Our cat will be 5 next week. We've had him from being a young kitten. He's not a lap cat but is ok with a tickle behind the ears but generally it's on his terms, never aggressive but can be a biter when playing. He is mainly a house cat due to living in close proximity to the motorway. Though he will accompany us in the garden.
He has never been much bother aside from scratching a sofa but we placed a scratch post there and it stopped. Plenty of balls and toy mice dotted about and he is happy.
I posted a few years ago about him as I worried the imminent arrival of ds would upset him but on the whole it's worked well. He does spend more time upstairs now as he doesn't seem keen on ds running around. Once ds is in bed he will come and settle next to you as he did before.
Around 6 months ago we got new neighbours who own a cat. This cat is lovely with people but attacks other cats. It isn't neutered. (Our cat is). It also started to urinate against our back door meaning our cat started it too. We have managed to stop both cats doing this, using enzyme cleaners and scaring neighbour cat away with water. Taking away the doormats that our cat was using. Putting an extra litter tray in the spot.
Our cat no longer wants to go out as it gets attacked everytime by neighbour cat.
Our cat still seems on edge however and has begun to scratch the living room carpet and follows us around (when ds isn't around). We have managed to get him to stop scratching the carpet when we are there but he still goes for it when we're not in the living room. We have put something on that spot when were not around.
Cat is much happier upstairs. So spends even more time up there but since we don't want him in bedrooms at night means he goes downstairs then and this is when the issues start. Stairs are in the living room so last few nights he had been shut in the kitchen. He has a bed in there so comfortable places to sit. But I don't think this is the long term solution.
I have an appointment booked at the vet just in case of illness but I'm leaning more towards behavioural issues. I have some feliway plug in things on order from amazon. Just wondering if there is anything else we can do to make our cat less stressed.
We rent so can't do anything extreme with the house, we have tried to keep the neighbour cat away from our back door and garden. Took a few squirts from the water pistol but it only works if one of us in the garden..It still comes in when were inside.