Fighting over territory

[Crazy Kitty]

Hi all! We rehomed a 3 year old male cat 4 weeks ago. He was Neutered 7 weeks ago whilst in the cats home. So, today was his first adventure outside. All was fine, until he left the garden and met a cat next door. There was a lot of shouting and screaming. This went on for 15 minutes until we found him having a stand off with a cat that lives in the house that backs on to ours. So we went and spoke to them to let them know we have a cat that's being introduced to the outside and it seems they don't get on. It turns out theirs is a male cat who isn't neutered and is very territorial. Is this going to cause us big problems? Will they eventually work out their own boundaries or are we going to be in for constant fighting? I don't want my boy to get hurt

[Crewella]

The best case scenario here is that your boy will learn to give the cat a wide berth and leave him to his territory, as the entire tom is unlikely to back down. I would supervise any outings carefully for a while so you can monitor things. I guess there's no chance of persuading the neighbour to neuter their cat?

[Crazy Kitty]

In better news, he has been making friends with some other cats on our street. I'm hoping that he will learn to just walk away from the tom cat but time will tell. I highly doubt it, when we spoke to the owner and they were well aware that their cat gets into fights with the other cats in the neighbourhood. They don't strike me as responsible people unfortunately!

We are trying to do supervised visits for the first week but he likes to leave the garden after a while and go for a wander.

[AndyMac]

My 12 year old female cat is very territorial - my next door neighbour recently brought her cat to the property from another residence and my cat has went crazy - I have had to block all access to the respective gardens and my cat has taken off sitting outside at the front door watching her territory. Last night I saw my cat head down the footpath towards my neighbours house and heard my cat angrily howling - I looked out the door and her cat was sitting at its front gate. I went outside to see what was happening and the other cat ran into its back garden under the gate and my cat chased after it which ended up with a lot of hissing etc.... I managed to get my cat inside and calm her down. I really don't know why my cat acts like this as all the other cats in the area seem to get on but my cat just does not seem to want to integrate with them at all.

[Crazy Kitty]

I guess like humans, some cats just take a dislike to each other for some reason or other. Out of interest, are both of the cats neutered?

[AndyMac]

Yeah - my cat was neutered at 6 months - not sure about the other cat but my cat is always the aggressive one and gives chase or attacks first. There is one cat she will tolerate in the garden and they have even touched noses but if she sees this cat from inside the house she goes mad and has to get out into the garden.

[Crazy Kitty]

We have just had another incident with this Tom cat. He jumped up on our back fence and caught sight of Dexter sat in the back doorway and started hissing at him. Dexter retaliated by running into the garden hissing with his fur on end! I clapped at the Tom cat and luckily he ran off. I don't really want them fighting but not sure what I can do. I can't do supervised visits as Dexter is already leaving the garden for a wander around and his cat flap is being fitted on the weekend to let him come as go as he pleases. Really unsure how best to handle this situation!