Adding a new cat--how's it done?

In My Humble Opinion
1

We’ve been a one-cat household for the past six years. Our current cat, a spayed female named Tuggs, is very much loved and receives a lot of attention. She’s very territorial and quite aggressive, though. Visitors–especially men–usually walk away with some nasty scratches if they don’t keep their distance, and the presence of a strange cat near the house drives her up the wall. If there’s a stray on the porch, Tuggs puffs up like a blowfish and growls and spits until the stray takes off. She’s entirely an indoor cat; in fact, I think she’s a little afraid of the outdoors and open spaces.

Our family has recently been adopted by a stray we call Macy. Macy is, as far as we can tell, an unspayed female. We think she used to be someone’s housecat, because she’s extremely friendly and demands that she be held and fawned over. We live in a semi-rural area, so it’s not out of the question that her former family drove her out here and dropped her off. She’s thin as a rail, and she needs a family to take care of her. We’d like to try.

Problem: Tuggs won’t have it. The first three days that Macy hung around the house, I don’t know that Tuggs got any sleep. She just followed Macy from window to window, spitting and growling. She’s backed off on the constant vigilance approach now, but she still spends a lot of time keeping an eye on the potential interloper.

We tried introducing them by opening the patio door a tiny bit so they could “talk” without being able to reach each other. Tuggs damn near had a heart attack. Next, my mom spent some time petting, cuddling and cooing over Tuggs, then gave her some catnip, which normally makes her the mellowest kitty in the world. Then mom reached through the door, petted Macy a few times and tried to let Tuggs get used to the new-cat smell on her hand. Tuggs (who isn’t declawed) laid into her arm with teeth and both front paws. It took seven bandaids to patch her up.

We’ve considered keeping Macy as an outdoor cat, but there are several things against that approach. First, she apparently wants very badly to be an indoor cat, and it looks like it’s going to be close to impossible to break her of trying to get in the house. Second, while we live in a sparsely-populated area and outdoor cats aren’t unheard of, we live directly across the street from a golf course and we don’t want to risk leaving her exposed to the heavy traffic that generates (not to mention drunken jerks with golf clubs.) We’re afraid to go any further with integrating her into the house, because there seems to be a real possibility that Tuggs would actually try to kill her.

So, any ideas on how to make Macy part of the family? We like her a great deal and we don’t want to take her to the Humane Society (overcrowded and underfunded). There aren’t any no-kill shelters in the area. We want to keep her, but Tuggs is a part of the family–really, she’s sweeter than she sounds–and she’s our first priority. Please help.

2

No good advice here, but I’m sitting here cracking up thinking of how The Tuggers must have reacted!

Perhaps you could put Macy by herself in a separate room for a few days?

3

I skimmed through this article. It seems to have some good ideas.

From what I’ve heard of Tugger, she doesn’t seem to be a very sociable killer-kitty. Good Luck.

4

Conventional wisdom is to put the new cat in a room for a while so they can get used to each others smell. I’ve always used a modified version of this. When I’m out, the cats are seperated, when I’m home, I let them have it out. They’ll yowl, fight, scratch and hiss for a day or so, and thus establish their own pecking order. Within a few days they’ll be curled up next to each other. Works like a charm, you just have to have the intestinal fortitude to allow them to fight it out initally.

5

I’ve been adopted by a stray, too. When Shadow first showed up, I just fed him outside. I have an older kitty (Mew), who’s suffering from chronic renal failure, has had to have her canine teeth extracted and is declawed. Therefore, bringing a young, strong male who has big, honkin’ teeth and still has his claws, in the house, was out of the question.

Then one day he got attacked by another outdoor cat and had his throat ripped open, and the wound then abscessed - yuck! Of course I took him to the vet, who got him all cleaned up, but I was left with the choice of either having him put down or keeping him in my house. To me, it wasn’t a choice – he came in.

This is where my story and yours will definitely part each other. I absolutely cannot risk the safety of my precious Mewkitty for the sake of someone else’s stray cat. I love Shadow dearly, but Mew came/comes first. So my solution is that I simply keep both cats separated at all times. In my apartment it’s pretty easy to do, while giving them each about the same amount of space – one gets the bedroom, bathroom and laundry room and the other gets the living room and kitchen. I switch them around periodically so neither one goes stir crazy in their much smaller spaces. I don’t necessarily recommend this for you.

However, it is how you’ll have to start things off…

Here’s a website with some helpful tips on introducing a new cat to an existing one. It tells you how to slowly get them comfortable with each other while there’s still a protective door between them.

However, the one thing it doesn’t address, because it’s not specifically aimed at taking in strays, is the absolute necessity of getting the stray to the vet for tests and immunizations before ever allowing it inside. If Macy has any communicable feline diseases, your decision is pretty much made.

