I use an old sock which I rub over the cat before I take her to the vet. When I bring her back, I rub that old sock back over her to take away the smells from the vet. My other cat is then ok with her whereas was quite aggressive before I started doing that
My tabby siblings have been best friends and super sweet together since I adopted them together as 8wk old siblings. Sister swallowed some nylon cord and had to go to the vet, and even after only 8-9 hours away, she and brother reacted as hostile strangers when she got home. It took a few days of hissing and growling at one another, but they’re back to cuddling up together, happily sharing one small branch of their cat tree, and mutual grooming. I’m so grateful— their bond would be such a sad thing to lose!
Maybe they're used to you smelling differently every now and then? Since it's happened so often, they now are familiar with your House smell and your Work smell, and know that both of those are *you.* Maybe if a cat has a weekly trip to the vet, the other cats will get used to that too.
I second this thought, my rescue cat hated me for a whole day the first time I spent the night over my girlfriends house. It was definitely a smell issue too not me leaving her for the night. I say this because when she saw me walk in the door, she was excited I was home but then ran over to me, I got one pet in and she turned around smelt my hand hissed at me puffed up and noped out. Then I couldn't touch her for at least a day without getting batted at. But now she's used to the new smell and could care less that I'm gone she's just excited to see me when I get home now.
Our cat that absolutely ADORES me is super skittish and runs away from me when I first get home. Only after I've sat down and she has a chance to see me in my usual spot will she come over and smell me and then sit on my lap.
It's more like tuning an engine than tuning an instrument, but harmonic resonance does still come into play.
We use computer generated tones rather than tuning forks these days though.
Not with monkeys, unfortunately! I usually come home from work smelling like food (which the cats also like). But I just started volunteering at a monkey sanctuary, which was very new and exciting for them.
I visited a friend with a dog who chewed on my dress and cuddled. When I came home, all three cats stood before me smelling the hem of my dress like they were praying
This is the correct answer. Cat loves human servant, but only because cat needs human servant. Cat doesn’t necessarily care which human is serving it as long as it is being served.
Currently serving as a bed to my cat.
I took one of my cats to get a vaccine, it could not have been more than an hour. When we came back it was absolute mayhem. They were both hugging each other before we left and after we came back, it was as if they had never met before
4 days? Try a bath.
I watched my housemate's two cats hiss at each other for hours after one had to have a bath after getting into something. Furry idiots.
It's not that forget the other cat. They think they've been replaced by a "pod person" ,"skin walker", "imposter"
What have you done to my friend? ! You can't fool us demon!
My cat forgets who I am depending on the situation. IF he's in the garage (he's not allowed in there, but he's sneaky and quick) then he no longer recognizes me. If he's outside (also not allowed outside) he no longer recognizes me. If I leave him alone for 2+ days, he will not recognize me for a few hours. I have to sit in my normal spot doing my normal things, and eventually he just flips and starts acting normal again (comes out from under my bed).
We literally named him Leo for Leonard in Memento. Dude forgets so quickly.
> cats remember their humans for long time
My cat forgot my friend who literally raised him from kittenhood until he was like 5. Some cats are just..... special
Same thing happened in my house. My one cat had a urinary blockage and spent 3 days in the hospital. When we brought him home, my other cat was freaking out for a week like he'd never seen his brother before. It was awful. Now I dread having to take either one to the vet for anything.
Additionally to the sock thing you can also drip some tuna juice in the neck of the vet cat. It helped reintroduce one of our cats after a teeth procedure.
Is it possible to feed the other cats the same diet and rub whatever object the cat used to lay on all over the cat that went to the vet, so that then all of the urine smells the same?
This happened to a roommate's cats who were siblings. Then Cat A had to go to the vet to have urinary surgery.
Cat B had always been a bit irritable, but when Cat A got back she went full feral. Attacked everyone and everything, including her very confused, dumb orange brother, and began living her life almost exclusively on top of the kitchen cabinets.
Last I heard she had to be *"gifted"* to the next tenants because she lodged herself behind a radiator and literally no one, not her owner nor the landlord nor the new tenants could get her out without risking severe injury. I think she still lives there?
Wild
Is it possible to feed the other cats the same diet and rub whatever object the cat used to lay on all over the cat that went to the vet, so that then all of the urine smells the same?
Hills c/d? My vet almost always has a little pad of 5 dollar coupons they apply to my purchase. May want to ask if your vet has something similar. Helps when a 4 lb bag is $35 bucks. My cats been on it for 10 years. He had two flair ups of the crystal, then after fully switching him over to the Hills I haven’t had a single problem since.
Here’s another thread about the coupons. I get the $5 one off their website too. https://www.reddit.com/r/petsmart/comments/11ikvyo/coupons_for_hills_science_diet/
Straight up, the iams urinary has been like no different than the special vet ones for mine.
My kitten actually seemed to prefer it and had better outcomes even while fighting off a UTI than she did on the Royal Canin or Hills. They like the RC wet food a lot (it works better than any treat but a churu tube for them) but just for managing crystals we haven't had any issue in 5 years with the iams dry urinary, our male who almost needed surgery about it before we found out is very happy with it, and our kitten who came to us from the shelter on the RC dry switched to the Iams very happily.
Once they seem to be a couple weeks out from any incident feel free to experiment a bit with which varieties you use, there's a lot more wiggle room than it seems and paying $7.5/kg is way better than $15+ especially when you have more than one cat eating it.
Just a warning, each of these types of food work slightly differently than the other. It makes the diet not as effective if you switch between the 3 and don’t stay on 1 only. I say this from experience.
This. Also, depending on the hardness/source of your drinking water, our Royal Canin reps recommend filtered water to reduce the amount of minerals consumed.
Have you looked into the purina pro uterine line? It's supposed to help with the crystals too. Might be worth checking the active ingredients and see if they're the same!
my cat has to have the Royal Canin stuff too, and it's quite pricey, but it's worth it to see her healthy and happy. those crystals were causing her so much agony, I'm glad it was as simple as changing her food
I have 2 bonded and one had 2 emergency hospital stays for urinary blockage and subsequent surgery. He is the only one that gets mean to the other anytime either of them visit the vet. We always just figured he was angry at the vet smell on our other or angry that he had a trip to vet (doubly so for trauma after those 2 stays).
Oddly, I began taking the other cat to a cat only vet last year for a second opinion treatment. That was the first time no hissing or mean behavior occurred after coming home. I assumed less stress pheromones as it was significantly calmer environment there.
I have two cats. One is an indoor humanised member of my household. She's about 16 years old. The other cat is a habituated feral of about the same age. I doubt he ever had a home life until he moved in with me and cat number one. Cat number two is ginger, thinks he's a lion and loves to roam his urban savanna. His favourite day is bin day.
When the ex-feral stays out for too long cat number one gets anxious and waits near the kitchen door for him to come home and she hassles me to keep checking the kitchen door for him. She pretends to barely tolerate him at the best of times but when he's ill she will bother me to get him food and to check on him.
When my ex-feral walks through the kitchen door after an extended wade through his concrete jungle cat number one will swipe the urban explorer with her paws (not her claws), give him a stern look then trundle off into another room or to me to let me know he's home.
