#advice for cats

[catadvice]

My boyfriend and I have two cats we raised from kittens until now, they are 4 years old female 'S' and male 'O'. From the same litter too. My boyfriends brother moved in with us to get himself back on his feet and he brought his own 6 yr old female cat 'M'. M has been in her own room away from both S and O with the door shut for about a month. I successfully got O to eat on the other side of the door at the same time as M for a week, but not S. We put up a large piece of plexiglass so they could see eachother while they eat, and O was fine until he wasn't. We put all of their food upstairs so they would have to be around M, but they won't go upstairs. I picked up S and brought her upstairs to show her where the food is, and she saw M and got on edge. O came up the stairs and attacked S, and now O is being a bully to S for some reason. He now will lock eyes with S and go after her (he is bigger than her and they both have their claws). I plugged in a feliway upstairs to hopefully mitigate things, but what do I do? I want all three cats to get along ultimately, but why is the introduction of the third cat causing my original two to become enemies?

Obligatory "I'm not a vet, just a person on the internet with cats who really loves cats" but here's my thoughts on this situation!

O attacking S when you placed her upstairs in front of the plexiglass/room with M:

This might very well be a case of redirected aggression/displaced aggression, it's quite a common thing in cats where if a cat can't interact with a trigger that is causing him stress, he'll redirect that aggression to the nearest person/animal/thing. In this case it seems like M being a new addition to the house is still stressful to O but because he can't interact with her due to the plexiglass (a great thing you've implemented, by the way!), he's redirecting that aggression towards S instead.

On the attacks:

The first thing to do here is assess whether O being a bully to S is actually aggressive behaviour or more on the play side, cause a lot of times cats playing with each other can definitely look aggressive if you're not used to it.

So look out for the following in either O and S when the "bullying" is happening (remembering that the interaction can be differently interpreted by either cat, so it could be a situation in which one cat thinks they're playing while the other is actually being aggressive):

Are they making any noise? Cat play is usually very silent, if either cat is meowing, hissing, or screeching, that's usually a good indication that it's not play but aggression.

Are the tails puffed? Sometimes tails get puffed after a long play session, but if an attack starts and either of cats presents a puffed tail immediately, that's usually a sign the cat is scared and therefore it isn't regular playtime.

Are the cats taking turns? Is O always the chaser/aggressor, or does S also run after him, pester him to chase her and run away? Cats playing will very often take turns attacking each other in a "I chase you, now you chase me, I annoy you into chasing me, now you annoy me into attacking you". If O is always attacking and S always running away, it's probably aggression.

Assuming the answer to all these questions is that these interactions are not regular playtime between the two cats, and assuming that it only happens when M is also present (behing the plexiglass), here's my two suggestions for what to do:

Play Time: redirect the aggression into play time. Bring both cats upstairs and play with them with toys until they are too tired to play. You will however need someone in the room with M playing with her too. The goal is to get all the cats to associate being all together with good things (aka play time with humans) and to get them so absorbed in the play that they forget that there is an "intruder". Eventually you can open the door and play together with all three cats once they all are more at ease around her, but I recommend waiting for this step until they can all eat in sight of each other and the aggression from O stops.

Scent Swapping: the plexiglass is genuinely a great step, but it might be preventing the cats from smelling one another. Get them more used to each other's scents by swapping toys (bring O and S's toys into M's room and vice versa), or by swapping things that the cats spend a lot of time with, for example a blanket etc., and then swap back. In a pinch you can rub a towel on O and S, and one on M and then swap those. Eventually, swap places: being careful not to let them interact, being O and S into M's closed room and bring M to a room of the house that the two kitties usually spend a lot of time in, letting the sets of cats explore the place and sniff all the smells.

Also to note: if O's aggression on S continues, do these above steps individually for each cat instead of by grouping O and S together. For example, you can bring O upstairs and keep S downstairs, play with O while someone plays with M behind the door. After that session is over, repeat the step but with only S upstairs and O downstairs. Same thing for scent swapping. At the end of the day, even though O and S are siblings and good friends, they might take different lengths of time to acclimatise to the idea of a new cat.

I think that's all that I can think of! I really hope this was useful anon, and best of luck with integrating M into your kitty household!

[catadvice]

Excellent form

“What happens when you have heated tile flooring”

(via)

[pangur-and-grim]

oh Pangur….

[your-therian-parent-says]

pro tip its legal to make a den in your room out of blankets and pillows and plushies and sleep in it

it also costs zero dollars to hide in the darkness of your newly built den and make unsettling noises to ward off intruders

[thatsbelievable]

[catadvice]

Excellent form

[teaboot]

Serious Question

My brother's cat (14 years old- the cat, not him) is not eating and we don't know why.

