next »

[Campo Girl]

Hola

We have 3 cats, 2 females and 1 male. The last female to arrive was Lolly, she came from a broken home and we took her in

We already had Dotty (f) and Chuffy (m) who are now best of friends but when they first met were not

My problem now is that Dotty and Lolly do not get along, Lolly is one year younger than Dotty and I think Dotty is the Alpha female and does not plan on losing that status, however, Lolly clearly feels un-loved or left out that she runs away and doesn´t come home for days, if I go call for her she will come but in the night she will leave and we will not see her again unless I go looking

I am about to go call her again and hopefully get her back, I am really concerned as I had read that she is looking for another family to take her but I don´t want to lose her because obviously I love her like I do the other 2 boo ho - sighs!

Any tips here would be helpful

Simone

[suzy]

We also had problems with our adopted "campo" cats, though they are all males.  Little'un turned up first, followed by Blue Eyes who came from a neighbour up the mountain who only visited occasionally to feed him, both of them became good friends.  Then Thommo turned up, he is a big, thug of a cat, we think from the farm and he tried to rule the roost and was always picking fights and driving Blue Eyes away.  In the end Little'un got the better of him and established that he was boss and Thommo only turns up occasionally now for a decent feed.   We have now been joined by GW w(another of our neighbour´s escapees) who is a year younger than the other two but they have accepted him and all three get on well.  I did look on the internet for any advice at the time and apparently female cats have a much smaller "feudal" territory than male cats, so this may be why they are more protective of it.  Most advice was directed at household cats but some could be tried, like giving them their own space, bedding, food bowl, etc. although you probably do that already.  Interestingly it suggested that cats who remain kittenish (ie encouraged to play by their human underlings) are more likely to be friendly and tolerant of other cats.  Unfortunately, cats are independent beings, unlike the more social pack animal dogs, so I guess we can only let them sort themselves out.  Just keep showering love on Lolly and maybe things will work out.

[suzy]

Oh and ps I forgot to say that a small, cheap water pistol from our local bazaar is also a wonderful deterrent if aimed carefully at the agressor, ha ha!!   We mainly use ours now to stop GW going near the podenkos who want to eat him and he is gradually learning.  The other two have more sense!
Cheers
Suzy