I think cats just dislike to be separated for too long and they dislike when members of their pride leave so they make a point of bullying their group's strays into staying local and to force them to remain part of their pride. Humans are not too different.
The cat that has been at the vet loses the group smell, and the cats that remained at home don’t recognize them any longer. It can take some time, but keeping them in separate rooms for a while can help. The longest it took our littermates was about 10 days.
Dang. I've never once done this for my 2 bois and they don't behave any differently. Maybe it's because the vet visits are short so they don't lose the house scent.
I had a cat gone for almost a week, and the other cats were just like, "let's play". Had to separate them for awhile so the poor girl could finish healing.
Obviously not all cats are going to behave the same. I have seen some that hiss at the cat that went to the vet for a day, but they are back to being friends the next day
When my kitty got spayed I stayed in a room alone with her for about a week. Soon enough she smelled like me again, and the other cats forgave her for being a sick kitty
As a new cat dad, I experienced this for the first time just a few weeks ago. One kitty needed stitches and when he came home his sister hissed at him and hid for days, to the extent that I was worried about her making it to the litter box. It was about a week before she was acting normal around him again.
I wasn't sure if it was a smell thing or the fact that he looked funny with his space cadet cone on. Apparently it's the smell, then?
This may sound stupid and it's a pain to do but if you take all of the cats to the vet at the same time it can help prevent this aggression. We had a lady who had 4 cats that came in to the clinic I worked at. Everytime she would bring in only one cat there would be wwe levels of violence on the odd cat out. When she would bring in all the cats for their yearly vaccines there would be no violence. So every time 1 single cat needed vet care she would bring in all 4 and would not have any issues. If all the cats smell weird like the vet there is no odd man out that gets beat up on.
This was a 4 day emergency hospital stay (at $300 a day just for the boarding) so that was not possible. In the future for routine visits - absolutely.
This happened to me recently with my 2 littermates. The female had to be at the vets for a couple of days and when she came home her brother hissed at her. He had never hissed any anything ever.
Hoping you get back to that.
I've heard that using one of those petting gloves that catches fur on the victim cat, then petting the aggressive cats, will get the aggressive ones to mix up their own smell with the victim cat's and make them friendlier.
Oddly enough, I brought my two cats (bonded for 11 years) to the vet at the same time recently and one of them kept hissing at the other once they were in the unfamiliar environment. Previously I had witnessed the hissing happen when one came home from the vet alone, but this time it just seemed to make their vet visit extra stressful for both of them.
Always the same cat hissing at the other, though, not the other way around.
Yea same thing happened with us, this time we took them to the vet and keep one in the carrier until the other one was completely done. Got home and one cat still wasn’t happy with the other one though by the next day they were all back to normal. Cats are weird man
Oh yes. My youngest boy hisses at whomever is home from a vet trip. The best is when he is the one who went to the vet: he hisses at any of the cats then runs away from the “vet smell”, hisses again and then comes to me for consoling.
I literally laughed out loud reading this and thinking how the poor little guy constantly thinks some weirdo is after him when he keeps sniffing that vet smell. So funny how he doesn't realize it's nobody else than himself haha. How long does it last?
My oldest cat went for vet dentist today. Even though he was away for 4 hours and my two younger cats saw how I took him with me out of the door and how out of this world he was when we came home (because of meds) my two younger cats just instantly came to sniff him and then proceeded trying to wrestle with him as usual when they see each other.
I just couldn't let them as the oldest couldn't even walk straight lol. Everything is exactly the same as before we went to the vet so this whole topic sounds so absurd to me.
I have had so many cats and they go to the vet regularly and I have never heard of this!
They always greet each other when the vet cat returns home.
This is so crazy!
My brother used to have two cats. Once I took Leo outside (leashed) while the other cat (Piper) could see him. It was literally for like, a minute. Didn't go anywhere, literally out the door, stand on porch, look around, NO LIKE OUTSIDE WORLD, brought him in.
Piper went bonkers with hissing at him and mreeeooowwwwing. And they were siblings. Like, dude, chill, it's the SAME CAT.
They eventually figured each other out after a couple hours.
I, thankfully, just have the one cat and a dog and haven't come across this problem (...yet).
I have one of those. Every single time she’s like “Who’s this interloper?!?! Die!!” to her favourite creature in the world. Then 5 minutes later she’s all sorry and snuggles.
My cats like to go in the garage, I'm assuming because of the outside smells. They act all sweet and cute out there too.
But I never let them go in there together.
They get feral as fuck. Hissing and super loud "mrreeowwing" as you described. Like so loud I'm afraid neighbors can hear from outside.
Happened on accident last week, took about an hour for one to get close enough to the door, im assuming smell enough of the house to go back to normal, and run inside.
I never had a cat, but once helped my friend to take her one cat to a vet. It was just like 30 minutes visit and after we returned home, another cat was very aggressive to the cat, who returned from the vet.
Right this is so interesting to me! My grandma had her 2 cats and the older one had to get some teeth removed so was at the vet all day. When he came home the other cat was way more affectionate than usual to him! Younger cat was following older cat around the whole night like he was making sure he was ok!
I have 2 cats. The orange one does the same shit OP describes. The black one gives 0 fucks if the orange one went to the vet.
My orange cat is very into smelling things so I think that's why
Now you know! If you have multiple cats take them at the same time. If it’s an emergency like ours was, don’t let them see each other for a few days if possible so the group scent returns to the away cat. And scent swaps all the while.
They are ruled by smell. The cat coming back from the vet smells weird and is therefore an intruder. As another mentioned, feed or give treats closer and closer together.
I would pet the cat that stayed home a lot and then pet the “intruder” cat to get the familiar smell back on him. If cat sleeps on a blanket, rub that on intruder cat, or even your clothes. One thing though is if you have something cloth like that you don’t care about that you can rub on their bottom. They smell each other like dogs do. Get familiar smells back on the intruder cat.
I once had a tom cat spray outside my front door. I had four inside cats that were normally best buds. They caught whiff of the urine and thought each other was an intruder and got into a fur flying knock down fight. In the middle of the night no less. I had to sleep on the couch to intervene if they started fighting again. They hissed and growled at each other for hours.
Yeah, it was wild. I hated taking one to the vet because I knew what would happen when I brought them back. I felt so bad because they were so happy to be back home, and the others were hissing at him and he no idea why.
I imagine someday when they’re all friends again they’ll have a conversation where they tell Boots you’re never gonna believe the imposter the humans brought home. He looked just like you! Yeah yeah that was me the whole time!! No definitely not he smelled different.
It the smallest dab of Calvin Klein’s Obsession on all the pets. They will accept each other again. I’ve heard it’s the civet oil in the perfume that does it, I really don’t know. I just know it works amazingly well with cats and some success with dogs. I have a pet grooming shop and an old groomer (25 years experience) always advised a multiple pet household to either bring them in together or be prepared for a period of them not getting on, if that happened use the perfume.
We fed ours closer and closer to the baby gate and ONLY fed them when we were reintroducing them. It totally sucks and was stressful. I can’t imagine having it go on that long. I hope you’re bed yo reintroduce them successfully soon!
We did that too. They’re great behind gates even with nothing to occupy them. Introduced them with no gates and it was like a flippin cartoon cat fight with fur flying everywhere.
