suddely violent cats...

[Colin Vestrand]

okay, i've asked my vet about this and he has very few ideas, he wants to check out the cats in person. i have a male and female cat, both spayed/neutered, brother and sister, about 2 years old. they have always gotten along great... they have their littler wrestling matches and like to stalk each other, like any cats do, but have never tried to hurt each other and always give each other space and respect.
now though, they cannot be in the same room. this started abruptly in the middle of the nite on friday and at this point they have to be constantly separated to avoid what i'd consider some pretty serious fighting. to make matters worse, the male is a lot bigger than the female so she takes the brunt of it.
both cats are extremely friendly and social, like always, with the rest of the family, they only have issues with each other... i guess i could understand if this was a gradual thing but it's literally like one day they're sleeping together, the next day they're snarling/yowling/bristling at the sight of one another. bascially one cat lives in our bedroom now...

any suggestions? anyone heard of this before? i don't want to have to get rid of one.

[SatanicIntention]

Did anything in their environment change? Food, litter, noise level, smells(even outside cats can trigger aggression, just from walking by),etc?

Can he tell which one is the aggressor? Or are they both instigating it? If one is only attacking the other one, the one being attacked may have a medical condition that the attacker smells. Different things can set them off sometimes..

[Colin Vestrand]

nothing in their environment has changed... same house, same feeding time, litter boxes, etc etc. its kinda wierd cause i guess i'd consider the male the 'aggressor', but he seems more freaked about by the girl than anything. his tails poofs up when he sees her and that's when she starts hissing and whatnot. after that he usually starts chasing her until she can find a spot high enough to hide from him. once they're out of each other's site they're pretty much instantly back to normal...
i could see something being wrong with the girl, hopefully that's not the case.

[littleindiangirl]

You didn't happen to of buried her in a pet cemetary that used to be an old indian burial ground? Ever notice her getting back into the house, when all the doors are closed and locked? She doesn't have a weird earthy smell to her at all? Do her eyes glow in the daylight? Clumbsy at all?

That's all I can really think of...

[SatanicIntention]

That's just very weird.. I also hope nothing is wrong with the little girl but you just never know. I would just have some blood work done and make sure everything is functioning ok in that department. Who knows.. It may be the male with the issue. Rats can sometimes get pituitary tumors that can cause very bad aggression problems, with both other rats and humans.

Are they strictly indoors?

[Colin Vestrand]

they are indoors only, so that should rule out quite a bit. i've done some forum searching and this sounds like it's more common than i initially thought... but yeah, like you said, a little blood work should rule out a few things. you just always hope behavioral changes are not a symptom of something much worse. i love these cats too, they are both awesome.

[frankykeno]

This link I thought has some good thoughts on why cats are aggressive to each other and some ideas on how to minimize it. Hope it helps somewhat.

http://www.petplace.com/cats/inter-c...ion/page1.aspx

[Colin Vestrand]

***UPDATE***
the vet said to just let them sort it out, so that's what we did...
well they still get pissy with each other but they're getting along much better. they play like they used to, eat together, and when one wants some personal time it just hisses at the other and they go their separate ways.
thanks everyone for your suggestions! like many things in life, i guess this is just one thing you gotta wait out.