Resident cat still afraid of kitten after 2 weeks

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Jadef
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Joined: Sun Nov 13, 2022 6:35 pm

Resident cat still afraid of kitten after 2 weeks

Post by Jadef »

Hello,

Just looking for a bit of advice regarding integrating new kitten.
We have a resident cat who is 3 years old and has been around other cats when she was younger when friends who had cats used to look after her when we were on holiday. She was fine with them.

We adopted a 4 month old girl 2 weeks ago and we have kept them separate for the first week and did scent swapping and have 3 feliway friends plugged in around the house. We gave the cats treats when we did scent swapping so they would associate this with something positive. The kitten was kept in the spare room which is next to the bathroom and our resident cat stopped using her litter box in the bathroom so we had to move it. In fact she stopped hanging out on the landing at all, and we have to coax her up with treats. We had the door ajar at times to the spare so they could peek at one another but our resident cat would run if she saw a peek.

The first time we introduced the cats, our kitten chased our resident cat who was hissing and growling the whole time so went' back to square one, scent swapping and kept them separate for another week. Tried to introduce them slowly again and the same thing happened, kitten tried to chase (probably playing) with our resident cat who was having none of it, scarpered outside, hissing all the way. The new kitten must have felt threatened as her tail went all bushy. Resident cat used to meander around the house but now she tends to stay downstairs or in the garden during the day, and only comes up to bed late at night or ends up sleeping on the sofa, something she never used to do. If she does spend the night on the sofa she will however still come up to wake us for her breakfast.

When resident cat is outside we do give the kitten the run of upstairs or the whole house so she isn't cooped up all the time. The downstairs is open plan so can't install any screens etc. Maybe I could install a screen on the spare room door or something so they can see each other but not interact?

Just looking for integration tips really as I don't want my resident girl to be stressed and feel she can't go upstairs when she wants and also don't want to give up on the new girl who is an absolutely lovely cat and just wants to play. Thanks!
marigold575
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Re: Resident cat still afraid of kitten after 2 weeks

Post by marigold575 »

Hello

You might find some helpful tip on the Cat chat Advice page for introducing cats: https://www.catchat.org/index.php/new-cat-introductions

I wonder whether playing with the kitten prior to any meetings to try and lower their energy would be any help?

I hope they grow to be friends soon.
Jadef
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Re: Resident cat still afraid of kitten after 2 weeks

Post by Jadef »

Thank you for the suggestion. We tried this and still continued with the above steps but the new kitten has no started attacking (definitely not playfighting) our resident cat so we will need to take her back to the shelter. It's such a shame as she is a lovely cat but they just don't get on.
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Mollycat
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Re: Resident cat still afraid of kitten after 2 weeks

Post by Mollycat »

Sorry to read this. Although some cats will never accept others, allowing them to be free in the same room after just two weeks was probably too soon. Introductions can take months, made up of small steps and giving them several days to get comfortable with each step before moving on to the next small step. All sounds rather rushed.
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