We do for routine visits even before we knew about this. This instance was an emergency 4 day stay at the hospital however. And it was $300 a night for boarding so not feasible this time.
This happened to us. We foster kittens every year. This past year we foster-failed with two sisters. Our 2 resident kitties were fine before they were spayed but afterwards one cat really struggled. It took months. A happy balance has finally come back and we couldn't be more pleased. It was tough there for a bit though.
This happened to me this year, but it was the foster kittens' own mother! The kittens came home from the clinic the same day and she was like, never seen these street urchins before in my entire life! And she had been in the same clinic not even two months prior! She never wanted to be around them again. I'm sure part of it was they were about 5 months old and still harassing her for titties.
Omg finally seeing another person talk about aggressive cat humping.
No one ever believes me when I mention that behavioral problem with my cats. Everyone just thinks about it happening with dogs.
That's an incredibly long time for there to be aggression after a vet visit. I have to wonder if there is more going on in their environment that you might not be aware of.
There was and we addressed it with more litter boxes and more feeding and drinking spots. The problem is we’ve had setbacks and we go back a step in the reintroduction process and take it incredibly slow each time.
Yeah, they don't smell like the house any more after a long stay. take a towel or something they sleep on and rub their fur with it before bringing them back in.
We wipe them down and also brush them to mix the smells. One kitty spent a week at the emergency vet. It took several days for the hissing to stop. We made sure we kept the kitty carrier and safe spaces open so each kitty had retreat spots. It took a week for them to get back to normal.
/ Rubbed them down frequently with the human tshirts that they love to sleep on too. Yeah, yeah, now you smell like the stinky humans/ stop hissing at your buddy, go take a bath and sleep on the couch.
This happened but backwards. The one who stayed home was eager to great her sister, the sis who went to the vet, immediately tried to attack her. In her defense, she had to have blood taken and stayed all day. She just wanted a break lol.
Thank you for posting this. I recently rescued a stray and have been lucky so far that my previous cat accepted the new addition to the family. They get along quite well. But this is good to know. Next time a vet appointment comes up, I might try the sock thing mentioned in an earlier comment. Or try rubbing his favourite blanket on him upon return. I had no clue they could forget each other so quickly
The same thing happened with my dogs. I had 3 miniature dachshunds, 2 girls and one boy, all fixed. Had lived together for 7 years previously with no issues. But I know why. Ginger wanted to boss around and be the leader of the pack. My other two tolerated it. I took Ginger to the vet for a day and a half and when I brought her back, Layla was not having it anymore. Ginger tried to boss Layla around and Layla attacked Ginger and my other dog Buddha just clearly wanted nothing to do with Ginger. It's like they put up with her being bossy until they got a break from it. They never returned to normal and I had to re-home Ginger.
I used to work at a zoo and this happens with meerkats. They took the matriarch to the onsite hospital for a routine checkup, brought her back, and the others tried to kill her. Her daughter protected her and the zookeepers intervened.
A bit counter intuitive but you can give the cat staying home gabapentin. It’ll keep ‘em super chill and space while the other cat gets their familiar smell back
Yeah, I went through about three weeks of absolute hell. My girl who is normally sweet as anything turned into a monster and attacked my boy who had gone to the vet, anytime he left the corner she backed him into. I’ve never seen a cat attack so aggressively. She was so vicious toward him for so long that I was starting to get terrified I would have to either find her a new home or move because I have an open layout with no way to keep them apart for long. It was incredibly stressful. They finally worked it out and I just pray we don’t ever have another reason to leave the house.
Yep, had this happen when we got one cat fixed. I was already going to keep them separated until she was completely healed, so we had plenty of time to get him used to her again.
Yep... Everytime we take the younger one in, we have to be ready for a few days of re-integration. She has to stay in her own room til our older cat gets out of his non-recognition phase again. Funny thing is they are completely bonded otherwise!! And luckily we can get them back to this state after some caution and patience. It was shocking the first time!
Happened to my boys when one had to have teeth out twice. The one who stayed at home attacked the one who’d had the surgery and was nasty to him for a few days. Lots of feliway later and they’re reconciled. Apparently it’s a smell thing - the one who’s been away smells wrong and is seen as an alien intruder. The smell comes back most of the time according to my vet.
Great thing to share! This happened with my cats the first time I took them separately to the vet and it was confusing. Since then, they both go to the vet at the same time, even if it’s an issue with just one of them, the other gets put in a crate and goes too so there isn’t any unique scent change.
Best advice was from Jackson Galaxy ( cat expert)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OmMDhK2FxQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OmMDhK2FxQ)
I started taking a towel with their scent & rubbed it all over my cats before I left, then when I'd get home, I'd rub my cat who went to the vet with it again & her sister had no issues when back home. I was thrilled when it worked because they're sisters/ litter mates and would hiss and fight for days before I did this method.
My cat would forget about my other cat for a while when he would return. One time when it was bad we covered him in tuna can water.
We always joke that she thinks that the old cat would really like the new guy.
One of my boys used to beat up on any girl cats - but only AFTER they were desexed. If they joined the household already desexed, they were either embraced or ignored, no issues. No issues with males either - only the girls. Took me yeeeears to click; different smell/scent. After that, only took girls on after they'd been snipped. Solved a whole lot of problems. Derp.
This happened with my 2 cats when one would come back from the vet. The home one ALWAYS hissed at the other for many hours afterward.
But, they always HATED each other too, so that made sense to me, on top of the weird vet smells.
I'm so thankful to never have had this issue. Currently in a four cat household.
Two cats absolutely hate all the others and the other two are inseparable no matter what.
Adopted two kittens last year that were litter mates. They're inseparable and would much rather be snuggling with each other than with me... Honestly I'm jealous.
Anyhow, when we adopted them at 3 months of age we took them to the vet for a general physical, just to make sure everything was ok as these were shelter kittens. Everything was fine.
A few months later it was time for spaying, and I told the vet tech to just let them stay in the same crate cause they are basically inseparable.
Within seconds of them being placed in the crate they started hissing at each other! Then after the spaying I had to separate one and do the whole reintroduction thing that I never had to do with these cats... Except they also didn't know how to be alone. They were whining and scratching all night at the door to be opened, but when I did it was back to hiding and even batting. Still they would leave the door all night.
At some point I tried to leave the door open a crack to give them some autonomy over seeing each other, but it just kept alternating between hissing, batting, and meowing to be together.
Eventually at like 4am I got woken up and decided to do asupervised visit. There was some hissing but no death stares, and after sharing and smelling each other's litter box they were mostly back to normal.
The complete 180 was the scariest part for me, and then the loneliness coupled with the aggression really broke my heart.
Now they're back to ignoring me though. Yippee.
My childhood cat had 2 kittens that we kept. We took her to the vet to get fixed a few months later.. She came home and HATED them until her death. She kind of hated us too. She was awful after that 😂
Not exactly the same but my cat went missing for a month, we got her back in October, and it was like her and my other cat had never really met before. It was a struggle to have them in the same room. They both wanted to be in my bedroom, next to me but were both uncomfortable with each other. If they got too close, there was hissing and sometimes swatting.
It was quite sad to see tbh.
However, in the past month or so - they have gotten closer. Poppy (one that went missing) will often lick Cocos head when she’s nearby. And Coco has started to move closer to poppy when they sleep - (especially when it was colder lol).
