2 house cats, best buddies for 3 yrs and suddenly fighting!

Question
Hi, I have 2 house cats, 1 is nearly 4 and the other nearly 3.  Unfortunately we haven't been particularly lucky with either of them.  The older 1, Molly was diagnosed with a blood disorder at 6 mths and keeps quite well but takes a steroid everyday to stabilise her blood count and the other has recently had urinary crystals.  They are quite different characters Molly is generally the more dominant, likes her food very much, but is very friendly and good natured.  She will mother Clover give her a wash and that kind of thing which Clover usually loves.  Clover is more reserved and easily spooked, she is affectionate, but she likes to choose the time and place.  They have been best buddies until yesterday morning where my husband and i cannot be entirely clear what happened, but we think a picture fell off the wall which frightened them both and they turned on one another big time.  Luckily neither appears physically hurt but I'm struggling to repair the psychological damage.  They will now not have a bar of one another.  Everytime Molly comes near Clover, Clover hisses and growls.  Molly does appear to want to make peace and started to wash Clover in the night, much to Clovers discuss.  At the moment Clover is shut in our bedroom as that is where she has always felt safe and Molly is roaming the rest of the house.  To make matters worse we are scheduled to move to our new house next Friday! This is bigger and will have more room to seperate them if this is the road we have to go down, but I'm terribly upset to think they're behaving this way towards one another and I don't think I would want to live with them separated permanently.  I have to plug in feliway diffusers.  I have had one for sometime and went and purchased a second yesterday.  I was also thinking of trying some Bach flower rescue remedy.  Do you have any thoughts on these products and any advice on a way forward would be greatly appreciated? I love these cats like Children and up until yesterday they seemed to love one another.  I've read quite a lot of advice and information but some people say seperate them and give them time and space, other say you create a bigger issue by separated them and I just don't want to do the wrong thing.  We do not have any children or any other pets. Is it likely giving time they could be friends again?Many thanks for your time and support, it is much appreciated.  Best wishes Julie

Answer
Hi
this sounds like something called aggression truama. It is quite common and is often caused by some unrelated truama like a loud noise or getting their trod on etc.

The main way to revuilt their relationship is to take them through the process of introducing new cats to each other as described here on my web page /introducing-cats.html


By the way I also have a web page about moving home with a cat which you may also find of interest here /moving-with-cat.html

best wishes Kate