Kitty beats up Pooch!/ Pooch barks when hes jealous.

Question
My cat, and very best friend, Kitty,(10yrs old) is extremely well behaved. She and I have excellent communication and she is very rarely reprimanded because she never does anything wrong...except one thing. I also have a 4yr old Pomeranian, Pooch, who is equally well behaved. I would describe Pooch as very happy-go-lucky, playful, and non-aggressive. He's very gentle and I've never even heard him growl. The problem you ask? Well, Kitty sometimes becomes moody and she takes out her aggressions on Pooch. He's afraid of Kitty and wouldn't dream of even defending himself in these situations. She bats him several times on the behind, sometimes the face, and stares him down. I'm not sure if she exposes her claws because his fluff won't permit her to get deep enough to draw blood. I've analyzed this many times, Pooch will be napping across the room, minding his own business and Kitty will run over and punk him for no reason of his own. At first, I found it amusing, but he gets so frightened. Now, I don't find it funny anymore. I've heard I should try using a squirt gun when this happens but I'd really like to know WHY Kitty punks pooch.

Answer
Hello
Funnily enough I had a similar question asked to me the other day. Basically it is an age thing. It is not often realised but as cats get older they do start to feel  more and more insecure as they need more and more reassurance. Unfortunately your cat attacking your dog is just a way to reassert her dominance and she feels she has to do this more and more often. She is not being aggressive she is just making sure he knows his place and my attacking him when he is not expecting it is a safety device for your cat, as she know he is unlikely to be able to retaliate if he wanted to.
As regards to stopping the behavior, you may have your work cut out for you as it is now a learned experience and this will not be easy to break. However reprimanding a cat is not a good idea as this is a good reaction in their eyes as they have got a reaction out of you whatever it is. My best advice is to give your cat more attention than normal to try and reassure her and make her feel secure. Also try to give her other things to distract her, toys, scratchy posts etc. When she does go for your cat, ignore her for a while so that she doesn't associate her behavior with a reaction from you.
I would hope that over time she learns that by attacking the dog she gets no response and so stops the behavior and also with all the extra reassurance feels more secure anyway.
Cats you've just got to love their funny little ways (I just hope your poor little dog can cope in the mean time)

Hope this has helped a little :)

Kate and her partner co-write  a site full of further cat care and cat health topics. As well as being a feline friendly community site for happy cat and a happy owner.