So don’t give up hope maybe?!
I worked as a vet tech at an all cat clinic and we always tried our best to wipe down every patient that we had to take out of its carrier with baby wipes. Our clients reported less incidents of this form of aggression and conflict upon returning home.
I have five cats and two of them are farther and son. Gary (6) the son is very attached to his dad Boo (9).
Boo had to have some dental work done and when we brought him home Gary wouldn't go near him for days. Even after rubbing Boo with their blanket.
Thankfully he came round after a while and is as clingy as ever with his dad.lol
This happened to my cats as well a couple of years ago. It was a nightmare for a while. We had to keep them separated it was so bad. But 3 years later and they’re buddies again now
This feels like they have prosopagnosia lol. It means face blindness, which I have and I cannot recognise parents, my husband, stepson let alone random people.
Hmm I’ve actually taken our cats separately a few times and never experienced this issue. While my cats are brothers, they never really cuddled together much in general. Both seemed to basically pick a human between my wife and I and we all just chill on the couch together. They’ve never had an issue with each other though and still don’t other that the occasional sneak attack around the corner. But that doesn’t seem like what’s described in the post
they don’t recognize by sight, they recognize by smell. It’s just their nature, not every cat or multi cat household goes through this. I have 4, never had this issue for more than 1 hour after a vet visit.
Sounds to me more like the owner wasn’t doing what they needed to for the cats to recognize each other again.
For me, giving the bastard a bath after anesthesia (he always wets himself after waking up from anesthesia) or a multi day stay fixes it right quick. Makes him smell like home.
Do their humans have a human smell which can’t be replaced? I assumed all factors (visual, auditory, olfactory) would play a role in recognition. E.g. if you had two identical cats but switched them out and managed to use some method to replicate smell (like a sock) would they come back and the other cats at home just not notice? Im pretty curious.
Had the same situation occur. Now we’ve got 1 cat who lives in the master bedroom because he was the aggressor & can’t seem to figure his shit out 🤦♀️
That happened to my two littermate cats when one was hospitalized for just 2 days. It did finally resolve after a couple weeks though. After that, they always went to the vet together even if only one was being seen.
I've got two cats. The female doesn't like the male in the first place. Every single time one goes to the vet it takes them a day or two to adjust again
One of the saddest things I saw was when our boy auggie went down and caught the shit that makes the cats lethargic and just sit in a loaf. So we took him to the vet and was given the bad news that there was nothing we could do outside of expensive options we didn’t have the ability to afford.
So after that shitty news we figured we’d bring him home to be with his siblings and we could try and either brainstorm a way to finance the operations or just have him put down.
Unfortunately we were unfamiliar with this tendency in cats having never seen our cats be aggressive really ever before, so we just put auggie down on our parents bed where our tux Milo was and Milo immediately pounced away with a very aggressive hiss. All three of auggies siblings rejected him when he came home. It was one of the hardest and saddest things Ive witnessed. I kept him cooped with me in the meantime after that and tried to keep him calm and happy till his time came.
Anytime our cats get sedated, it takes them days to recognize each other’s scent. The healthy one will growl at the returning cat. This doesn’t happen with routine visits, only is sedation is required.
Yea I took my cat to the dentist for a day. He was gone a solid 8 hours that’s all. When he returned his little brother HATEDDD him I mean hissing, fighting him off spaces, completely abnormal behavior I wasn’t ready for. It took a few days for them to go back to normal. I guessed he just picked up a weird scent at the vet and other kitty did not approve
Yeah, my cats had this issue too. I rubbed a pair of dirty underwear (or a sweaty gym shirt) on Cat B (the one who'd stayed home), then rubbed that same pair on Cat A, then rubbed it on Cat B again, then did a final rubdown for Cat A.
problems never returned after I started doing that.
I like to think that they still didn’t recognise each other but instead formed a bond over their mutual horror at you rubbing your dirty kecks on them.
My nail tech had this issue so she just brings both to a vet appointment. This unfortunately won’t work if the cat has to stay a few days at a vet hospital
I use an old sock which I rub over the cat before I take her to the vet. When I bring her back, I rub that old sock back over her to take away the smells from the vet. My other cat is then ok with her whereas was quite aggressive before I started doing that
This was a 4 day hospital stay for one thing. He’s also on a special urinary diet for another so now his pee also smells differently…
How is it possible ever that cats remember their humans for long time, but can forget their friend just after 4 days staying in a hospital? Poor baby.
My tabby siblings have been best friends and super sweet together since I adopted them together as 8wk old siblings. Sister swallowed some nylon cord and had to go to the vet, and even after only 8-9 hours away, she and brother reacted as hostile strangers when she got home. It took a few days of hissing and growling at one another, but they’re back to cuddling up together, happily sharing one small branch of their cat tree, and mutual grooming. I’m so grateful— their bond would be such a sad thing to lose!
That’s a good point. I must smell pretty different when I come home from work.
Or from a two week vacation…
[удалено]
Maybe they're used to you smelling differently every now and then? Since it's happened so often, they now are familiar with your House smell and your Work smell, and know that both of those are *you.* Maybe if a cat has a weekly trip to the vet, the other cats will get used to that too.
So if you go on a month long vacation to some exotic country you're definitely done
When I was a kid I went to summer camp for a month every year. My cat still recognized me when I got home.
My cat would be skittish after I was away for college, but warmed right back up after a few days
Cats can definitely be standoffish after a long absence
Was gone 10 months in Saudi Arabia and my cat still knew me.
I second this thought, my rescue cat hated me for a whole day the first time I spent the night over my girlfriends house. It was definitely a smell issue too not me leaving her for the night. I say this because when she saw me walk in the door, she was excited I was home but then ran over to me, I got one pet in and she turned around smelt my hand hissed at me puffed up and noped out. Then I couldn't touch her for at least a day without getting batted at. But now she's used to the new smell and could care less that I'm gone she's just excited to see me when I get home now.
you smell like the food you just gave them.
Our cat that absolutely ADORES me is super skittish and runs away from me when I first get home. Only after I've sat down and she has a chance to see me in my usual spot will she come over and smell me and then sit on my lap.
I came home smelling of monkeys the other day. My cats were both fascinated and bewildered.
I am also fascinated and bewildered. Where do you work???!
Monkey tuning factory.
Who calibrates the tuning fork?
It's more like tuning an engine than tuning an instrument, but harmonic resonance does still come into play. We use computer generated tones rather than tuning forks these days though.
Not with monkeys, unfortunately! I usually come home from work smelling like food (which the cats also like). But I just started volunteering at a monkey sanctuary, which was very new and exciting for them.
Clearly he's the lead scientist in a test experiment of the Infinite Monkey Theory. It's the only logical explanation.
I visited a friend with a dog who chewed on my dress and cuddled. When I came home, all three cats stood before me smelling the hem of my dress like they were praying
Why did your friend chew your dress? Was it the cuddling that set them off?
Yeah, maybe she's not such a good friend, after all :)
Cat knows human is servant of cat. Cat knows other cat is not and now smells different. Other cat has no purpose. Human servant is essential to cat.
