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Home / Features / 6 Ways to Manage Food Aggression Between Cats

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6 Ways to Manage Food Aggression Between Cats

When a simple mealtime turns into a cat fight, your felines may be suffering from food aggression. Although it’s common for hungry cats to become pushy around a food bowl, any type of aggression can still be dangerous to you and your other pets.

Understanding Food Aggression
Aggression is a cat’s threatening behavior towards another cat, a person, or other animals.

Usually, aggressive behavior in cats can range from hissing at and avoiding the target to attacking. As a pet owner, it’s important that you understand your cat’s body language to comprehend accurately what he feels.

Offensive postures of cats may include:
● A stiff upright, straight-legged stance
● Direct stare
● Stiffened rear legs
● Piloerection including the fur on the tail area
● Tail is lowered, held straight down, or stiff
● Upright ears with the back rotated slightly forward
● Constricted pupils
● Facing an opponent directly while moving towards him or her
● Crouching and growling

Consider the items listed above as warning signs of your cat’s aggressive behavior. By being more aware of food aggression, you’ll know when to exactly step in as a pet parent. After all, it’s your responsibility to correct your pet’s bad behavior.

Unlike dogs, you can’t modify a cat’s behavior through training alone. Fortunately, most cats who are food-obsessed are more of pesky aggravations than dangers. And to help you manage food aggression between cats, a Dubai pet food company shares the following ways:

1. Separate cats during mealtimes.
Cats who growl as they eat are giving a warning that you should stay away. If your felines growl at each other, consider giving food in separate feeding bowls placed in different rooms. Once the cat realizes that he won’t get interrupted or threatened during mealtime, his stress will be slowly reduced.

2. Don’t let cats fight things out.
Felines don’t resolve their issues by fighting. More often than not, the fighting just gets worse and leads to one or both being injured. See to it that you interrupt food aggression, you can do it either with a loud clap, a water gun spray, or a burst of compressed air.

3. Avoid feeding at the table.
Feeding your cat some table scraps will lead him to expect that he can get treats all the time. If your feline has already learned how to beg or steal from your plate, take immediate action. Just by watching you eat, your cat can feel hunger so make sure to munch away from the view of your pet.

4. Give your pet enough attention.
Cats love attention but when you’re too busy and your feline pesters and interrupts you, you may end up still ignoring your pet. If your cat wakes you up in the middle of the night to feed him, your feline has trained you to feed him on demand. To prevent this from happening, reward your cat with attention instead so that he’ll know when to expect a reward.

5. Praise good behavior.
Any type of attention you give your cat, even yelling, may be considered a reward by your pet. Make sure to only praise good behavior and ignore bad ones to prevent food aggression from happening. For instance, when your cat acts calm around his food, be sure to praise him.

6. Be consistent with mealtimes.
Cats find comfort when they’re able to control their resources. However, when you take control away, you can tick off cats with negative behaviors. Your cat will use aggression to control his world as a result of fear or a stressful situation.

The key to eliminating angst between cats is to make them both feel safe about access to food. Create a home where your cats learn that they don’t need to argue over resources because there are plenty. Be regular when feeding to take away the anxiety of your cats.

If nothing works, call the vet.
Any sudden change in behavior that you notice from your cat should be a trigger for a vet check. If a certain health issue is the primary cause of your cat’s food aggression, a vet’s proper diagnosis and treatment can certainly solve the problem.

AUTHOR BIO
Farah Al-Khojai is the Managing Partner of Pet's Delight. A passionate entrepreneur, Farah holds a Bsc in Government from the London School of Economics. She is always on the lookout for new opportunities to develop and grow the pet and equestrian retail and wholesale market in the UAE and beyond, and is proud to be at the helm of the first and the largest pet care provider in the market representing world-class brands including Orijen, Applaws, Hunter, Savic, Flamingo, Ruffwear and Rogz.

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