Cats and our new home

by Ben
(DeSoto, TX USA)

We are buying a new house with a 3/4 acre lot. We have 2 cats, both strays, 3yr old male & 1yr old female. Both are fixed, the female just 2 wks ago. The male is very tame. The female has a problem with jumping onto the kitchen table, countertop, climbing onto boxes & getting into them. She also has torn all the mini blinds in our house, which are brittle anyway. Was hoping getting her fixed would calm her down, but not yet. Will she calm down like the male did? Also, will moving them into this new environment cause problems, being cats are very territorial? They are both indoor cats now because we live in a mobile home park with lots of kids that are mean, that's why we are moving! Our new community is out of the city & has less neighbors, but the lot across from us has about 7 cats in a fenced back yard. I was wondering if my cats would constantly want to go out to get to them?

Reply
Hi
Regarding your female cat. after being spayed / neutered the level of their hormones can take a few weeks to reduce. So yes aggressive behavior etc can take a while to subside. Also in the behaviors you describe there is an element of habit involved.
To break a cats habit you need to reinforce the negative response they get when they do them. Please read my page about this here

https://www.our-happy-cat.com/cat-discipline.html

As for your move. Well if you decide to keep your cats in they may be curios about the other cats if they notice them but if they are used to being inside anyway then it should not be too much of a problem. Make sure that their inside world is very stimulating for them to keep them happy and also distracted from the outside world. i have a page about this here also

https://www.our-happy-cat.com/indoor-cats.html

If you let them out, then yes naturally they will want to investigate the other cats. this is normal and not much you can do about it.

Hope your move is a smooth one. Guess what i even have a page on my site about how best to move with cats here
https://www.our-happy-cat.com/moving-with-cat.html

best wishes kate

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