Ok little backstory, I had cat, rescued another, the first has since passed but the second (Ripley) is still here. Another cat broke into our warehouse at work and someone needs to rescue it, and the duty has fallen on me. Ripley did OK as a kitten with my other cat, but since becoming an only-cat she has had scant interactions with strays coming up to my glass door, but she tries to fight them every time lol. I think she’ll come around though.
Here’s the plan, gonna clean out my “spare” room and make the new kitten a fort in there with a freshly washed blanket, get her some toys of her own, own box and food etc. I’m gonna keep em completely separated for a couple days, then swap them for a few hours to let them explore the other’s scent, then swap back, rinse and repeat for like a week?ish? Once they start sniffing under the door and stuff I’m going to try and let them see but not touch each other (and have no clue how I’ll achieve this, any ideas would be helpful!) and then after a few of those if no hissing occurs and they seem chill, let them meet finally.
Both cats female, current resident is about 2-3, new resident is less than 1yo. Will get all the shots and spay, of course. Shots ASAP for sure, spey idk if I should wait until they’re friends?
Any tips? Sounds pretty good? Typed a little rushed on break at work, sorry, just found out I’m taking the cat lol.
You’ve got the right plan, but I just want to share some stories.
My recommendation is always to avoid adding a new cat to a cat household unless it happens during a move when no cat has a claim on territory.
- My oldest had a cat. After a few months in their apartment they decided to add another cat. They followed a plan very similar to yours. New cat wanted to be friends. Old cat wanted to paint the walls in the blood of the new cat. They tried for months to get them to coexist, but they would separate them as soon as they started fighting.
After many, many months of the two cats essentially living separately in the apartment, they finally accepted that they would have to let the cats fight it out. It was distressing, and there were some minor injuries, but they’ve settled down.
- Middle child and his fiancee had a cat (disabled: deformed back legs, walks on his ankles with the feet flopping around). They decided to add two more cats. One was missing an eye. The other was missing an eye and an ear. They wanted to give the best life possible to rescue cats that were otherwise screwed.
They again followed a similar plan. The old cat smelled the new cats in the room where they were segregated, and absolutely lost his shit. They ended up fighting under the closed door, and tearing up a 3 foot by 10 inch section of (brand new) carpeting at the doorway trying to kill each other. Bye bye security deposit. Any time they tried to carefully let the cats interact, the was nothing but attempted murder.
They moved to a new apartment, and nearly all violence ceased immediately. There’s still the occasional cat behavior where one decides to slap a brother, but it’s more like normal sibling behavior than attempted murder.
- Many years ago a co-worker had a cat and she was asked to take on a new cat. I have no idea what process she followed to introduce them, but there was absolutely no violence. The cats didn’t fight at all.
However, her old cat was not happy with the situation and blamed her. He started peeing everywhere: on the floors, on her bed, on her clothes. If you think cats aren’t vindictive and capable of hitting you where it hurts, consider this: he climbed up onto the counter, straddled her toaster, and peed into it.
She ended up getting a prescription for kitty Prozac for the cat, which helped, but did not eliminate the behavior.
When the old cat eventually died, she had to tear out and replace the floors in her house too get rid of the cat piss smell.
- My wife and I had a cat, and when we moved we decided to add a second. There really wasn’t time for the old cat to establish the new house as his before r added the second.
There were no problems except our old cat was old and lazy and the new cat was young and wanted to play. It was distressing for the old cat until one day when he was able to realize that I wasn’t going to do anything if he decided to beat the shit out of her. From then on if she decided to mess with him, he’d just give her a good beat down and then they’d be ok until the next time she decided to try her luck.
There was a hint for her behavior, as she was surrendered to the shelter because “she didn’t get along with and older cat”. At her first vet visit, the doctor noticed a healed fracture in one of her legs. So, in her previous home she pissed off an older cat who didn’t practice as much restraint as ours.
That plan tracks with all the advice I’ve heard about introducing cats. For letting them see but not touch each other, you could use a baby gate as long as it’s tall enough that they can’t jump over.
It sounds like you have a good plan worked out, good luck!
We’ve had an old lady cat (Pica) since she was two who, at best, tolerated our other cat (Bob)… for 15 years. But when Bob passed and the cat distribution system found us again a few months later, we took in Laszlo and kept him in a side room. Because we were afraid Pica would hate this new 4 year old male, we kept him in a spare room for 2 full weeks.
The first week Pica would sit outside the spare room door, occasionally sniff under it, and then hiss. By the middle of the 2nd week the hissing had stopped and she wanted in the room. When he was finally let out, they were stand-offish for quite a while but we didn’t observe any swatting or big displays of territorial or angry behavior. Then Laszlo spent several weeks inching his sleeping spot closer to hers until they were sharing a bed on the couch.
Now Pica slightly more than tolerates Laszlo. I wouldn’t call them friends but if Bob had tried this there would have been an ugly fight. I don’t know if the super slow introduction helped or if she’s more accepting with old age, but I’m glad.
Sounds like a good plan.
They will hiss and growl at each other when they first meet, and probably swat at each other. That’s normal, they’re just sizing each other up. If it looks like someone’s getting hurt, separate them again, but some harmless fighting is part of the process. They’ll be snuggling together soon enough.
