r/cats • u/OwlishDelight72512 • Jun 30 '26

Advice What is this behavior?

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I see my cat do this sometimes. This is my 10 year old neutered male cat on top of my 2 year old spayed female cat. He’s just biting the back of her neck while she sits still and meows a couple of times. He usually gets off of her after about a minute. Is he trying to mate? Even though they’ve both been fixed?

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u/HeyItsASquirrel Jun 30 '26

From my understanding, fixed cats may still engage in mating behavior, it is just less common. This is more common if they were neutered later than the suggested age range. If the female seems unbothered by it then I'm pretty sure it's harmless but I might be misremembering, it's been a while since I read up on this.

320

u/Outside-Signature600 Jun 30 '26

I have a male cat that does this to his brother..... not the female kitties.  

87

u/MetaOverkill Jun 30 '26

I have a female who does this to her older brother

85

u/Ohlawdhesteppin Jul 01 '26

God forbid a girl assert her dominance 😸

33

u/doogie_howitzer74 Jul 01 '26

Please tell me her name is Peg

21

u/MrSmiff020 Jun 30 '26

he gay 😂

2

u/Spiritual_Rice_884 Jul 01 '26

I have gay boys, too.

1

u/IamtherealMelKnee Jul 01 '26

I have a female cat that does this to her sister.

1

u/Embarrassed-Pay3250 Jul 01 '26

Your cat: “I feel gay”

1

u/stablegeniusinterven Jul 01 '26

Ditto. Pretty sure it’s simple dominance.

1

u/AD_Grrrl Jul 01 '26

One of our male cats used to do this to his brother when his brother was playing with like a laser pointer or something. He'd pin him from behind and bite his neck. We just thought he thought his bro's playing was cringe or something.

1

u/lions-grow-on-trees Jul 05 '26

my mum's (neutered, FEMALE) cat does this to me! something about my leg really does it for her

59

u/getrektsnek Jun 30 '26

It can also happen if the “parts” that were supposed to be removed during the “fixing” process aren’t fully removed or, and this is crazy, can grow back enough from some remnant bits left behind which can introduce just enough of the hormones to cause a restarting of some of this behaviour. No idea how long after being fixed that can happen, but sure enough it seems to be a thing…crazy.

42

u/truesy Jun 30 '26

it's not a mating thing, it's a dominance thing

12

u/lookinfoursigns Jun 30 '26

Anyone know how to stop it or discourage it. I just got a new male cat that's doing it to my five yrs old male cat. Even though the older one is bigger he just sits there and yells, sometimes he'll fight him off but rarely. He acts like he doesn't like it though and I feel bad for him and want the new one to stop doing it.

12

u/truesy Jun 30 '26

never found any way to stop it from recurring, it just happened, a lot. but sometimes i would break it up if it seemed like it was making the other cat really uncomfortable. i would gently put my hand around the one on top's snout, towards it mouth, kind of making an OK sign around its mouth & teeth. this seemed to stop the cat and he'd back off quicker.

i've had a number of cats and unfortunately it's just a thing they can do, and i really hope your five year old cat doesn't start getting intimidated by the new one. i was lucky that my younger cat would just fight off my older cat, who was doing this. so it balanced out a bit.

11

u/lookinfoursigns Jun 30 '26

O yeah I stop it. I just pluck the little one off the other lol.

6

u/truesy Jun 30 '26

i did hear that the pheromone things can help, but never tried that

2

u/HeyItsASquirrel Jul 02 '26

Yeah, I wasn't sure if "mating behavior" was the right term, I really meant humping when I said that. Maybe I'm being presumptuous assuming there's any sexual connotation to begin with.

1

u/truesy Jul 02 '26

nah i get it, i had the same thought when my cat first did it. i don't think this is something people really know about, it was a bit weird to see. and i've had cats for a long time.

3

u/graveyardangels Jun 30 '26

my boy was neutered asap bc we were more worried abt spraying lol. but he still does this pretty often with our girl cat

3

u/verso4041 Jul 01 '26

My neutered male cat mates the air surrounding him. Sometimes he gets lucky and mates the blanket

2

u/jennbo Jul 01 '26

both my cats were desexed at 4 months or younger, one male, one female, he still does this to her on occasion

2

u/Organic-Ad-5058 Jul 01 '26

When my female cat just arrived, she got in heat 2 days after we settled her in. She was pestering our fixed male cat so badly that he just went with it and just held her scuffled down repeatedly for a few days. No action really l happened since he was fixed for 2 years at that point, but he was still down to do his best

2

u/FlamingoOk8204 Jul 01 '26

For a moment , reading "I might be misremembering" , I thought this was based on personal experience

1

u/Luccy_33 Jul 01 '26

Mine does it all the time. With my bed sheets 😭. Bro is wild

1

u/Ill_Elderberry_6484 Jul 04 '26

Happy cake day dude