- Joined
- May 7, 2018
- Messages
- 96
- Purraise
- 77
We are doing our second foster-to-adopt trial. The first one did not work out because the cat was incredibly timid and seemed to aggressively hate our resident cat. Resident cat (2M, fixed), for his part, was never aggressive with her and very respectful of her space. He seemed to enjoy having company around, even though she did not, so we thought we'd try again.
We are now working with a new cat who has a more spunky personality. She is very petite and about six months old (also fixed). We've had her about two weeks now and she's already a very sweet, sunny, adventurous addition to our home.
Right now, she has the upstairs and our resident cat has the downstairs with frequent switching. We have been successfully feeding them on either side of a gate with no aggression for the last few days, so I decided to start doing supervised play sessions without the gate.
Initially, our new little girl would play while our resident cat would just crouch nearby and stare at her. Three days later, he's now a little more relaxed around her and will eat treats and play a little bit in her presence. But he's still got a creepy stare going on and sometimes an angry tail. She will try to slow blink him and he will not respond.
The real issue is that every time she runs, out of a room or whatever, he gives chase. And the chase gets pretty wild. It's a flat-out sprint where if he catches her he will jump on her back. He really seems to aggressively dominate her. She will run to a hiding place and then viciously hiss at him and sometimes swat at him. I've been harmed by our resident cat once trying to break it up (I've figured out how to herd him out with cardboard now without damaging myself). There's usually almost no warning for these chases. Everything goes from great and relaxed to chase in the blink of an eye.
He's also started doing things like trying to eat all of her food and using her litter box whenever we are doing group play in her room. She is becoming more tentative and hiding more, when before she seemed to have all the confidence in the world.
Should I move back in introduction protocol to group feeding and eliminate playtime? Or will this chasing stuff work its way out of their system as a pecking order is established? Our resident cat is about 2x the size/weight of new cat so I'm a little worried about her getting harmed.
We are now working with a new cat who has a more spunky personality. She is very petite and about six months old (also fixed). We've had her about two weeks now and she's already a very sweet, sunny, adventurous addition to our home.
Right now, she has the upstairs and our resident cat has the downstairs with frequent switching. We have been successfully feeding them on either side of a gate with no aggression for the last few days, so I decided to start doing supervised play sessions without the gate.
Initially, our new little girl would play while our resident cat would just crouch nearby and stare at her. Three days later, he's now a little more relaxed around her and will eat treats and play a little bit in her presence. But he's still got a creepy stare going on and sometimes an angry tail. She will try to slow blink him and he will not respond.
The real issue is that every time she runs, out of a room or whatever, he gives chase. And the chase gets pretty wild. It's a flat-out sprint where if he catches her he will jump on her back. He really seems to aggressively dominate her. She will run to a hiding place and then viciously hiss at him and sometimes swat at him. I've been harmed by our resident cat once trying to break it up (I've figured out how to herd him out with cardboard now without damaging myself). There's usually almost no warning for these chases. Everything goes from great and relaxed to chase in the blink of an eye.
He's also started doing things like trying to eat all of her food and using her litter box whenever we are doing group play in her room. She is becoming more tentative and hiding more, when before she seemed to have all the confidence in the world.
Should I move back in introduction protocol to group feeding and eliminate playtime? Or will this chasing stuff work its way out of their system as a pecking order is established? Our resident cat is about 2x the size/weight of new cat so I'm a little worried about her getting harmed.