Lately hubby and I have been seeing a stray cat around our house – a small gray tabby. She’s come around the house several times, and today I noticed that she’s pregnant. She’s also very thin and obviously a stray. I had been thinking that if she kept coming around, I’d leave some food out for her.
Earlier tonight we answered a knock at our front door. It was a neighbor from just down the street; one of our other neighbors, a gentleman who’s had several strokes in the past, had fallen and his wife couldn’t get him out of the floor. Could we help? Mr. Nightingale and I put on our shoes and went across the street, and managed to get Tom out of the floor and into his wheelchair without much trouble. As we were leaving our neighbor’s house, we saw the tabby again. Much to our surprise, she let us pet her and was very friendly. It turns out that she used to belong to Tom and Faye’s granddaughter, but now has no one to take care of her.
We took the tabby over to our house, ostensibly to show her where she could find some food. The little cat is quite the heartgrabber, though, and right now she’s sitting in my living room floor. Pending a medical exam and approval from our other cat, Molly (that part may be a problem), the tabby is probably going to become a permanent resident of Casa Nightingale.
Does anyone have suggestions on how to acclimate these two animals? The tabby is quite nonplussed by the other cat (she’s none too keen on the dog), but Molly has never been around any other cats and so far she is not happy about the interloper.
We’re keeping separate food dishes for them right now, although they’ll have to share a litterbox. I just want them to cohabitate without stressing either of them, but particularly Molly. She’s a head case and I’m rather protective of her feelings.
Classic way to introduce cats is to put one in a closed room (like a bathroom or bedroom) with food and litter box and let them acclimate by sniffing each other under the door. Then gradually introduce them under supervision.
You probably shouldn’t let the cats have physical contact until the new cat is tested for FeLuk and other cat nasties.
I’ve adopted several times. Only twice the adoptions were planned. In all cases, there has been an adjustment period.
It has seemed to me that the length of the adjustment period is dependant primarily on the personalities of the felines (or other species) involved.
Whether it takes a few weeks or a few months, they have always worked out an acceptable agreement between those involved, whatever that may be.
Currently we have 3 cats. Two get a long wonderfully. One would prefer being an only “child”. She won’t tolerate any interaction with one of the others and she will only tolerate mild interaction with the other. But they are all comfortable with their arrangement.
I’ve never gone the classic route Finagle described, but I think that for the sake of everyone’s health, I’d keep the cats separated until you can get the one into the vet to make sure she is not carrying anything contagious. I have always supervised them initially…keeping a spray bottle of water within reach so that if one became agressive towards another, I squirted towards them. Always broke them up and have been fortunate never to have any serious injuries.
Thanks for the advice. We’re going to take her to the vet ASAP – Saturday at the latest. So far things are not going well. The new kitty has met the dog (Murphy) with no big freakout, and he is just curious about her, but Molly is not a happy camper. She’s sitting in the window sill and when I tried to pet her to reassure her, she hissed at me! A real ears-laid-back-swatting-me-with-her-paws-back-off-bitch hiss. I almost cried; Molly tends to ignore my husband but she usually loves me, and I’ll be devastated if she stops. My husband in particular seems to be falling in love with the new cat, so I really want this situation to work out.
Time, time, time. I have a menagerie now (3 dogs, 3 cats) and when I introduced my newest, Hanna the Tabby, last fall I thought my older female cat, Abby, would never accept her. It took about 5-6 months, but now Abby and Hanna get along just great. Hanna was definitely a godd addition to our household. Just be patient, and don’t be upset if they don’t bond in the first few months.
Eek, this is not going well at all! Molly is still acting out; she hisses at my husband and me when we try to pet her, and last night she even tried to bite him. This is highly unusual behavior for her. I don’t know if she’s panicking because she can smell the new kitty on our hands, or if she’s just royally pissed that we brought the interloper into HER house. It’s very upsetting to me, though; I adore Molly and she usually adores me. It looks as though the new cat is here to stay, so I really need for Molly to accept her presence, even if she doesn’t like her. I don’t so much care if they bond with each other, but I sure don’t want Molly to end up hating me.
Congrats on your new baby - she’ll be happy to have found a loving home. As far as Molly, let her have a few days to get over her jealousy. My boy, Oscar, is extremely attached to me and gets VERY jealous when he sees me petting another cat (which can be a problem because he lives in a house of five of them), and he especially hates seeing me with a kitten. When I kitten-sat for a friend once, he saw me holding her, and went into the living room growling his little head off. When I went near him, he hissed and swatted at me. He was angry for a good 3 days, but he got over it and was his usual loving self with me. Even now, he gets jealous and headbutts me when the other cats are getting attention, but he doesn’t hiss about it. The only time he gets upset is when he sees me holding Hurricane, who’s not a kitten, but very small and skittish, so I think Oscar sees him as a kitten. But even then, he gets over it very fast.
