It’s hard to believe that, given the wrong set of circumstances — a neighborhood cat lurking on our deck — these two brothers can turn on each other and become mortal enemies.
Actually, it’s really just Pluto (the dark one hugging his brother) who loses his mind and sees Tobi (the white one) as a nefarious interloper of some kind.
If you’re not familiar, it’s a feline behavior called redirected or displaced aggression. Two cats that normally coexist—or even love each other —suddenly explode into violence when a third animal appears.
We’ve owned cats for more than 20 years and had never seen this behavior until recently.
It’s terrifying.
It’s especially bad because:
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Cats rely heavily on scent, and stress hormones alter body odor, making a familiar cat smell “wrong.”
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Cats, like toddlers, possess poor de-escalation skills. Unlike dogs, cats don’t naturally reconcile after fights.
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A long recovery window is not uncommon. It can take hours or days for adrenaline to subside and for the cats to see each other for who they really are.
It’s crazy. Two brothers who have spent their lives together suddenly can’t see each other for who they are.
We’ve had to deal with this several times since a neighborhood cat appeared on our deck last fall. It’s been stressful, upsetting, and exhausting.
Even worse, once displaced aggression happens, subsequent situations can retrigger the response without the original stimulus.
These situations for our cats have included play that suddenly turns into aggression, or, more recently, accidentally locking a cat in a closet, which increases the trapped cat’s stress hormones and spurs another bout of displaced aggression.
It’s not fun.
At first, it was downright scary, especially when I didn’t understand what was happening.
And it makes moments like these, which happen all the time, seem so unbelievable, given the half-dozen times over the past six months, our cats have gone to war for days at a time.
They really do love each other, except in the rare instances when they want to kill each other.
Pet ownership is a beautiful, rewarding, and joyous thing, but it’s not for the faint of heart.
