Kitten troubles, can anyone advise?

[rayvenspel]

My new kitten Echo is 3.5 months and has been living with me for the past 6 weeks.Whilst shes a wonderful loving kitten with her humans she is terrorizing my resident cats . They have only been interacting for the last few weeks (i did a gradual introduction) but she is constantly chasing after them and jumping on them. Their growling and paw swinging seems to be no deterrent and my distraction techniques and water spraying have come to no avail. Has anyone else had these same problems with a kitten? Will she grow out of it? I'd hate to have to rehome her but i have to consider my other cats. :/

[exlibris]

How old are your other cats? If they're 10+ it may be all the excess kitten energy it stressing them out. You could try exhausting Echo. I've heard of one person who created a sort of cat 'assault course' involving an awful lot of leaping around onto things, they led their cat over it everyday by dragging string (or laser pointer) which the cat followed. If your kitten is able to burn her energy elsewhere she won't be pouncing on everything else.
Also, can you keep Echo away from the other cats' 'safe spots' where they retreat to chill out?
Good luck.

[rayvenspel]

Thankyou so much for your reply The other cats are 3 and 4, not quite lazy layabouts just yet lol but nowhere near as active as Echo. I do try to make sure when they're in their nap spots that the kitten is kept well away, its so difficult trying to keep them separated all the time though. The assault course sounds like a fabulous idea, keeping her amused for long isn't easy- she gets bored with things very quick! Do you think she'll grow out of this cat chasing in time?

[exlibris]

She'll eventually calm down - I don't know how long though, it's been quite while since my 2 were kittens (now both 13). I do know my 2 used to chase each other. Twitch would chase Backy down from the attic room, down 2 flights of stairs, then right down the house to the bathroom....then they'd switch and Backy chased Twitch all the way back up into the attic. Obviously playful, but it always sounded like a herd of elephants running through the house! I hope with time your 2 older cat will accept Echo and they'll get involved with the games too. Hope it goes well

[rayvenspel]

Ah thanks for that, hoping she'll grow out of it is something i'm clinging to after everything's failed so far! A peaceful house of contented cats and decreased blood-pressure for their suffering mummy- one day!

[Guinevere]

Your kitten is simply being a kitten and if she were with her own litter they would all be flying around chasing each other! She will calm down when/if you neuter her.

When my cat was a year old I got a kitten/playmate for her. She certainly kept her distance from him for the first few months while he was totally manic running up the curtains, pouncing on her etc. After a few months they became firm friends and would happily chase each other round the garden. Unfortunately, that little lad was hit by a car at 18 months and I later tried with another kitten (a girl) but she simply would not accept her in her house and I eventually rehomed her.

What sexes are they all?

[rayvenspel]

The new kitten is female. The cat she terrorizes the most is Butters (male) but he's too soft to raise a paw when she leaps on him. The other 2 cats I have are CC (female) who detests Echo and hisses relentlessly at the mere sight of her and Boo (male) who's more of an outdoorsy sort of boy so luckily not that affected. You're totally right Guinevere, its exactly the sort of behaviour that would be going on if she were with her litter still, I guess its just that I've never experienced this with a new kitten before and older cats - I'm a nervous wreck! Hopefully everything will all calm down in a bit and they can learn to tolerate each other but I guess it's the same as with people-some of us just clash! I'll continue to perservere, try to intervene when the pouncing starts and keep Echo amused as much as I can. Roll on 3 months and neutering time!

[Jacks]

The urge to play is really strong and it sounds like you have a very playful kitten! I adopted a 4 month kitten for my 6 month kitten when I realised she needed a playmate - and went for a very playful youngster as the first didn't know how to play, having not had any litter mates. They were chasing through the house within 3 days. Both are girls.

I'm sure she will calm down in time and in the meantime needs to be kept active as much as possible - it's either that or get her a young and playful companion...