Bully cat

[scats]

I have two cats who have just turned 3 years old. We’ve had them since they were 5 or 6 weeks and they are from the same litter. They were dumped in a box on a friends driveway.
The Male is a big cat with a huge appetite and the female is a little thing who eats like a sparrow. They’ve always been this way.
Over the last few months, the Male cat has started bullying his sister. It started off as almost playfighting gone too far, but now it is out and out stalking and leaping on her and the female cat is starting to become terrified and creeps around looking around every corner. We make sure they eat separately, though oddly he doesn’t do it at feed times.

He does it in the house and in the garden. When we catch him, we scoop him up and either chuck him out (if he’s in) or chuck him in (if he’s out). If he does it at night (they stay in overnight), we shut him in a room for five or so minutes, but the second he is released, he goes after her again.

I saw him about to run and pounce on her in the garden yesterday and managed to stop him by throwing a slipper so it landed behind him and startled him. He then attacked the slipper!
He’s a lovely affectionate cat with people and gets on with our dogs, but he seems to have targeted the female cat. It’s not all the time, some times he will be absolutely fine, but the female cat is now getting so worried that she hisses any time he comes near her.

Any idea what I can do? Both are neutered.

 

[Meowy Catkin]

Have you ever watched any of Jackson Galaxy's programme 'My cat from Hell'? That situation is common on the programme and because the female cat slinks around and runs, she is acting like prey and the male cat is therefore treating her like prey. The key seems to be building the worried cat's confidence so that they act like they own the home again.

He suggests all sorts of things like cat shelves so that the fearful cat can get up off the ground, look at what is going on safely and start to feel better. Also playing builds confidence, so every time that a cat catches and 'kills' a toy it actually helps.

Eg

 

[BeckyFlowers]

Another vote for Jackson Galaxy and his techniques. Ensure that there are plenty of high spaces for your female to jump up onto, as Faracat has suggested, including having a couple of tall cat trees. I was also going to suggest lots of play with both cats, but especially with male, using fishing pole-type toys. Have you tried using Feliway plug-in?

 

[Rumtytum]

Sorry, no advice, but we had exactly the same. Ben 'bullied' Pushka mercilessly, including at feeding times. When Ben was run over and killed Pushka, far from pining for her lost brother, blossomed into the diva of divas and later the demanding dowager duchess. She was always nervy but ruled her household with a paw of iron and thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

[scats]

Thank you everyone. I’ll have a look at the Jackson Galaxy stuff. I can totally see that he could be stalking her because she’s slinking around like prey.
I was thinking of trying a Feliway, we used one once for a cat we rehomed who was quite nervous.

I keep finding pictures of them when they used to get on and sleep cuddled up and it’s breaking my heart!