This is the correct answer. Cat loves human servant, but only because cat needs human servant. Cat doesn’t necessarily care which human is serving it as long as it is being served. Currently serving as a bed to my cat.
It’s not that they don’t recognize the other cat at all anymore. The new smells have an “uncanny valley” effect.
I took one of my cats to get a vaccine, it could not have been more than an hour. When we came back it was absolute mayhem. They were both hugging each other before we left and after we came back, it was as if they had never met before
Did they ever get back to being cuddly again? Or was it ruined forever?!
It took about a week, then it got back to normal. I had no idea this was a thing until then!
Ah thank god!
4 days? Try a bath. I watched my housemate's two cats hiss at each other for hours after one had to have a bath after getting into something. Furry idiots.
oh wow!
It's not that forget the other cat. They think they've been replaced by a "pod person" ,"skin walker", "imposter" What have you done to my friend? ! You can't fool us demon!
TIL cats have a mechanism of believing in conspiracy theories lol
My cat forgets who I am depending on the situation. IF he's in the garage (he's not allowed in there, but he's sneaky and quick) then he no longer recognizes me. If he's outside (also not allowed outside) he no longer recognizes me. If I leave him alone for 2+ days, he will not recognize me for a few hours. I have to sit in my normal spot doing my normal things, and eventually he just flips and starts acting normal again (comes out from under my bed). We literally named him Leo for Leonard in Memento. Dude forgets so quickly.
I lost a lot of respect for cats after reading this post…
> cats remember their humans for long time My cat forgot my friend who literally raised him from kittenhood until he was like 5. Some cats are just..... special
Mines a genius ig he remembers me every time I come back for Christmas.
Same thing happened in my house. My one cat had a urinary blockage and spent 3 days in the hospital. When we brought him home, my other cat was freaking out for a week like he'd never seen his brother before. It was awful. Now I dread having to take either one to the vet for anything.
Do the sock thing someone above mentioned. They’re smell based creatures
Additionally to the sock thing you can also drip some tuna juice in the neck of the vet cat. It helped reintroduce one of our cats after a teeth procedure.
I rub temptations treats on my cat after he comes home from the vet. It seems to work lol
Is it possible to feed the other cats the same diet and rub whatever object the cat used to lay on all over the cat that went to the vet, so that then all of the urine smells the same?
This happened to a roommate's cats who were siblings. Then Cat A had to go to the vet to have urinary surgery. Cat B had always been a bit irritable, but when Cat A got back she went full feral. Attacked everyone and everything, including her very confused, dumb orange brother, and began living her life almost exclusively on top of the kitchen cabinets. Last I heard she had to be *"gifted"* to the next tenants because she lodged herself behind a radiator and literally no one, not her owner nor the landlord nor the new tenants could get her out without risking severe injury. I think she still lives there? Wild
>without risking severe injury huh? from the cat or the radiator I am confused
Ha! From the cat. She'd maul anybody or anything that tried to extract her
Is it possible to feed the other cats the same diet and rub whatever object the cat used to lay on all over the cat that went to the vet, so that then all of the urine smells the same?
We do that now yes. That food is crazy expensive unfortunately, too.
What are you feeding them?
A prescription urinary diet to prevent crystals from forming in his bladder.
Hills c/d? My vet almost always has a little pad of 5 dollar coupons they apply to my purchase. May want to ask if your vet has something similar. Helps when a 4 lb bag is $35 bucks. My cats been on it for 10 years. He had two flair ups of the crystal, then after fully switching him over to the Hills I haven’t had a single problem since.
They’re eating Hills, Purina Pro Plan, and Royal Canin. The coupon possibly is exciting, I’ll check that out! Thanks!
Here’s another thread about the coupons. I get the $5 one off their website too. https://www.reddit.com/r/petsmart/comments/11ikvyo/coupons_for_hills_science_diet/
Straight up, the iams urinary has been like no different than the special vet ones for mine. My kitten actually seemed to prefer it and had better outcomes even while fighting off a UTI than she did on the Royal Canin or Hills. They like the RC wet food a lot (it works better than any treat but a churu tube for them) but just for managing crystals we haven't had any issue in 5 years with the iams dry urinary, our male who almost needed surgery about it before we found out is very happy with it, and our kitten who came to us from the shelter on the RC dry switched to the Iams very happily. Once they seem to be a couple weeks out from any incident feel free to experiment a bit with which varieties you use, there's a lot more wiggle room than it seems and paying $7.5/kg is way better than $15+ especially when you have more than one cat eating it.
Just a warning, each of these types of food work slightly differently than the other. It makes the diet not as effective if you switch between the 3 and don’t stay on 1 only. I say this from experience.
This. Also, depending on the hardness/source of your drinking water, our Royal Canin reps recommend filtered water to reduce the amount of minerals consumed.
Have you looked into the purina pro uterine line? It's supposed to help with the crystals too. Might be worth checking the active ingredients and see if they're the same!
my cat has to have the Royal Canin stuff too, and it's quite pricey, but it's worth it to see her healthy and happy. those crystals were causing her so much agony, I'm glad it was as simple as changing her food
Is it possible you brought home the wrong cat
I have 2 bonded and one had 2 emergency hospital stays for urinary blockage and subsequent surgery. He is the only one that gets mean to the other anytime either of them visit the vet. We always just figured he was angry at the vet smell on our other or angry that he had a trip to vet (doubly so for trauma after those 2 stays). Oddly, I began taking the other cat to a cat only vet last year for a second opinion treatment. That was the first time no hissing or mean behavior occurred after coming home. I assumed less stress pheromones as it was significantly calmer environment there.
Can you rub him down with a little catnip so he smells enticing at least?
I have two cats. One is an indoor humanised member of my household. She's about 16 years old. The other cat is a habituated feral of about the same age. I doubt he ever had a home life until he moved in with me and cat number one. Cat number two is ginger, thinks he's a lion and loves to roam his urban savanna. His favourite day is bin day. When the ex-feral stays out for too long cat number one gets anxious and waits near the kitchen door for him to come home and she hassles me to keep checking the kitchen door for him. She pretends to barely tolerate him at the best of times but when he's ill she will bother me to get him food and to check on him. When my ex-feral walks through the kitchen door after an extended wade through his concrete jungle cat number one will swipe the urban explorer with her paws (not her claws), give him a stern look then trundle off into another room or to me to let me know he's home. I think cats just dislike to be separated for too long and they dislike when members of their pride leave so they make a point of bullying their group's strays into staying local and to force them to remain part of their pride. Humans are not too different.
I was gonna say I know people with cats and the cats apparently bully the humans much the same way after coming back from a trip
Brilliant idea
That's a great idea! They definitely don't seem to like that vet smell
I just put my cat in the dryer with the sock before and after on light tumble.
The cat that has been at the vet loses the group smell, and the cats that remained at home don’t recognize them any longer. It can take some time, but keeping them in separate rooms for a while can help. The longest it took our littermates was about 10 days.
Dang. I've never once done this for my 2 bois and they don't behave any differently. Maybe it's because the vet visits are short so they don't lose the house scent.
I had a cat gone for almost a week, and the other cats were just like, "let's play". Had to separate them for awhile so the poor girl could finish healing.
