Hi everyone,
We have two cats, both rescues, both neutered/spayed. The older cat is a tiny little female who was born feral and came to the rescue as a kitten during the pandemic and due to growing up when guests were not allowed she was not very well socialised and remains very timid and shy. We had another rescue cat who was a bit older than her who died very unexpectedly last year from a sudden illness. We were all devastated and decided to adopt another cat and found a lovely cuddly 13 week old boy from our local rescue.
To start with the timid cat and him got on fine, they were not cuddling together or grooming one another but happily sleeping next to each other, no fighting or anything.
The kitten is now 10 months old and already much bigger and heavier than the timid cat. Over the last couple of months he has started ambushing the timid cat, he mounts her and bites her neck or tries to pin her down. Obviously the timid cat is not happy about this.
Is this a dominance thing or just play or something else? We try and tire the kitten out with play which helps for a bit but he still keeps doing that whenever there is an opportunity.
Is this likely to be just a phase or something that may escalate further? Is there anything we can do to help the timid cat?