He said they went to the vet, and the vet recommended senior cat food, but she won't eat more than a few bites.

Wet food and dry food are both being refused, and while she IS interested in his dog's wet food, stealing the dog food is also making her throw up.

She's still snuggly and purrs when pet- still makes biscuits and drools when you rub her chin, runs from the dog and growls when he gets silly- but she's become frighteningly thin.

Does anyone with senior cat experience have any ideas for helping her gain weight?

She used to be an absolute brick of a cat- just a solid unit, caught pests like nobody's business- so it's really hard to see her this tiny

Any advice at all is appreciated. Thanks

[bonefall]

"How big should a Clan territory be?"

For the dozens of people who have asked this over the last couple of years!

This question comes in a lot of forms; "How big are the Clan territories?" "How much space does one Clan need?" "How much land should I give my Clans to exist in?" The answer is a bit complicated, and depends on the type of land, what you're going for exactly, the setting, so on.

But, broadly, there's TWO particular factors at play here; How anthropomorphic you're portraying your warriors, and how productive the land is.

Factor 1: The Anthro Scale

I'm starting with this one because it could you the simpler answer. The Erins write Clan cats like humans in cat bodies, with massive social units and communal living. Realistic feral cats don't act like Clan cats. They are only semi-social, due to domestication.

See, a Clan cat will "share" territory between all of its members, and some Clans have canonically hit populations of over 50 individuals. Real feral colonies consist of "overlapping circles" of somewhere between 2 - 15 cats, most of them related females.

This is relevant because, even in densely populated areas with as much food as they can eat, truly feral colonies will have about 2 cats per 5 acres, capping out at about 15 members. Queens will hang out together and raise their kittens communally, but they will hunt and patrol in their own "circle." These boundaries are violently enforced against outside cats, especially if it's too crowded.

(Toms have circles 5x as big as a queen's, overlapping several territories. They're also considerably less social.)

So, if you wanted to incorporate some cat behavior into your Clan's mindset about how big their territory should be, while still being willing to sacrifice a bit of "realism" for groups over 15-ish members, simply take Clan population and multiply it by 2.5 acres.

30 cats = 75 acres. That's a little under 57 football fields, if you're American, or 50 football fields, if you're European.

Extra reading: How realistic cat territories work. Contains the numbers I'm referencing.

It's also very important to know; feral cat density is completely tied to food availability, the big numbers numbers are for cats whose needs are met. Cats are solitary hunters, and when they feel like they have to work for their food, they become VERY territorial. The density of cats in rural areas can be as low as 1 molly per 15 acres, even lower for toms, and they will leave if hunting is not easy.

THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD NOT FEED FERAL CATS. Please GOD they are SO invasive, please do not give colonies food, they still hunt when they're full so you just end up concentrating a ton of predators in one place. They are not warriors with a law against disrespecting food, they are just kitty cats with silly kitty instincts

I have a suspicion that most of the people who are asking the question aren't really looking for a "realistic cat" answer, though. We LOVE our big cat Clans with their complicated politics around here. You're probably wondering how much land you need to feed your population!

Factor 2: Land Productivity

The exact amount of space is going to vary a lot, because it's more about productivity of the land to sustain a prey population than it is raw size. Remember what we learned back in Warrior Bites: Dietary Needs; a 30-cat Clan will need approximately 3 pounds of meat (10,500 calories) per day, which is about 2 rabbits, or 105 mice.

Here's some visual examples of what I mean. This one (1) acre homestead...

Has 20 patches of high-value crops, plus an orchard, AND livestock pens. This territory alone could attract enough crows, mice, rats, rabbits, and sparrows to feed all those cats daily. That's not even counting the humans themselves, who may be friendly enough to the colony to toss them kibble occasionally.

(this is why cats domesticated themselves. Even without the free food from the humans, farms are extremely productive hunting grounds.)

Meanwhile, the Edmonton Mall, which is a whopping five (5) acres...

Would be utterly barren. Best food you're going to get out of this wasteland is the leftovers humans toss out, and maybe the rats and pigeons that scavenge as well. It's 5x the space, and yet, infinitely harder to feed the same amount of cats.

So, the most helpful bit of advice I'm gonna give you is this; DON'T ask yourself "how big should this territory be?" You're starting with the wrong question. Start with a real location, and think about how you'd find 3 pounds of meat a day in that area.

It will be a LOT easier to think about the logistics in those terms, and this will lead you to the waaay more productive (and fun) worldbuilding questions. Such as;

"Where would the good hunting spots be?"

"What kinds of animals would they be eating? What sorts of beasts can threaten them, here?"

"How many of these animals would my 30 cat Clan need to hunt a day to equal about 3 pounds?"

"Where would these animals be getting THEIR food?"