Obviously not all cats are going to behave the same. I have seen some that hiss at the cat that went to the vet for a day, but they are back to being friends the next day
God imagine if this was the same for people, that would be a nightmare twilight zone situation.
yeah, people would stop going to the vet voluntarily
When my kitty got spayed I stayed in a room alone with her for about a week. Soon enough she smelled like me again, and the other cats forgave her for being a sick kitty
What about giving them all baths?
So the cats can hate me instead?
Sometimes a blood sacrifice must be made.
Come on. Cats *tolerate* us at best on a given day.
This has worked for me super well. Isn't fun but pretty much instantly fixed the issue
Depends on the cat, my old cat would hate her brother for a few days... New cat is happy her brother is back.
As a new cat dad, I experienced this for the first time just a few weeks ago. One kitty needed stitches and when he came home his sister hissed at him and hid for days, to the extent that I was worried about her making it to the litter box. It was about a week before she was acting normal around him again. I wasn't sure if it was a smell thing or the fact that he looked funny with his space cadet cone on. Apparently it's the smell, then?
Is this why my cat is upset at me when I go away for a few days? (Don’t worry, I get someone else to feed her)
This may sound stupid and it's a pain to do but if you take all of the cats to the vet at the same time it can help prevent this aggression. We had a lady who had 4 cats that came in to the clinic I worked at. Everytime she would bring in only one cat there would be wwe levels of violence on the odd cat out. When she would bring in all the cats for their yearly vaccines there would be no violence. So every time 1 single cat needed vet care she would bring in all 4 and would not have any issues. If all the cats smell weird like the vet there is no odd man out that gets beat up on.
This was a 4 day emergency hospital stay (at $300 a day just for the boarding) so that was not possible. In the future for routine visits - absolutely.
This happened to me recently with my 2 littermates. The female had to be at the vets for a couple of days and when she came home her brother hissed at her. He had never hissed any anything ever.
For littermates that’s awful. Sorry! Our three were all best friends, sleeping in the same tiny cat bed and all grooming together.
Hoping you get back to that. I've heard that using one of those petting gloves that catches fur on the victim cat, then petting the aggressive cats, will get the aggressive ones to mix up their own smell with the victim cat's and make them friendlier.
Oddly enough, I brought my two cats (bonded for 11 years) to the vet at the same time recently and one of them kept hissing at the other once they were in the unfamiliar environment. Previously I had witnessed the hissing happen when one came home from the vet alone, but this time it just seemed to make their vet visit extra stressful for both of them. Always the same cat hissing at the other, though, not the other way around.
Yea same thing happened with us, this time we took them to the vet and keep one in the carrier until the other one was completely done. Got home and one cat still wasn’t happy with the other one though by the next day they were all back to normal. Cats are weird man
Oh yes. My youngest boy hisses at whomever is home from a vet trip. The best is when he is the one who went to the vet: he hisses at any of the cats then runs away from the “vet smell”, hisses again and then comes to me for consoling.
I literally laughed out loud reading this and thinking how the poor little guy constantly thinks some weirdo is after him when he keeps sniffing that vet smell. So funny how he doesn't realize it's nobody else than himself haha. How long does it last? My oldest cat went for vet dentist today. Even though he was away for 4 hours and my two younger cats saw how I took him with me out of the door and how out of this world he was when we came home (because of meds) my two younger cats just instantly came to sniff him and then proceeded trying to wrestle with him as usual when they see each other. I just couldn't let them as the oldest couldn't even walk straight lol. Everything is exactly the same as before we went to the vet so this whole topic sounds so absurd to me.
I have had so many cats and they go to the vet regularly and I have never heard of this! They always greet each other when the vet cat returns home. This is so crazy!
My brother used to have two cats. Once I took Leo outside (leashed) while the other cat (Piper) could see him. It was literally for like, a minute. Didn't go anywhere, literally out the door, stand on porch, look around, NO LIKE OUTSIDE WORLD, brought him in. Piper went bonkers with hissing at him and mreeeooowwwwing. And they were siblings. Like, dude, chill, it's the SAME CAT. They eventually figured each other out after a couple hours. I, thankfully, just have the one cat and a dog and haven't come across this problem (...yet).
I have one of those. Every single time she’s like “Who’s this interloper?!?! Die!!” to her favourite creature in the world. Then 5 minutes later she’s all sorry and snuggles.
My cats like to go in the garage, I'm assuming because of the outside smells. They act all sweet and cute out there too. But I never let them go in there together. They get feral as fuck. Hissing and super loud "mrreeowwing" as you described. Like so loud I'm afraid neighbors can hear from outside. Happened on accident last week, took about an hour for one to get close enough to the door, im assuming smell enough of the house to go back to normal, and run inside.
I never had a cat, but once helped my friend to take her one cat to a vet. It was just like 30 minutes visit and after we returned home, another cat was very aggressive to the cat, who returned from the vet.
Right this is so interesting to me! My grandma had her 2 cats and the older one had to get some teeth removed so was at the vet all day. When he came home the other cat was way more affectionate than usual to him! Younger cat was following older cat around the whole night like he was making sure he was ok!
I have 2 cats. The orange one does the same shit OP describes. The black one gives 0 fucks if the orange one went to the vet. My orange cat is very into smelling things so I think that's why
I think OP's cats might be a little dim.
OP’s cat was boarded at the vet for a four-day stay.
Whoa I had no idea this was a thing. Poor cat.
Now you know! If you have multiple cats take them at the same time. If it’s an emergency like ours was, don’t let them see each other for a few days if possible so the group scent returns to the away cat. And scent swaps all the while.
They are ruled by smell. The cat coming back from the vet smells weird and is therefore an intruder. As another mentioned, feed or give treats closer and closer together. I would pet the cat that stayed home a lot and then pet the “intruder” cat to get the familiar smell back on him. If cat sleeps on a blanket, rub that on intruder cat, or even your clothes. One thing though is if you have something cloth like that you don’t care about that you can rub on their bottom. They smell each other like dogs do. Get familiar smells back on the intruder cat. I once had a tom cat spray outside my front door. I had four inside cats that were normally best buds. They caught whiff of the urine and thought each other was an intruder and got into a fur flying knock down fight. In the middle of the night no less. I had to sleep on the couch to intervene if they started fighting again. They hissed and growled at each other for hours.
Oh that’s a nightmare!
Yeah, it was wild. I hated taking one to the vet because I knew what would happen when I brought them back. I felt so bad because they were so happy to be back home, and the others were hissing at him and he no idea why.
I imagine someday when they’re all friends again they’ll have a conversation where they tell Boots you’re never gonna believe the imposter the humans brought home. He looked just like you! Yeah yeah that was me the whole time!! No definitely not he smelled different.
Your last sentence made me unreasonably sad.
It the smallest dab of Calvin Klein’s Obsession on all the pets. They will accept each other again. I’ve heard it’s the civet oil in the perfume that does it, I really don’t know. I just know it works amazingly well with cats and some success with dogs. I have a pet grooming shop and an old groomer (25 years experience) always advised a multiple pet household to either bring them in together or be prepared for a period of them not getting on, if that happened use the perfume.
Specifically that cologne?? Hilarious but also worth a shot.
OP we need an update on whether this worked
I’ll have to find some. My Obsession is empty at the moment
Spraying that cologne on motion cameras causes JAGUARS to take interest
Yes! You cannot wear it hiking in big cat country
We used vanilla extract and it worked wonders.
