Savannah Kitten terrorizing my DSH

[katnoir]

Sorry if this is a duplicate post; I searched the threads and couldn't find one like this.

I have a 10-month old F4 SBT male Savannah. He is neutered, but has always been a real 'boy'. Very bossy, very energetic, very strong and very much the boss of my two, three-year old DSH females (even when he was a little kitten). That being said, he can also be a sweet and loving boy, but he has weight and size on his size.

My F4 is now more than double the weight of my two much smaller DSH cats (he is 20 pounds) and he has decided to pick on one of them all of the sudden. He treats her like she is prey; he attacks her whenever he gets the chance - which is every waking moment. At first, I watched carefully and it just looked like play to me, but now things have changed. She SCREAMS when he bites her and hisses and spits and growls. She cannot defend herself any more. I used to put my savannah in the kennel for bad behaviour but that doesn't seem to rectify anything. I checked my female over carefully and don't find any injuries/ no blood or anything, but she is terrified of my savannah now. She has lived under my futon couch for two weeks now and is staring to pee and poo on the floor whereever she is standing. It is awful. What makes it worse, is that her sister - the other DSH is now attacking her too. Could she be sick and that is why ny Savannah started going after her in the first place? I just don't know what to do, short of moving my DSH to a new home. It's a terrible, terrible situation. I apprediate any advice you can provide.

kat

 

[Lori Greer]

Hi Kat, are they all fixed including the girls?

 

[katnoir]

Hi; everyone is fixed. Although --- I must say that I did question the rescue organization where we got the female in question, for even though they insisted that she had been a pediatric spay, we noticed that she got very smelly once a month.....I talked to our vet about it and she noted that on rare occasions something small can be missed. We've never checked any further into that -- in fact, either we've gotten used to it or we just don't notice that issue any more. Wow - I never thought of that possibility.

My male is extremely full of 'beans' as my mother would say; a cat X 4 and then double that.

 

[Brandy DW]

I'd bring her in and get her checked out. It seems odd that they would have an issue now, even if she did have female organs left over. There may be something else going on, doesn't hurt to get it checked. Particularly since they would be able to smell different things when she uses the restroom. Maybe she has something as easy to cure as a UTI.. it's possible... Or maybe nothings wrong with her and something happened to shift the dynamics of the group..

 

[Brigitte Cowell]

Is you have doubts about the female being spayed, then they can do a blood test looking for hormones and that will tell you if they missed something during her spay.

To me, it sounds like the SV boy has become a teenaged boy and like humans that often leads to them trying to be more manly and dominant and just being pains because they are trying to be so grownup they are obnoxious.

Add to that, I think the female is displaying a "victim" personality hence will then be targetted by the others, including the other female. This is all normal cat behavior and not so much related to the Savannah breed except that they are a high energy interactive breed so more confident and possibly that leads to being more assertive in their kitty relationships.

So saying that, there was an episode on "My Cat From Hell" recently and although I don't always approve of his take of all situations... it showed a situation where two cats (domestic shorthairs) that had been living together in harmony suddenly were NOT getting along. The neutered male was hunting and attacking the spayed female and she was hiding and defensive. He was certain the issue was mainly the female developing this victim stance and the "homework" centered around reintroducing the cats but also trying to boost the confidence of the female cat. And in the end they showed behavior that showed the female WAS more confident and then the male cat did not react to her aggressively then. I'm sure the show is edited to a specific point of view, but I have seen before that if one cat acts like prey then the other cats react to it that way and the situation goes downhill fast.

That episode I believe is on iTunes, I know someone that downloaded it recently to watch that episode and said she found it helpful.

I feel terrible for your female cat, my first step I think would be to separate her. Give her her own room to calm down in and work on getting her happier first. And then work on reintroducing her slowly...

 

[Wyldthingz]

Funny you mention this as I had two boys, unrelated, that went into a home where this happened. It tends to be with the more reactive female cat and a young boy about 8 to 10 months of age. I think it is a Savannah adolescent period. Sometimes the calming collars help but sometimes they need to be separated until both forget about the behavior. I don't think "timeouts" do anything. They like the reaction and it incites more aggressive play, well, to them what it play. He may need more stimulation or more activity. An outside enclosure even where he can burn some steam until he is older and settled down. You don't want your other cat to be terrorized!

 

[katnoir]

Thank you everyone, for your very wise posts! You have been most helpful! I feel encouraged now that we will be able to work through this and keep my girl 'fluffy'. We will indeed get her health checked out first, but a friend has also offered to take her for two weeks (my cat loves this friend) to give the situation a chance to cool down. Then we'll bring her back and introduce them slowly again. Fluffy will get lots of love at my friend's house as she has a young teenage daughter who desperately wants a cat and they have no other pets. I like the word 'obnoxious' by the way -- you have described Zuri to a 'T'! We are also moving to a new home in three weeks, so that presents a whole new set of challenges. We will set up quarantine zones for everyone for a couple of weeks and start all over again. I'll let you know how things go. Thank you so very, very much!

 

[katnoir]

Just an addition to the above. I had my female down in the basement with the door to the upstairs closed, this evening. I went down to check on her and my other female and the male followed me. The female who is getting terrorized was sleeping in a box with the flaps partially closed and the other female started to growl at her. I picked up the second female and went to carry her upstairs, when my Savannah male went crazy! He started growling and hissing at me (or the cat I was carrying ) and leapt into the air to try and get her (successfully raking the top of my hand in the process). Has he completely lost it????? He's locked in the basement now and I have the 'terrorized' female upstairs with me. What a nightmare.

 

[Brigitte Cowell]

No, it's just that they are all on edge and upset by the altercations. The growling of your second female set your male off and attacking you was just an accident.

Be careful to keep calm with them... obviously if you are going to try to separate them you need to be more vigilant going from one area to the other so that they truly ARE separated. But when you are freaked out, the cats pick up on it and it freaks them out further.

 

[Mrs.CC]

Just an addition to the above. I had my female down in the basement with the door to the upstairs closed, this evening. I went down to check on her and my other female and the male followed me. The female who is getting terrorized was sleeping in a box with the flaps partially closed and the other female started to growl at her. I picked up the second female and went to carry her upstairs, when my Savannah male went crazy! He started growling and hissing at me (or the cat I was carrying ) and leapt into the air to try and get her (successfully raking the top of my hand in the process). Has he completely lost it????? He's locked in the basement now and I have the 'terrorized' female upstairs with me. What a nightmare.

I feel your pain...going thru this crap at the moment,but not as bad as i havent let it go that far-worried though.