Cat fights

It's been awhile since I've done much cat blogging. Maybe in part it's because the cat situation at my house has felt a little shaky (well, make that really shaky) over the past several months. But it's Friday. It's Spring Break. Seems like a good time to put up a cat blogging entry.




So the instability in our cat situation has come about since we adopted Hansel, a most delightful brown tabby, back in November. We had just lost Clyde, our twenty-year old stoic, and felt that, since we had room for one more, we might as well give a home to one more.

Hansel seemed very calm, very easy going, and so we thought he would be a good friend for Casey, our seven-year-old cowardly cat. And, as you can see (sort of) in the above photo, they do get along. I'm not sure that they qualify as buddies, but sometimes they play together.

Gabe and Simon, however, hate Hansel. Whenever they get a chance, they jump him, and they don't look like they're playing. Hansel screams, runs away, with Gabe and/or Simon in hot pursuit.

As a result, Hansel spends most all of his time separated from the other cats. Sometimes he seems lonely, but he mostly seems ok with it. Simon and Gabe try to get at him. Occasionally, Simon gets so worked up that he jumps on Gabe instead. Casey sometimes opts to spend a little time with Hansel. When he comes out, Gabe gives him a good smell. But neither Simon nor Gabe seem to fight with Casey any more than usual when he has the Hansel smell on him. So I guess that's something.

All in all, though, it isn't good. We don't live in a very large house, so living with three cats in half of the house and one cat in the other half isn't really convenient for any of us. Believe me, we've tried Feliway. We've tried feeding them all some extra tasty food together. That last thing seemed to be working fine, until one day Simon the Siamese cat stopped eating in order to jump Hansel. Since then, we can't convince Hansel to come on out into the kitchen.

My cat sitter says: let them fight it out. But what does that mean? Let Gabe and Simon beat the living daylights out of Hansel? Then they'll all be happy?

Sigh.

Hansel can fetch! He loves playing ball. He won't even wake you up in the morning until the alarm goes off. He's a sweet, sweet fellow. But Simon and Gabe seem hell bent on taking him out.

So we try a few new things, now and then. But, all in all, we're just waiting for Simon and Gabe to get over it. I'm not sure how successful that strategy will be.

That's my sad cat story. The one I haven't been blogging about.