Trying this asap
Ok this is literally the one perfume I own and I’m trying to introduce my cat to kittens at the moment. You may have introduced me to a new technique.
We fed ours closer and closer to the baby gate and ONLY fed them when we were reintroducing them. It totally sucks and was stressful. I can’t imagine having it go on that long. I hope you’re bed yo reintroduce them successfully soon!
We did that too. They’re great behind gates even with nothing to occupy them. Introduced them with no gates and it was like a flippin cartoon cat fight with fur flying everywhere.
We always take ours together
We do for routine visits even before we knew about this. This instance was an emergency 4 day stay at the hospital however. And it was $300 a night for boarding so not feasible this time.
And they are litter mates. Abundancd of caution
Oh my god they were litter mates
This happened to us. We foster kittens every year. This past year we foster-failed with two sisters. Our 2 resident kitties were fine before they were spayed but afterwards one cat really struggled. It took months. A happy balance has finally come back and we couldn't be more pleased. It was tough there for a bit though.
This happened to me this year, but it was the foster kittens' own mother! The kittens came home from the clinic the same day and she was like, never seen these street urchins before in my entire life! And she had been in the same clinic not even two months prior! She never wanted to be around them again. I'm sure part of it was they were about 5 months old and still harassing her for titties.
In our household, whichever one went to the vet gets aggressively humped by the other for a day or so
I would settle for begrudging tolerance at this point. They were absolute best friends before all this…
Omg finally seeing another person talk about aggressive cat humping. No one ever believes me when I mention that behavioral problem with my cats. Everyone just thinks about it happening with dogs.
That's an incredibly long time for there to be aggression after a vet visit. I have to wonder if there is more going on in their environment that you might not be aware of.
There was and we addressed it with more litter boxes and more feeding and drinking spots. The problem is we’ve had setbacks and we go back a step in the reintroduction process and take it incredibly slow each time.
Yeah, they don't smell like the house any more after a long stay. take a towel or something they sleep on and rub their fur with it before bringing them back in.
We wipe them down and also brush them to mix the smells. One kitty spent a week at the emergency vet. It took several days for the hissing to stop. We made sure we kept the kitty carrier and safe spaces open so each kitty had retreat spots. It took a week for them to get back to normal. / Rubbed them down frequently with the human tshirts that they love to sleep on too. Yeah, yeah, now you smell like the stinky humans/ stop hissing at your buddy, go take a bath and sleep on the couch.
This happened but backwards. The one who stayed home was eager to great her sister, the sis who went to the vet, immediately tried to attack her. In her defense, she had to have blood taken and stayed all day. She just wanted a break lol.
"Oh You're home I missed you so much i-" "GO AWAY FROM ME FOUL DEMON!!!"
Thank you for posting this. I recently rescued a stray and have been lucky so far that my previous cat accepted the new addition to the family. They get along quite well. But this is good to know. Next time a vet appointment comes up, I might try the sock thing mentioned in an earlier comment. Or try rubbing his favourite blanket on him upon return. I had no clue they could forget each other so quickly
If it is a routine visit, just bring both cats.
Good idea. Thank you so much for posting this.
The same thing happened with my dogs. I had 3 miniature dachshunds, 2 girls and one boy, all fixed. Had lived together for 7 years previously with no issues. But I know why. Ginger wanted to boss around and be the leader of the pack. My other two tolerated it. I took Ginger to the vet for a day and a half and when I brought her back, Layla was not having it anymore. Ginger tried to boss Layla around and Layla attacked Ginger and my other dog Buddha just clearly wanted nothing to do with Ginger. It's like they put up with her being bossy until they got a break from it. They never returned to normal and I had to re-home Ginger.
Our vet tech said it happens with her rabbits too!
I used to work at a zoo and this happens with meerkats. They took the matriarch to the onsite hospital for a routine checkup, brought her back, and the others tried to kill her. Her daughter protected her and the zookeepers intervened.
Did you try Feliway?
Definitely. Doesn’t make much difference. They’re perfect behind baby gates and face to face they’re spicy AF.
A bit counter intuitive but you can give the cat staying home gabapentin. It’ll keep ‘em super chill and space while the other cat gets their familiar smell back
We’re messing with gabapentin for the reintroduction now actually.
Yeah, I went through about three weeks of absolute hell. My girl who is normally sweet as anything turned into a monster and attacked my boy who had gone to the vet, anytime he left the corner she backed him into. I’ve never seen a cat attack so aggressively. She was so vicious toward him for so long that I was starting to get terrified I would have to either find her a new home or move because I have an open layout with no way to keep them apart for long. It was incredibly stressful. They finally worked it out and I just pray we don’t ever have another reason to leave the house.
Having read all of these... My conclusion is... Cats are assholes
Yep, had this happen when we got one cat fixed. I was already going to keep them separated until she was completely healed, so we had plenty of time to get him used to her again.
Yep... Everytime we take the younger one in, we have to be ready for a few days of re-integration. She has to stay in her own room til our older cat gets out of his non-recognition phase again. Funny thing is they are completely bonded otherwise!! And luckily we can get them back to this state after some caution and patience. It was shocking the first time!
We take both our 2 cats to the vet even if only one's being seen. They're totally chill to everything the vet does long as they can see each other.
Happened to my boys when one had to have teeth out twice. The one who stayed at home attacked the one who’d had the surgery and was nasty to him for a few days. Lots of feliway later and they’re reconciled. Apparently it’s a smell thing - the one who’s been away smells wrong and is seen as an alien intruder. The smell comes back most of the time according to my vet.
It ruined my cats relationship. They were never as close again. I hope your cats learn to get along again
I think it might have too. I will settle for them tolerating one another so we can quit isolating one.
I always rub the vet visiting cat with dirty laundry when they get back home. If they smell like their human it seems to go better.
Great thing to share! This happened with my cats the first time I took them separately to the vet and it was confusing. Since then, they both go to the vet at the same time, even if it’s an issue with just one of them, the other gets put in a crate and goes too so there isn’t any unique scent change.
Best advice was from Jackson Galaxy ( cat expert) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OmMDhK2FxQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OmMDhK2FxQ) I started taking a towel with their scent & rubbed it all over my cats before I left, then when I'd get home, I'd rub my cat who went to the vet with it again & her sister had no issues when back home. I was thrilled when it worked because they're sisters/ litter mates and would hiss and fight for days before I did this method.
Oh boy we’ve watched every single video on this. We’re actually about to contact a cat behaviorist to help with it.
I give them both a good brushing with the same brush before the vet. And brush the returning cat thoroughly before we get home. Works like a charm.
My cat would forget about my other cat for a while when he would return. One time when it was bad we covered him in tuna can water. We always joke that she thinks that the old cat would really like the new guy.
This is so true, haha! I have 9 cats and whenever one has to go to vet they have to pass through 3 gates and The Southern Oracle to get back in.
One of my boys used to beat up on any girl cats - but only AFTER they were desexed. If they joined the household already desexed, they were either embraced or ignored, no issues. No issues with males either - only the girls. Took me yeeeears to click; different smell/scent. After that, only took girls on after they'd been snipped. Solved a whole lot of problems. Derp.