Give Molly a little time. She knows who her mom is and she’s just working out a little jealousy.
This just in. . . Sophie (new kitty) has just given birth to a kitten! Looks like we adopted her just in time. Iwas really hoping for a few more days to fatten her up though-- she’s so thin. Wish her luck, as hubby is at the MD and I’m on my way to work. He’ll be coming back later to check on her, but so far no problems.
Hubby called me at work to announce the birth of four kittens – from what I can tell, 2 girls and 2 boys. All are very cute and seem to be doing fine; we’re a little concerned about the smallest, because she’s rather cold, but all of them are attemping to nurse. Sophie seems exhausted but got good report from the vet today. We’ll take her back in 3 weeks for blood work to rule out FeLuk and feline AIDS, but I’m not too worried about those as it appears Sophie has had some medical care in the past.
Molly seems to be a little better today; she allowed me to pet her and even purred when I did. Hopefully time will heal her wounded pride.
Congratulations on the new additions, Nightingale. If you do keep Sophie or any of her kittens, please get them desexed or I’ll have to nag ya
Molly will get used to the new cats but she’ll probably like to show her disapproval from time to time. Cats are like that. I have 15 cats and 4 dogs (and a whole lot of other critters). They generally get on with each other with the exception of one cat, Mia. She’s moody and bossy with everyone but she can be such a sweetie sometimes that it’s hard to not like her. I’m sure she wishes she was an only child. Anyway, thank goodness you took Sophie in…it sounds like it was just in time. Just keep giving Molly the attention she’s used to and I’m sure the cats will work things out between themselves.
Thanks, Necromancer. Don’t worry, we had Molly fixed at a young age and Sophie will get the same – the only animal at our place with no plans for desexing is our American Bulldog, Murphy, because we’ll probably breed him.
Anyhoo, this morning we still have 4 lively kittens. The runt we were worried about made it through the night. The thing we’re watching for now is to be sure that Sophie makes plenty of milk; she is so thin that we’re afraid she won’t be able to produce enough.
Nightengale–if you’re that worried, hand-nurse the kittens with KMR. KMR is a kitten milk replacement formula you mix like baby formula and feed them with itty bitty little bottles you can buy at the petstore. If you’re feeding them KMR as a supplement to what Sophie’s feeding them, they’ll grow up big and fat and sassy.
Don’t worry about Molly. I’m sure she’ll get over it. Another way to introduce Molly and Sophie is to put each one in a cat carrier with the carriers facing each other and put them about 15-20 ft away from each other for about an hour a day for a week or so. Then on the second week, place them about 10 ft from each other and continue as in week 1. Continue this until they are almost touching and there is little to no growling/hissing/whatever between the two cats. When you finally DO let them out together, keep that watergun handy in case there is any fighting or whatever between them. A few swats and growls is normal though, to help establish dominance, which from the sound of it will be Molly.
Another way to reassure MOlly she is the number one cat in the household is to feed them seperately but always feed Molly FIRST. Pet her FIRST when you arrive home. Always put her FIRST and she’ll probably have less trouble adapting to Sophie and the kittens.
Congratulations on your new cats! I’m sure this’ll be a standard procedure for the vet, but make sure that the new cat & her kittens are wormed before you let them make contact with your other cat. There’s nothing more disgusting than worms crawling out of a cat’s butt, unless it’s worms crawling out of multiple cats’ butts. I’m betting that your new tabby, since she was wandering outside for so long, has been exposed to parasites, and if she’s got 'em, so do her babies.
Anyway, I_Dig_Bad_Boys’ advice is really good. You might also give Molly something of the tabby’s to smell, so she gets used to the other cat’s scent. But you’ll want wait to do that until after she’s been checked out by a vet, in case she has communicable diseases.
It took my cats about 2 weeks to get used to each other. Our older cat lurked outside the door where the other one was confined long enough to get used to her scent and stop hissing. When the new cat was better (she had several infections & a bad case of worms), we let them look at each other from opposite ends of the hall. The older cat was really pissed, but she was completely unphased by him when he puffed up and started hissing. She actually chased him down the hall before we could catch her. He didn’t try to hurt her, though, which surprised me. I don’t know if that’s precociousness or stupidity, but it seemed to work. They love each other now - even though they fight, they sleep on top of each other and groom each other every day.
Some cats never really like each other, though. But even if your cats don’t end up getting really close, they’ll form a truce and should be able to live together well. Best of luck!!
Well, we came home to find four kittens with fat bellies; it looks like Sophie is producing plenty of milk, so we wont have to bottlefeed the kittens. It also appears that Sophie’s maternal protective instincts have kicked into high gear. She hissed at Molly and growled at Murphy! I get the feeling that the next few weeks are going to be interesting around here.