"Is there enough habitat in the area for the prey to breed and nest? If not, is there more land beyond the territory that the prey is coming from?"

"Where would infrastructure like dens, walls, and dirtplaces go? What would these be made of?"

"Are there any neat spots for the cats to casually hang out on?"

"What would make for a super cool arena for my climactic narrative boss fights?"

"Does this area have unique stage hazards that my cats would have to learn to deal with?"

"Which sorts of plants and herbs would they encounter?"

If your Clan is tool-using, like BB!Clans are, then you can ask even more advanced questions. Like, where you'd find kindle for fire, what objects you can use as crafting materials, and what might make for unique trade goods.

Think about other things related to your Clan's biome-- in a tundra or desert, there will be less for prey to eat, so the territory will be large to cope with the low density. If there's a major body of water, they might have a constant supply of aquatic prey from upstream. Hunting grounds might change based on the seasons.

Also remember not to underestimate how fast small animals breed, and how many of them there can be in one area. Even using low estimates, 1 female mouse has 6 pups, 7 x 6 = 42, 42 x 6 = 252, 252 x 6 = 1,452. It takes only 4 months for mouse population growth to get exponentially ridiculous.

Finally, remember that prey can vary. A well run Clan would be able to generally understand when they've been overhunting one particular species, and start shifting gears to lift the "pressure" off that population.

(In my cultural expansions series, this management task is assigned to one of the new roles-- the Head of Hunting.)

[novella-november]

Media Preservation Monday

Yeah, yeah, as of this original post it's actually only Wednesday but hey, take this as a sign to take some initiative, and keep to it each Monday at minimum if you're actively writing!

What's Media Preservation Monday, you may ask?

MPM is your reminder to back up your writing at least three ways at least once a week or whenever you make major changes to your document(s).

Here's some incredibly easy ways to back up your writing:

One your Master Document(s), put a date on the file name, and every day you make changes, "Save As" the Document and change the date. Do this every time or day you make major changes.

Example: You start writing your Novella November Story on November 1st.

You name your master document "Novnov Project 11-01-2024"

The next day, you write some more, and at the end of your writing session, you go to save your document, and instead of simply hitting "Save" you choose "Save As" and save the new copy of the Document as "Novnov Project 11-02-2024".

You now have two copies of your project, and if you keep this up throughout the whole month, you will have a live snapshot of your writing progress.

Each day or after each major writing session, open up the folder containing your document, and back it up. The Easiest and simplest way to do this is to simply email it to yourself, but you can also create multiple backups by:

Save a copy of your dated Master Document(s) to different locations on your Hard-drive, to an external hard-drive, to a thumbdrive, etc.

If you're writing offline on a writing program like Libreoffice, upload a copy of your Master Document(s) to your preffered Cloud-based Writing Program of your choice.

Vice Versa: if you write on a Cloud-based writing program, download it to various offline-based locations.

Download the base document as well as download it as various ebook formats and send them to your ebook library on your phone or kindle or nook or reading app.

Make a personal discord server and upload the document/epub form of your Master Document(s) there [this is also a good way of making a kind of personal journal / diary etc]

Whatever you do, do not be complacent and assume nothing can happen to your writing. Back it up. Preserve it.

Don't have all of your hard work go down the drain because of one tiny unforeseen accident.

When it comes time to clean up your hardrive, always assume you don't have it backed up. Before deleting anything always take the time to copy it over to another physical drive or a cloud drive.

[catadvice]

They are determined by the will of cat.

[good-advice-ganondorf]

congrats on getting into college! I recently started my own studies at university! do you have any advice on how to stay motivated for studies?

[catadvice]

Hi, I have a question and I’m not exactly sure who to ask haha.

So, my cat Bruno is an outside cat. He’s middle aged in cat years and has really bad only child syndrome. And, we recently started taking care of this stray kitten that we found. And Bruno doesn’t like him… at all. And he’s also not eating now. Idk if the two are correlated, but I’m really, REALLY concerned. Please give me some advice 🥲

Hey! First of all, keep in mind that I'm just a person on the Internet who has cats and really loves cats, but not a vet or an otherwise qualified cat expert (tm)

That saying, I have successfully introduced a kitten to a resident older cat so I can give some advice there.

(Long answer below the cut because I ended up writing a lot more than I thought I would!)

It can be quite a big adjustment for cats who have been living as the only cat/pet of the family to suddenly having to share their space with a new kitten, and especially for older cats there can be problems with the kitten being very energetic and wanting to play with an older cat who does not share the same enthusiasm for play time.

The thing that worked for us is following the strategy shared in these videos I'm going to share below.