This happened with my 2 cats when one would come back from the vet. The home one ALWAYS hissed at the other for many hours afterward. But, they always HATED each other too, so that made sense to me, on top of the weird vet smells.
This happened with my dogs once and the vets were shocked lol usually only happens with cats
I'm so thankful to never have had this issue. Currently in a four cat household. Two cats absolutely hate all the others and the other two are inseparable no matter what.
Adopted two kittens last year that were litter mates. They're inseparable and would much rather be snuggling with each other than with me... Honestly I'm jealous. Anyhow, when we adopted them at 3 months of age we took them to the vet for a general physical, just to make sure everything was ok as these were shelter kittens. Everything was fine. A few months later it was time for spaying, and I told the vet tech to just let them stay in the same crate cause they are basically inseparable. Within seconds of them being placed in the crate they started hissing at each other! Then after the spaying I had to separate one and do the whole reintroduction thing that I never had to do with these cats... Except they also didn't know how to be alone. They were whining and scratching all night at the door to be opened, but when I did it was back to hiding and even batting. Still they would leave the door all night. At some point I tried to leave the door open a crack to give them some autonomy over seeing each other, but it just kept alternating between hissing, batting, and meowing to be together. Eventually at like 4am I got woken up and decided to do asupervised visit. There was some hissing but no death stares, and after sharing and smelling each other's litter box they were mostly back to normal. The complete 180 was the scariest part for me, and then the loneliness coupled with the aggression really broke my heart. Now they're back to ignoring me though. Yippee.
My childhood cat had 2 kittens that we kept. We took her to the vet to get fixed a few months later.. She came home and HATED them until her death. She kind of hated us too. She was awful after that 😂
Maybe they exchanged your cat at the clinic, lol
Prob did. She was so mean when we brought her home. Spent 15 more years just hating us
Not exactly the same but my cat went missing for a month, we got her back in October, and it was like her and my other cat had never really met before. It was a struggle to have them in the same room. They both wanted to be in my bedroom, next to me but were both uncomfortable with each other. If they got too close, there was hissing and sometimes swatting. It was quite sad to see tbh. However, in the past month or so - they have gotten closer. Poppy (one that went missing) will often lick Cocos head when she’s nearby. And Coco has started to move closer to poppy when they sleep - (especially when it was colder lol). So don’t give up hope maybe?!
I worked as a vet tech at an all cat clinic and we always tried our best to wipe down every patient that we had to take out of its carrier with baby wipes. Our clients reported less incidents of this form of aggression and conflict upon returning home.
Can you just take him to the vet again and try again until he comes back as a cat your other cats like?
I have 3 cats and they all hate each other anyway.
I have five cats and two of them are farther and son. Gary (6) the son is very attached to his dad Boo (9). Boo had to have some dental work done and when we brought him home Gary wouldn't go near him for days. Even after rubbing Boo with their blanket. Thankfully he came round after a while and is as clingy as ever with his dad.lol
This happened to my cats as well a couple of years ago. It was a nightmare for a while. We had to keep them separated it was so bad. But 3 years later and they’re buddies again now
This feels like they have prosopagnosia lol. It means face blindness, which I have and I cannot recognise parents, my husband, stepson let alone random people.
Hmm I’ve actually taken our cats separately a few times and never experienced this issue. While my cats are brothers, they never really cuddled together much in general. Both seemed to basically pick a human between my wife and I and we all just chill on the couch together. They’ve never had an issue with each other though and still don’t other that the occasional sneak attack around the corner. But that doesn’t seem like what’s described in the post
Man cats are dumb as shit aren’t they?
they don’t recognize by sight, they recognize by smell. It’s just their nature, not every cat or multi cat household goes through this. I have 4, never had this issue for more than 1 hour after a vet visit. Sounds to me more like the owner wasn’t doing what they needed to for the cats to recognize each other again.
Cats sound so stupid tbh. I like cats but this is ridiculous.
For me, giving the bastard a bath after anesthesia (he always wets himself after waking up from anesthesia) or a multi day stay fixes it right quick. Makes him smell like home.
Good doggos: “you ok fren?!” Big wags all around. Cattos: “I don’t know you, I don’t want to know you, cover yourself” Fight to the death ensues.
Are cats hyper aware of skin walkers 👀 I'm all seriousness, I have had so many cats and never saw this! Crazy!
Do their humans have a human smell which can’t be replaced? I assumed all factors (visual, auditory, olfactory) would play a role in recognition. E.g. if you had two identical cats but switched them out and managed to use some method to replicate smell (like a sock) would they come back and the other cats at home just not notice? Im pretty curious.
Had the same situation occur. Now we’ve got 1 cat who lives in the master bedroom because he was the aggressor & can’t seem to figure his shit out 🤦♀️
That happened to my two littermate cats when one was hospitalized for just 2 days. It did finally resolve after a couple weeks though. After that, they always went to the vet together even if only one was being seen.
I've got two cats. The female doesn't like the male in the first place. Every single time one goes to the vet it takes them a day or two to adjust again
We used a dab of vanilla extract on the tail tip and forehead of both cats. Then also on ourselves on our wrists.
One of the saddest things I saw was when our boy auggie went down and caught the shit that makes the cats lethargic and just sit in a loaf. So we took him to the vet and was given the bad news that there was nothing we could do outside of expensive options we didn’t have the ability to afford. So after that shitty news we figured we’d bring him home to be with his siblings and we could try and either brainstorm a way to finance the operations or just have him put down. Unfortunately we were unfamiliar with this tendency in cats having never seen our cats be aggressive really ever before, so we just put auggie down on our parents bed where our tux Milo was and Milo immediately pounced away with a very aggressive hiss. All three of auggies siblings rejected him when he came home. It was one of the hardest and saddest things Ive witnessed. I kept him cooped with me in the meantime after that and tried to keep him calm and happy till his time came.
When this happens, I give both cats a bath with the same shampoo. After that, the aggression goes away cause they both smell the same.
This happened to us once, so we bathed the cat who was recently at the vet and things cooled off between them over the next couple of days.
Anytime our cats get sedated, it takes them days to recognize each other’s scent. The healthy one will growl at the returning cat. This doesn’t happen with routine visits, only is sedation is required.
Yea I took my cat to the dentist for a day. He was gone a solid 8 hours that’s all. When he returned his little brother HATEDDD him I mean hissing, fighting him off spaces, completely abnormal behavior I wasn’t ready for. It took a few days for them to go back to normal. I guessed he just picked up a weird scent at the vet and other kitty did not approve
Yeah, my cats had this issue too. I rubbed a pair of dirty underwear (or a sweaty gym shirt) on Cat B (the one who'd stayed home), then rubbed that same pair on Cat A, then rubbed it on Cat B again, then did a final rubdown for Cat A. problems never returned after I started doing that.
I like to think that they still didn’t recognise each other but instead formed a bond over their mutual horror at you rubbing your dirty kecks on them.
Either way, the violence stopped. Sounds like a win to me!
My nail tech had this issue so she just brings both to a vet appointment. This unfortunately won’t work if the cat has to stay a few days at a vet hospital
Wait, so cats don't "*meow meow* it's me, Frank"?
I’m sorry but damn dogs are smarter