Roommate’s boyfriend doesn’t want the cat anymore. New 5 year old female cat moves in to household with two fixed 18 year old male cats.
The two boys are Sam
and Styx
They get along well.
Here’s the kitty girl, Channelle
Less than 24 hours into it, it’s going as well as can be hoped. The only hissing and growling is of the “stay away from me” kind rather than the “get away from my territory” kind. It’s mainly Channelle who hisses and growls because she’s scared. When I pet her, which she likes, I get a mix of positive responses and hissing/growling at the same time.
Channelle is kept in a separate room for most of the day. Sam & Styx kept in separate room while Channelle gets to familiarize herself with the flat for a few hours. All three are always supervised when out at the same time.
So, any experiences, opinions, Dos and Dont’s to offer?
I can’t decide whether Chanelle’s big poofball body or Styx and Sam hugging is more cute. Anyway, the advice I’ve always heard with regards to introducing new cats is to isolate the new cat in a “safe room” - your bedroom, say - and feed each cat on opposite sides of the same closed door. Also, you can gently rub the side of one cat’s mouth with a cloth, then place it in front of another cat, introducing them to each other’s scents.
However, this is all to avoid a big fight when the cats first meet, so, seeing as that hasn’t happened, great! I have a hunch that because Styx and Sam are both used to the idea of interacting with a different cat, they might have an easier time than two “only cats” meeting. Plus, Chanelle’s a different gender, which is a big plus.
A common issue in a house with a new kitten and an older cat is that the owners are so enamored by the kitten that they aren’t as affectionate to the original cat, which can create tension. But I don’t think you’ll have a problem with showering all these guys in equal affection.
My experience with introducing younger cats to much older cats is that unless the younger cat is being aggressive, mostly there’s just hissing and growling. I say keep doing what you’re doing. It sounds like it’s going pretty well, actually.
Yes, you’ll have some hissing and spitting for a while until everyone understands whose territory is whose, whose favorite spot is off limits, who eats first, you know, the basic tenets of cat etiquette. And no, they may never be friends in the sense of cuddling up and sleeping together. But they will figure it out. As other posters have said, they aren’t actively fighting, just posturing, so it’s more about establishing the pecking order than it is about outight dislike.
I agree with making sure to give treats when everyone is contiguous and not hissing/spitting. Eventually they will associate that with the treats and want to hang out with one another for the treats. And that will lead to acceptance, too.
Moar kitty pics:
They get shaved once in a while for hygiene/health/comfort reasons. Sam likes to touch
With Jesus/nuclear explosion in the background
She was unimpressed by my accusations
Can’t wait until I can motorboat that fluffy belly without getting bitten
The boys don’t really have a sense of pecking order. Even for highly prized resources like tuna, they take turns eating out of the can. No territory or reserved spots either.
Channelle, on the other hand, seems to grumble a lot. It’s difficult to tell when she genuinely wants you to stop or if she’s growling reflexively. When I’m petting her, she’ll lean into my hand and growl at the same time. I think the roommate’s boyfriend yelled at her a lot and hit her. She was also bothered many times by a toddler.
I’ll see if I can find the video on this once I get home; it includes a couple ideas I haven’t seen upthread: play with the cat for a while, then let the other cats smell your hands. Play with the cat where the other cats can see you playing.
Yes, the growling could be a defense thing particularly since she’s kind of scared right now. I’ll bet she gets over it when she figures out nothing or no one will bother her.
What a beautiful girl, and those gigantic feet! (Insert about 12 Facebook hearts ). How could anyone be mean to her?? I want to kick their asses.
Are your older boys still in to playing? If so, you could get them all involved in a play session, preferably with a feather on a stick type toy (so that one of them doesn’t hog it all for him/her self), which would help with the bonding.
The boys still play, mainly red dot chasing or a string. Channelle seems to like chasing a string too. I’ll do that when they can stand behind in close proximity.
Your boys sound pretty mellow, which probably means Channelle will end up ruling the roost.
I think, too, that the growling is as much from anxiety over a new place, new people, and new fellow felines as it is anything and that when nothing bad happens to her, it will subside. If she was mistreated before, you certainly can’t blame her for not facing a new situation with trust.
My big puffy fluffy white Cattius Maximus would definitely approve of you taking in the orphan, and so do I.
One other thing I might suggest is to site-swap them at night, so that Channelle has several hours to explore the house freely. The main thing for her is building her confidence and sense of ownership in the new place. She needs to feel like this place is hers, so she will stop feeling anxious. If she feels secure, she will no longer feel a need to behave defensively around the other cats.
Since they can already be in the same room without beating each other up, rather than feeding on opposite sides of a closed door, you could try feeding on opposite sides of the room, and gradually move the food bowls closer to each other at each feeding. This will especially help if you can discover and feed the food that each cat LOVES above all others. You want them to be so happy at getting this awesome food that they forget to be angry / scared at the other cat for a while.
You’re already doing this, but playing with Channelle one-on-one will also help boost her confidence. And of course keep giving one-on-one playtime to the boys, too.
I adopted a shelter cat a some years ago when I had one resident cat and three dogs. I tucked him into a spare room to settle in and the first day went well, but after that he seemed miserable. He wanted nothing to do with any of us - my agreeable and easy going cat, the dogs, and even me. He hid and growled at everything.
I seriously considered returning him as I thought it would be cruel to keep him where he was so unhappy. But over the next few weeks, he got braver, came out to explore more, figured out how stairs worked (the miraculous connection between the living room and his safe place) and seemed to be much happier. I suspect he wasn’t a well loved cat in his former home. He’d been surrendered because “they didn’t want him anymore”, and he was the dullest Siamese cat I’ve ever met. He came around eventually and learned to tolerate the dogs, got along really well with my resident cat and even curled up with him in his kitty bed, and seemed to enjoy cuddling next to me on the couch, so all good in the end.
It sounds like you are off to a good start with all your cats. Just give it time.
She whinges a lot. The ambiguous part of knowing when she needs to be left alone and when she merely wants to be left alone. She has to be pushed out of her comfort zone to be shown that it’s safe.
A high premium must be put on avoiding an actual brawl with either one of the two boys because that could make them scared of each other for a long time. Styx growled and hissed for the only two times I’ve ever seen him do it in 18 years.
Fluff in sliver & shadow
). How could anyone be mean to her?? I want to kick their asses. 
