So we have two cats that have been together for about 9 years, male and female. They've lived in harmony until about 3 years ago when we had a stray cat peeing on our front door and one spring day we opened the front door and they got a smell of it. After that the female cat has become the dominant cat. It took about 6 months to get the two of them at least ok with each other after that. She still occasionally goes after him but not often.
Problem is now when we are away, she really goes at him. We just got back from vacation for a week and the male cat had used our bed as a bathroom because the female cat wouldn't let him use the litter box. We have caught her before trying to stop him.
Odd thing is we have gone on a bunch of long trips in the past 12 months and this hadn't happened before until now. We know she gets after him because we usually find pulled fur chunks all over the place as she goes after him. Oddly we found none of that this time just the poo and pee.
How we do fix this? they get along fine almost all the time except when we aren't home. We have two litter boxes but they are next to each other.
We can't lock them away in a room while we are gone, they will destroy the carpets and our house is pretty much a big open space with 2 bedrooms.
Again, for the most part they get along all day, she may chase him once or twice but not really do anything bad. I know this because i work out of the house.
We really do not want to get rid of a cat. If we had to the female would have to go but that is truly a last resort only kind of thing. the male cat is kind of special and we know if we got rid of him, he would just get put down.