In general, I recommend all of Jackson Galaxy's videos on how to introduce cats. The tl;dr is that you need to introduce them very slowly and by gradually using more and more senses (smell, sight, etc.). For example the first step is to isolate the kitten in only one room of your house (with its food and litter box etc.) so that the resident cat can smell the new kitten but isn't able to see it nor interact with it physically. I know you said Bruno is an outdoor cat but I'm assuming the new kitten is staying inside the house (if it isn't, please bring it inside, you'll need to sort out vaccines and neutering/spaying before you can safely consider whether you will allow him to be an outdoor cat too).

(A brief note on cats outside: I would urge you to carefully consider whether you want to leave your cats outside or not, but I don't know your situation, where you live, or any other reason that you might have for Bruno being an outdoor cat, so I'm not going to say anything more than this.)

Use food as a way to bring them closer. Feed the kitten inside the room it's living in for the time being and feed Bruno outside the room and gradually move their bowls closer day by day so that eventually they're eating on opposite sides of the closed door.

Honestly, follow the advice from the videos as much as possible, it would take me forever to re-write it in this answer but I can guarantee you that it will work. This does not mean that the two cats will ever be best friends at the end of the process (because it very much depends on the individual cats' personalities and their lived experiences), but what you're aiming for by doing all this is to make it so that at least they tolerate each other's presence and are not stressed out by the other cat.

It will take a long time, yes. It took us close to three months to introduce our new kitten to the resident cat. But it was worth it, because that way it will never became a stressful experience for either of them.

Last advice on Bruno not eating: I'm very sorry to hear this and I wish I could tell you whether it's due to the stress of the new cat being introduced, but the reality is that no one will be able to tell for sure whether it's related to that or something else. So before you do anything, please bring Bruno to a vet for a check up, they'll be able to examine him and rule out actual medical emergencies. The bottom line is that not eating is not a good sign. If he's still drinking despite not eating you can be less worried, but he needs to see a vet ASAP if the not eating has been going on for more than a couple of days and is not normal behaviour for him. Ultimately, you know your cat, so trust your instincts but my advice here is vet first.

I hope you find this useful, that it turns out Bruno is perfectly healthy, and that the introduction between him and the new kitten goes smoothly!

If you have any more questions my inbox will always stay open, and please give us an update if you'd like to in the future!

Best of luck to you, Bruno, and your new kitten 😸

The videos I recommend watching:

[succulentsiren]

🐆Ways to Feel like a Dark Goddess🖤🩸

I. Embrace your ‘Black cat energy’ — Adopt or start acting like a Cat (beware when adopting that you’ll become their slave lol) but you’ll learn a how to carry their Royal (DGAF) energy, just from being around them.

II. Listen to sultry, slowed music. Find the song that represents you, listen to it slowed and play it whenever you want to feel sexy or confident. (The song is more impactful when it has a strong bass or an addictive melody).

III. Wear Black. The color black represents supreme authority and power. Black also pulls and absorbs all energy towards it. So when you wear it, it’ll allow you to absorb the energy around you and feel more powerful.

IV. Learn your Dark Feminine Archetype. Are you the Siren? Are you the Lilith? Are you the Gold digger? Or are you the Witch?

V. Don’t chase, Attract. Never beg people to be in your life. Never beg people to support you. Never force friendships or relationships. Be your authentic self and your connections will form effortlessly.

VI. Stay unbothered. It’s a fact that, you age faster when you’re stressed and overextending yourself, so be stoic and poised and observe more than you react.

VII. Wear your favorite lingerie.

VIII. Try Dark Feminine makeup looks. {Here’s my Pinterest board on DFM looks}

IX. Learn a new skill. Knowledge raises your value and protects you from making dumb decisions.

X. Have a Confident Presence. Never enter any room with you head down. Learn the importance of confident body language and teach yourself the basics.

XI. Be assertive. Add some spice [bite] to your language and character. Let people know your not a wilting flower in any way.

XII. Be unpredictable. When people think they know your next move, switch that shit up and surprise them.

XIII. Practice your Siren Gaze. The eyes are a tool of hypnotism. You can communicate through them, influence through them and seduce with them.

XIV. Worship yourself like a Goddess. When you recognize your value, you raise yourself up to Goddess-hood and others will begin to see your value as well.

XV. Spoil yourself. Don’t wait for anyone to make you feel sexy, self activate it. Buy yourself roses 🥀 Take a romantic baths with flower petals. Tell yourself “You’re sexy.” in the mirror. Write yourself love letters.

[catadvice]

If mother makes a little hammock on her legs with a softy blanket, I am compelled by the ancient gods to take my rightful place on the comfy throne

The blanket is a cat magnet

[pabuthefirecat]

Remember to get your eyes checked

by a qualified professional.

Not a cat.

[ashpaw-is-alone]

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