feel awful having to keep one in solitary confinement basically at all times but we’re running out of options :’)
tia for any tips and for reading