Best of luck to you, Tuggs and the very lucky Macy (to have found a loving person such as you).

I really appreciate your consideration in avoiding stepping on my penis - Spiny Norman
[sup][sub][symbol]©[/symbol][/sub][/sup] Jeg elsker dig, Thomas [sup][sub][symbol]©[/symbol][/sub][/sup]

6

Recently, we got a new cat. Her name is Lady, and she was only about a year old when we got her. We already had an older male cat named George. Both are spayed/neutered. George is normally a friendly and affectionate cat, and Lady is basically still a kitten. At first, George hated Lady, and he’d swipe at her and growl menacingly if she tried to approach him. Eventually, he got used to her, and now they’re friends. I think a big part of it was that Lady was trying to befriend 'ol Georgey, and not claim his territory or anything. They seem to have settled into something approaching a big brother/little sister relationship.

7

Ditto on the vet visit first. One of my coworkers unknowingly brought in a stray with feline leukemia. Now her other 2 cats have it. They’re all still alive, but the long-term outlook is bleak.

8

Just wanted to give this a little bump before letting it slide away for good. We made further attempts at Macy-intergration with limited success yesterday. I’ve really appreciated all the good advice; keep it coming!

9

To properly add a cat, first take your saucepan off the heat, then add a little at a time, stirring constantly. :smiley:

10

I think shayna must be danish or norwegian? Because that is not swedish at the bottom, but almost!

But I digress, I think the bast thing to do is let the cats duke it out, they will establish there own pecking order, you might have to doctor some cuts and scratches, but they will get used to each other. but I doubt if they will ever like each other, but tolerance will work just fine.

11

[Hijack - sorry, but I have to respond…]

Hej, Mondeo. Actually, I’m neither - but my ancestry is Swedish, as it happens. However, in this case it’s my fiancé, Spiny Norman, who is Danish, which is the language in my sig. They’re soooo close, though, huh? At least with that phrase…

Jeg elsker dig - Danish
Jag älskar dig - Swedish
Jeg elsker deg - Norwegian

[/Hijack]

Juniper, have you taken Macy to the vet yet? I would just hate for your good intentions to end up having fatal results. Keep us posted on how it’s going.

12

She’ll be going to the vet sometime in the next few days. We’re afraid that she might have some kind of intestinal parasite, because she’s been eating like a little pig for almost two weeks and she’s as thin as the day she came to us. Because she hasn’t been to the vet and because Tuggs has been freaking out so badly, we’re taking things very slowly and just letting them “talk” and smell each other a little through a crack in the door once every few days.

On the down side, the neighbors have decided they don’t like Macy one bit (She’s quite a talker–I think she has some Siamese in her–and that hasn’t gone over with them at all.) and they’ve expressed dismay that she might be staying on. We think we’ve got a family who can adopt her if we can’t get her in the house, though, so things might work out okay in the end.

13

To expound on the “Cat Segregation Method” put them in seperate rooms but put their food dishes on each side of the door. The theory here is that the positive aspect of eating become associated with the smell of the other and good thigns happen. Although I’ve never tried it, I’ve only got a 1 cat house.

14

My one experience of merging two adult cats into one household was not very encouraging. Mrs. F. and I each had one grownup cat when we got married, and when her cat died, seven years later, they had never gotten fond of each other.

Adding kittens seems to work, though, as long as the grownup cats aren’t too old. The grownups can put the kittens in their place, but the kittens won’t give up, and eventually things blend.

15

I had a cat named patches. I got her when she was a year old and she had lived in a cage most of life and never been outside and was spayed. SHe was even araid to walk on the floor. she would jump from furniture to furniture. she got used to me and became better. and about year later, I brought a kitten home.
he snubbed him and wouldn’t come around me anymore. then one night I woke up and she was peeing on me. she ran away the next day and I never saw her again.
my brother said he saw her with some other cats that lived behind our house… I guess she was a little upset…

16

secretkeeper 78,

that is hilarious!

Did you want her to come back after that?

17

Guess this is moot as your cat’s aren’t declawed, but…

When we brought home Mary (Just a tiny little thing, about 6 weeks old) we had already made sure Willy was declawed. He was about 6 month’s old, so he had some weight on her.

Course the claws kinda curbed his ego a bit. Now they get along fine, in fact Willy (now Big Willy) adores her.

18

yeah, I wanted her to come back. I was willing to forgive.

19

We haven’t seen Macy since Tuesday. Right now, we’re just hoping that she found people who are more able to take care of her than we are right now. She’s such a sweetheart that I’m sure she found someone to love her.

Thanks for all the good advice, guys.