Advice, please

Mary wrote:

Phil, this brings up a question I have often wondered about. Most of
the
time that we have people in here about really bad cat conflicts, it
seems to
me they are between two males. Are two males of similar ages more
likely to
have conflicts, assuming they are neutered, than, say, two females or
a
female or a male?

I can't speak to what as typical, but I have found in my own experience
that two males have worked well together. And we have had more trouble
with dominant females.

We have had 3 dominant females over the years. Darcy was the first one
and she terrorized Shalon when she arrived as a kitten. She never
missed a chance to prove herself top cat. Later, as her health
declined, Shalom started attacking her and she became the top cat. Same
thing when we added Tov. Shalom attacked Tove and was latter attacked
by Tov when she got older.

During that whole time, other cats, who were not dominant, were not
involved in these issues. My first cat Fiona, lived with all 3 of those
females and she was never attacked, nor did she do any attacking.

My sister has had two pairs of males. When her first cat died, she
brought in an 8 month old male to be buddies with her older male cat.
She insisted she din't want a male cat or an orange cat, but she came
home with an orange male cat And they were great buddies for
years. After the older one died, she searched petfinder for a couple
weeks and came up with another male, about a year old. They are doing
well together too.

In our own home, the only male who was a problem was one that my mom
did not neuter right away, and he was also very dominant and jealous of
people attention too. He even went after the dogs if my mom was petting
them.

Currently, we have 3 males. One is Maynard, the almost 19 year old, and
he has always been mild. He tells off the dogs if they come too close,
and occasionally a cat. But he doesn't fight. If Chase goes after him
to play, then Maynard screams and swats back.

Chase is very playful and technically he doesn't attack anybody, but he
does go after Kira to play. She has a fluffy squirrel tail that never
stops moving. But he is much better now with the addition of...

Jay Jay - the newest addition. Guestimated at 4 years old. Just
neutered 2 weeks before we got him. And the most mild cat you've ever
seen. He backs down from Maynard and Kira, stands his ground with
Booper (my sister's cat who sometimes passes through and growls at
him), and he plays big time with Chase.
They are great buddies and play every day. And they are approximately
the same age. We don't really know for sure on Jay Jay. He could be
younger.