brother cats start fighting after one gets a bath

Question
Our boys are normally the best of friends. Ninja is 3 and Ludo is 1. They play together, sleep together, and Ninja gives Ludo regular baths. Ninja is bigger than Ludo, completely domesticated, and Ludo was a ferral kitten we found at about 5 weeks old. He is very skittish in general, but has times during the day when he is extremely affectionate. Today, I gave Ninja a bath, something that we have not done in about 6 months or more. When we were done, ludo went over to Ninja and starting trying to play, and stopped abruptly and started hissing. He chased Ninja around the apartment, they had a wicked fight, and then up Ludo chased Ninja up the cat tree, where Ninja stayed for about an hour. Ludo stared up at Ninja, hissing and growling, as if he didn't recognize him. We assumed it was because of the smell of the cat shampoo, so we gave Ludo a bath as well, but it hasn't helped. Ninja refuses to fight back, and they growl at eachother when they are both in the room. Please help! They were a very happy family until now. Thank you.

Answer
hi
this is a classic case of some thing caled aggression truama. it is quite common and can occur after many different situations. Basically this is driven by fear, the trigger for the fear can be numerous and this case it may be the fear of the bath or the different smells after the bath.

Anyway the way to help your cats is to try and re build there confidence in each other agian. This can take a few days and does need some patince and effort on your part but it is worth it in the end.

The process is described here on my web site

/introducing-cats.html

best wishes kate