Hello, I am currently having some concern for one of my cats and I'm hoping someone can help me understand what's going on :( (sorry for the long story)
So I have 2 kittens, one is 3 months old (spotted tabby) and the other one is 4 months old (silver orange). It all began with us noticing that a community cat that we often run into and that is very friendly was highly pregnant and deciding to take her inside to help the kittens stand a chance against all the flees and other cats/animals in the neighbourhood. When the kittens were 2 days old we were contacted by someone asking if we could foster the orange kitten who was 4 weeks old, as it needed a queen to nurse from and we accepted. We had to make sure the kittens were able to eat as the orange kitten was so much bigger but it all worked out and they all got along great. We instantly fell in love with the orange cat and decided that we were going to keep him with us forever and started to carefully introduce him to our 6 month old chihuaha puppy. As the orange kitten grew and the other kittens remained too undeveloped to play, he quickly became close play friends with the puppy and they would even take naps together. As the kittens grew older the queen seemed more and more eager to get back out which would have been possible if it wasn't for us wanting to avoid her flees and other parasites from coming in. She also couldn't stand the puppy so we decided to keep one of her kittens and to let her go back outside, once we found forever homes for the other ones and had gotten her fixed.
The dynamics are now very interesting between the 3 boys. The spotted kitten has a very active personality, he's always tearing things up or running around like crazy lol but he's also extremely loving and cuddly almost dog like in that sense. The orange kitten on the other hand is extremely calm, ironically very Garfield like, he also enjoys being petted but seems a little more distrustful and isn't nearly as affectionate as his younger brother. The interesting thing is that the younger one, who also is much smaller, is the dominant one. They have a double bowl (or whatever you call it) so that they both can eat at once but the younger one smacks the orange one in the face if he even gets close to the bowl before he's done. It's definitely not the orange one letting him eat first as he gladly eats first when he can, they never really fight about it though as the orange kitten just kind of falls back and accepts his position. They do however play a lot and nap together on rare occasions. The spotted kitten actually loves cuddling up the puppy and sleeps with him for the most part. The kitten even sucks on the puppy's stomach as if he was nursing. The puppy treats the kittens very differently as well, I don't even think the orange kitten could get that close to the puppy if he wanted to because the puppy has a hard time not harassing him :( He's always nibbling on him and trying to initiate play which sometimes can look a bit rough (the kitten has never been harmed and there's a whole section of our home that the puppy doesn't have access to). The puppy plays with the youngest kitten too but is much more careful and it doesn't have that same harassment aspect to it as the younger kitten can be around the puppy without being bothered 95% of the time. I would love to think that the puppy is sensitive to their age difference but I highly doubt it as the dynamics were the same a month ago when the orange kitten was the same age the spotted kitten is now. When the kittens are playing it's also mostly the spotted one chasing after the orange one. Even when they all sleep together, the orange cat is always a bit distanced from the puppy and the spotted cat who usually are cuddled up. My wife and I both agree that it seems like the orange cat is on the bottom of the totem pole which is surprising as he's the bigger cat and we're also surprised that the dog seems to pick up on this. The puppy is even a lot more likely to share his food with the spotted kitten but usually growls at the orange one if he gets to close. There aren't any signs of the orange cat being miserable, he still goes where the dog is even if he never approaches him like the other kitten often does. Has anyone ever had a similar experience or know what may cause this dynamic?
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/cy6qih/hierarchies_in_a_multipet_household/
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