Need Help Integrating New Kitten!

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mhawkins
New Cat Chatter
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Dec 03, 2022 9:50 am

Need Help Integrating New Kitten!

Post by mhawkins »

My wife and I just adopted a 6 month old male kitten (NK) from the shelter here in Toronto, on November 26. Already neutered, up to date shots, clean bill of health. Brought him home on Saturday. Absolute cuddle bug and hates being separated from people. This is our first time introducing cats.

Resident cat (RC) is a 12 year old female, spayed. She was adopted with another cat (who sadly, passed away last year) back in 2010. She's very bonded to me; she only goes to my wife when I'm not around. She's also an absolute cuddle bug.

We were doing a modified introduction plan - I work nights and RC spends the day sleeping with me in the bedroom; during this time NK is allowed out to explore as a partial territory swap. NK is not allowed into the main bedroom, and RC isn't allowed into the second bedroom.

We seemed to be doing well - we were doing scent swaps and had got RC to the point that there was no longer hissing at his scent. There was still some hissing if he batted under the door and she saw it, but otherwise she was pretty normal without issues.

Until yesterday morning. NK got out when I went to feed him (bolted out) and beelined for the living room. RC saw him and became a hissing, growling monster until we got him out of there. We then had the opposite happen a few hours later; RC got out when NK was out and about, and RC went into a hiss & snarl mode; at one point I thought she was going to charge him and she raised her paw to swat him (but he was far enough away she never followed through).

We have them separated again, but now RC is hissing and growling every time she goes by the door where he is, whether she sees him or not. RC is perfectly content otherwise and still fine with us; it's just by his door we're having the issue currently.

I feel like we've completely lost any progress we've made - in fact, RC wasn't even hissing this much when we first brought NK home. I'm now lost on how we should progress and how to recover this. I'm terrified we've blown it already and will have to look at rehoming NK (which will be devastating) - I know it's only been a week but I've completely lost confidence with how severe this setback is.
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