Bringing another cat into my home

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Debs123
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Bringing another cat into my home

Post by Debs123 »

Hi

Looking for some advice.

I have two young cats, one 9 months old and one 6 months old that I adopted from the RSPCA and have been with me since New years day.

My daughter needs to re-home her cat as it doesn't get on with her dog. It has become aggressive and lashes out for no apparent reason, causing concerns around scratching my 6yr old granddaughter. They have had the dog for just over a year and the cat for about three years.

I am willing to take the cat on myself, but would really do with some advice as to how to settle the cat in and integrate it with my two cats who are quite new to my home themselves. I don't want the cat to go into rescue, as it will really upset my granddaughter who has been through a tough time over the last 18 months or so.

Any advice would be really appreciated, as my granddaughter loves her cat but it is getting really spiteful.
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Ruth B
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No. of cats in household: 3
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Re: Bringing another cat into my home

Post by Ruth B »

You will need to set up a room for the new cat and if possible bring as many things from its old home as you can, beds, cat trees, food bowls, litter trays etc. Make the room as comfortable as possible for them, give them plenty of places to sleep and access to a window so they can look out, they may be in there for a few weeks or even a few months.

Be prepared to take the introductions slow. Let the new cat settle in and become confident in their new home, just the one room, hopefully they will settle in and now they are safe in that room and the lashing out will subside as their confidence grows. Then start scent swapping, adding in things that smell of your cats and taking things that smell of the new cat out into the house so the other cats can get used to it, you may find that having plenty of old blankets and towels to use for this helps. Try and make sure that anything with the scent of the unknown cats on it is associated with nice things, treats, a good fuss or play time. Next get all the cats used to feeding either side of the door, so they can hear and smell each other but not see each other, you might have to start them off some distance away and gradually bring them closer. Finally if you can get some type of screen door or a baby gate a cat can not get through put that in place and start opening the door gradually at meal times until all three cats can see each other. Hopefully they will just look at the other cats and carry on eating. At that point you can think about extending the new cats territory, slowly bring their things out of the room expanding their area to merge with the other cats. Also be prepared to go back a step or two if things go wrong.

I hate to have to say this but your daughters cat has been through a very traumatic experience, they had a safe home and territory. Then one day a dog arrived and invaded their space, the other people they shared the territory with made no effort to evict the invader, possibly they even told the cat off if it tried to defend its territory against the invader. The cat felt it was left to try and defend its fort all by itself and people it had trusted had turned traitor to it. This wouldn't have been helped by the fact that dogs and cats have very different body language and what may have been friendly advances by the dog, and seen as such by the humans, would have been seen as aggressive attacks by the cat. You now have the problem of building the cats confidence back up and giving it a territory it can feel safe in while it can hear and smell two possible invaders the other side of the door. It can be done, but it will take time and effort on your part.

While not to everyone's liking Jackson Galaxy does have a lot of good advice on introducing cats and dealing with 'problem' behaviour and cat introductions, and there are a lot of his videos free to view on Youtube, he can be very American in his way and his delivery though. Alternatively Vicky Halls is a British cat behaviourist that has written some wonderful books about cats and again how to introduce a new cat, so they might be more appealing to you in their style. Either would give you a lot of clues as to why your new cat is behaving as it does, and what you can do about it.
Debs123
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Joined: Sun Mar 21, 2021 6:19 pm

Re: Bringing another cat into my home

Post by Debs123 »

Thank you that is really helpful advice. Let's hope it all works xxx
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