I’ve read you should give them treats when theyre together so they think, hey, good things happen when theyre around.
Oliver wants a friend, and knows it. If Clay also wants a friend, he hasn’t figured it out yet; or hasn’t figured out that Oliver’s a candidate for the position. I suspect he will in fairly short order, though; I think this is going really well.
What does Oliver do when Clay yowls? Does he back off at all?
A cat might feel even more trapped in an entirely open wirework crate: no place to hide. Always give a cat a place to hide.
Particularly if those months include a winter. A cold cat will often endure the close presence of a rival if that rival is warm.
Things have been fantastic. They boys played almost all evening, barely a hiss and no fighting. I had to put Clay up a couple of times - Oliver just can’t comprehend that a cat would rather play alone with a ball than with him, and Clay was getting a little overwhelmed.
Approximately two hours after their first play time - love meee
They are currently chasing each other through the house. Oliver wants nothing to do with me when Clay is around lol. However after I put Clay up last night he still wanted to play fetch for 20 minutes, so I’m not completely obsolete.
I’ll give it another day or two before I leave them together at night. I’m mostly concerned I won’t get any sleep with them chasing each other.
It’s crazy that, in less than 72 hours, I have a cat over a year old who has settled in so quickly!
I’m so happy for you that it turned out that way! My daughter and son-in-law had a very similar experience introducing a friend to their very active, somewhat neurotic one-year-old orange tabby. They found a very laid-back yet playful nine-month-old gray tabby, and the two of them were besties before the week was out. Three years later, they’re still inseparable. As they told me, the new cat was the best toy ever!
“But why has he got his paw on my head?!”
– I think you’re figuring it out, Clay.
They are doing excellently well. Yes, I’d put Clay back in his room at night, and when you’re not home, for another couple of days; longer if Clay seems to still be getting intermittently stressed. But congratulations on your successful household!
Oh yes. An endlessly fascinating, interactive toy; also usable as a comforting pillow when tired of playing. And each young cat performs that role for the other.
I think another cat is out of the question. The other day I came home and Moki was in the back bedroom screaming and hissing. Sure enough there was a little cat cowering behind some junk. It had come in through the cat door. It was a nice cat, and let me pick it right up. As I carried it to the door Moki kept up her protests, and even acted like she wanted to attack my feet! A while back, a neighbor’s cat was sitting in the window and I lifted Moki up to introduce them and she wanted to fight the other cat through the screen. I think she’s a loner.
This may indeed be true for some cats.
However –
Most cats I’ve introduced into this household have been greeted with swearing and hissing from the established residents. Each of the cats who now sleep on my bed together was originally greeted with ‘drive out that intruder!’
I once brought home a kitten, barely over 2 lbs and maybe 3 months old, to a household including a female cat who earlier in her life had had kittens, and a middle-aged ex-tom cat. I hoped the female would want to adopt him; but when he came running out from under the bed to greet her – he’d been living in a barn in which all the female cats nursed all the kittens – she said That’s Not My Kitten! and whacked him back under the bed. And when I brought the tomcat in – he made a yowling/snarling/siren noise I can’t imitate, but which I interpreted as intending murder; and then had what appeared to be a stress-induced asthma attack. (He never showed any other signs of asthma.)
I was clearly going to have to leave that kitten shut up in his own room for some time. And while I could come play with him briefly for several times a day, I was too busy to spend more time with him than that.
So I went back to the farm I’d gotten him from and also took home his sister. They wound up shut in that room for a couple of months. (Fairly large room, with furniture and windows.) One kitten would have been in serious distress. Two kittens were entirely fine. Endlessly interesting interactive cat toy and comfort pillow! plus cat to cat socialization.
That murder-threatening tomcat wound up routinely sleeping curled up with both of them, and played entirely friendly wrestling games (mostly with the male kitten/cat) for years until he became too weak from extreme old age. But when they first met, I really think he would have killed them if given the chance.
What great news! I’m so happy it is working out for everyone.
If you want another cat, I think it’s worth a shot - just go into it knowing it could take a bit before both cats adjust. There has been some fantastic advice in this thread!
And I think I’ve settled on a name - Clay is now known as Jax (although he obviously hasn’t figured that out yet haha). Jax and Oliver are currently wrestling on the living room floor and having a blast.
Thank you everyone that has participated/followed along in this thread! I hope you all have many kitties in your lives!
So, i have an older cat, and a litter of foster kittens. We plan to keep two of the foster kittens, and have permission from the shelter to introduce them to the cat
The cat has the run of the house. The kittens have a bedroom with an ensuite bathroom. The cat is usually fed in the kitchen and the kittens in the bathroom.
