Hello everyone,
I hope it's alright to reach out and ask for your thoughts. My name is Isabelle, and I live alone in a flat with my two teenage children (a girl and a boy).
I have three cats at home. The father and mother — both four years old — are Simba and Nala (yes, the Disney reference was very much intentional), and the one kitten I kept from her two litters (eight kittens in total) is Pumba, now two years old. My problem is that the mother absolutely rejects her son. It goes well beyond simple dislike — she's genuinely aggressive and hostile towards him. Conflicts break out several times a day. She doesn't bite him, but she swipes at him with her claws while hissing. He doesn't exactly help matters either, as he sometimes provokes her in return, and things escalate into a full-blown fight very quickly. It's making daily life really difficult for all of us. I often catch her lurking in a corner, ears pinned flat back, watching him like a predator about to pounce on its prey. I genuinely feel she sees him as an enemy or a threat. I should also add that she's very territorial and won't share her space at all. Oddly enough, eating together in the same spot at the same time doesn't seem to bother either of them.
I'd like to add four points worth mentioning: 1. All three are neutered/spayed.
2. The father gets on well with both the mother and Pumba.
3. The mother has a litter tray issue: I bought an enclosed litter box with a little porthole-style opening, and she absolutely hated it. Ever since, while she does use a standard open tray for urinating (keeping as much of her body outside the tray as possible), she consistently defecates directly on the floor — something she never used to do. I've tried to retrain her, but nothing has worked.
4. This last point feels important to me, and I suspect it may be partly at the root of the problem: for a period of time, the mother was away from home because I'd rehomed her with a friend, who ultimately decided she couldn't keep her and returned her to me. She was away for roughly three months — which was approximately how old Pumba was at the time.
I hope I've been as thorough and clear as possible in describing the situation. I have considered, albeit very reluctantly, rehoming either the mother or Pumba — but I hadn't accounted for how attached my children understandably are to all three of them.
I'm truly grateful in advance for any advice or thoughts you're willing to share. I know it might seem like a minor issue at first glance, but I can assure you that day to day, it really does weigh heavily on our family.
Thank you so much for your help.
Warm regards,
Isabelle
