More kitty craziness

I guess I should have expected that life with three cats would be a little....nuts. We've had two cats for so long, that plurality isn't an issue, but with three BOYS??? Whew. The "kittens" (who are now five months old and looking more like cats than babies) never cease to amaze us at how much they sound like a herd of wild buffalo stomping around upstairs, and oh, how they LOVE to fling kitty litter...they also love to "help" with the laundry.

But Ty...well, Ty is a horse of a different color. He's a challenge, for sure, and any of you out there in blogdom who have experience with this, PLEASE offer us some suggestions, because we're just one frustration away from finding him a new home, and we really don't WANT to...but we may have no choice. Ty is a very agressive tomcat. He's neutered, so we at least got that done, and as soon as he hit six months. Thing is, he's SO BIG. He's ten pounds already, and every bit of that is pure muscle. Half of it probably in his jaw, if the bite marks on our arms and ankles can be admitted as evidence. He's also very dominant. He does NOT tolerate Tucker at all--maybe because Tuck is the dominant of the two kittens, I don't know. But we have to keep Ty and the kittens separated, because Ty will immediately corner and attack one of them (whichever he can get to, but usually Tucker, because Charlie is just too big a wimp to stick around long). Ty can be a sweet cat, when he wants to be and when there aren't other cats (or kids) around, but....well, we don't live in his dream world. Funny thing is, he's great with dogs! He loved playing with Pete's dad's min-pins and their Sheltie when they visited for Thanksgiving, which kind of surprised us. Ty would probably do wonderfully with a hyper mini-dog...but the rest of us, not so much. We're BIG dog people. And Jake...well, Jake is a 110-pound weenie; he runs off yelping when any of the cats wants to even bat at his tail. So what do we do? We've googled cat whisperers, but Cesar Milan doesn't do felines. It's too bad. We really don't want to have to find Ty a new home, because we really have grown to love the brute. And I *think* he kinda likes it here, too.It's going to be interesting to find a way to lessen the tensions between kitties, but we do want to find a workable solution. It was wonderful to bring Tucker and Charlie into our lives after Cleo died; I have wondered out loud if God re-uses cat personalities, because those two boys are just like Cleo and Murphy were. Tucker is the sweetest, most lovable little cuddly thing you've ever seen, just like Cleo was. One difference, though--Tucker doesn't have Cleo's drooling problem, thankfully! Charlie...oh, he's so much like Murphy, and that did wonders for me. I missed Murph SO much, and Charlie is just Murphy all over again--same little "bark", the same quirks, and those stripes....I've got a soft spot in my heart for tabbies! Charlie also really amuses Pete, especially since he loves to sit on Pete's lap in front of the computer, chasing the cursor all over the screen. When it comes to weirdness, though, I still think Tucker takes the cake.