The door is too close to the floor for a paw.
Just to see what would happen, today i tried locking the kittens into their bathroom as they ate, and letting the cat into “their” room. (I’d fed the cat right before feeding the kittens. She was done, they weren’t.) The cat seemed cool with that. So i opened the bathroom door a couple of inches, just enough for a kitten to emerge. My idea was it could run back into the bathroom.
Anyway, the two ignored each other for a while, even getting close to each other. Then the cat hissed. I put the kitten into the bathroom, removed the cat from the bedroom, and let the kittens back into the bedroom.
Not a disaster, but not super.
I’m looking for advice. Next steps?
I would say that went just fine.
They may have appeared to be ignoring each other, but they weren’t. That determined I-am-not-looking-at-you is also a social signal, of sorts. They’re not ready to make contact yet, but they’re getting a sense of each other – and part of that sense is ‘will you leave me alone if I want you to’?
The older cat hissed when she’d had enough of the situation for the time being, and you did the right thing: you first removed the Intruder Kitten, and then moved the Resident Cat back to her usual space.
I’d wait a day, then do the same thing again. Try a different kitten, or even two at once (the whole litter might be overwhelming). Resident Cat may get along better with some of the fosters than others, and, if you get to choose which ones you’re keeping, I’d respect her opinion in the matter. – it may take some time, days or even weeks, for them to get comfortable with each other.
I’ve known a Resident Cat and Kittens Intruding to become friends even when the first reaction of Resident Cat was to swat the kitten so hard that it knocked the kitten off its feet. Yours is being quite polite!
It was definitely a social hiss, not an “I’m terrified” or other extreme reaction.
Okay, I’ll try again. And yeah, if the resident cat shows an obvious preference, that will weigh in the decision of which kitten to keep. That’s one if the reasons i wanted to start introducing them now.
The great thing about kitten being introduced to older cats is that they slap down and are humbled pretty easily. They don’t take offence the way an older cat might. That obliviousness generally takes the edge off the older cat pretty quickly.
I think you’re on the right track!
That does sound like it went pretty well! Good luck with your next introductions! Also, cat tax?
Also, I’ve gone full crazy cat lady. When I adopted Jax (fka Clay), I had a hard time choosing between him and a little female that was full of love. I ultimately picked Jax because I was (rightfully so) afraid that Oliver, my first cat, would be too much for her. However I couldn’t stop thinking about her, so I went back and got her a little over two weeks ago. Juno (because she was an unwed teenage mother) is still getting her bearings but overall going well. The boys are a little too much and she wants nothing to do with their shenanigans, but are able to be out around each other without supervision. She just needs some more time to really settle in.
June is adorable!
!!
Just my opinion but I am a confirmed crazy cat lady.
Years ago, I went over to visit friends who had barn cats with clear intentions of taking home One Kitten.
They had caught several kittens and had them waiting for me to choose from. I looked them over, and picked up one. She climbed up onto my shoulder and I was saying ‘oh, good, a Shoulder Cat’ – when she kept on going, leapt off the back of my shoulder at high speed, and disappeared into the recesses of the barn. I said ‘whoops, that wasn’t a Shoulder Cat, that was an Escaping Cat!’ and chose one of her siblings instead.
When I got her brother home, I tried introducing him to the resident cats. I first tried with a female cat who I knew had had kittens before I got her. The kitten came out of hiding to run up to her – his experience had been that all adult female cats took care of all kittens; that’s how barn cat colonies usually work. She said ‘That’s not my kitten!’ and swatted him so hard he wound up back under the bed.
So I tried bringing in my previously-rescued male cat. Who made a noise combining growl and siren which I interpreted, probably correctly, as intending murder. And the previously-mama cat was, obviously, not going to adopt the kitten and so would not be protecting him. What I had was a kitten who was going to need to be shut in one room until he was old enough to defend himself if necessary (and, in the meantime, the others could get used to the idea.)
So I went back to the barn and got him, as a companion, the sister who had previously fled from me; partly because, as you said, I couldn’t stop thinking of her. I am so glad that I did. Her brother was a good cat too; but she, for 17 years, was one of the best cats I’ve ever had. (And they all wound up sleeping curled up together with the previously-murderous tom. Previous-mama also reconciled with them, though usually not quite to that point.)
– did I already tell this story, in shorter form, in this thread? if so, sorry about that! but having typed out all of this form, I’m going to post it anyway.
It’s an adorable story, I at least was happy to hear it twice.
Same. I will love any thread about cats and kittens.
Thanks, both of you. But I’ll try not to tell it a third time! (at least, not for quite a while . . . )