Older fixed female terrorized by young stud.

Question
Hello Cher,
I have four cats:two young siamese(under a year)that I'm breeding,one older male siamese,and an older oriental female.(both older cats are fixed)I brought the male and female kitten into my home when they were approx 8 weeks old.
For the first 6 months everyone got along well,but now the older female oriental has become less tolerant of the young male.She growls whenever he approaches and instead of backing off,he moves closer and then the screaming,hissing and fighting starts.At first,I thought they were playing but she now hides under the dining room table and in other secure areas of the house.Even though she's doing the growling,she seems completely terrorized by the young male and will not eat or use the litter box when he's around.In fact,last night she was sitting calmly on my lap purring when he approached,the growling started and then she urinated on my lap!
Can you offer any suggestions as to how I
can alleviate this problem and bring harmony back into my household?

Thanks,
Dan  

Answer
Hi Dan,

Taking an educated guess here, it sounds like your older female can detect that your younger male is not fixed, has reached sexual maturity, and this may be what's freaking her out.  Since everyone got along fine at the beginning, I would suggest trying to 're-introduce' these two cats by 'scent transference'.  This involves petting (rubbing down gently) each cat with a very slightly dampened washcloth or old small towel, and then switching to pet the opposite cat with the opposite cloth.  In this way, each cat will have the others' scent on him/her, and this will make them smell more familiar to each other.  However, the fact that your male may still be exuding reproductive pheremones may overpower the scent transfer.

I've never owned Siamese, but I think I've heard that they can be more delayed than other breeds in reaching sexual maturity (6 mos. is the average for most, though in rare situations, females can go into heat as early as 4 mos. of age), so I'm not sure if your young boy is at that point yet.  Some incident may have occurred between the two cats which you didn't witness and your older female is terrified of him because he may have hurt her by accident or she may have gotten injured in trying to flee.  Check her all over for any scratches, sore spots, sprains, etc.

How many litter boxes do you have?  The rule of thumb is 1 per cat plus 1.   I realize most people don't have room for 5 boxes, but I think it might lessen tensions if you set up the young male with his own box and have him eat in a separate area, too.  If your older female is so terrified of him, they should interact as little as possible, at least until you can determine the cause of the behavior.  Have you called your vet for some advice on this?  That might be a good idea, to get some professional medical input.

Do you have any experience with breeding, or did you just decide you wanted to have these two young ones mate and produce kittens?  Are you planning to keep the kittens and expand your feline family?  Just curious.  : )

I just thought of another possible solution for you; there's a product called 'Feliway' which is said to have a calming effect on cats.  It can be found online at www.felineway.com, at major pet stores like Petsmart/Petco and at some vet's offices.  It comes in a spray form for smaller areas and a plug-in diffuser (looks like a plug-in air freshener, but it has no discernible scent to humans) for entire rooms.  It's made from a synthetic feline facial pheremone and is used for calming cats in stressful situations, to curb urine marking, and more, as you'll see on the website.

For some other expert opinions, you might try another website which is excellent: www.practical-pet-care.com.  There are some cat experts there who have more experience than I in this particular situation and specifically with Siamese.  Just register as a member and go to the tab up above which says 'Ask an Expert', then click on 'cats'.

I hope some of these suggestions will help restore harmony to your feline family.  Good luck!

Cher   : )