litter mates - male is attacking other

Question
We have 2 bengal cats that are 1 yr old.  In the past 2 months the male has been getting aggressive with the female and attacking/harassing her, biting and pinning her down.  They are both neutered.  She hisses and does not appear to be okay with the behavior.  We have given him a 'timeout' when he gets this way.  I am concerned how aggressive he will get, especially when we are not home to monitor.  Any ideas on how to change his behavior?

Answer
Tricia,

It would be very difficult to change the behavior.  Cats have very, very tough skin and tend to play very roughly with lots of biting and scratching behaviors.  Unless he has drawn blood, I would not be concerned about the aggression.  The female really can take care of herself.  Also, when you are away, they mostly sleeep!!!!! In fact, what I would suggest is to just leave them alone (even if it sounds like World War III). We have a tendency to ascribe human emotions and motives to things cats do and they just do not think like we do. My contentioon is that any and all human intervention (like discipline or "time outs") is counter productive and will just make matters worse.  I would suggest leaving them alone to work things out in their own way in their own time (as long as no one really gets hurt).

Some folks have tried Feliway diffusers, prozac, and the like, but I am not sure any of these really help.

So, I would suspect you will be unsuccessful at changing his behavior and would suggest leaving things alone!

Best regards... Norm.