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Yes, and I'm happy to report that T is crying less as a result, because even if we're not on her side of the gate she can usually see us and she's content (for now) to just watch what's happening in the living room. K is usually also in line of sight.The 'extending the gate time' sounds really good.
I think she did know, but I'm not sure she understood or remembered. I feel like T forgets things as soon as they happen, or she gets distracted. I'm chalking it up to kitten-brain?I had just wondered if T ....had actually known that K was upstairs, at this point in time.
Thank you C calicosrspecial for your advice! We are now proactively interrupting or distracting (as best we can) if K starts to make any sort of negative-seeming noise or motion and I think it's helping, though of course it has only been a day or two. Previously we were waiting to see what happened when they were near each other. We just don't want to hover too intensely!Just take it a bit slow on visual interactions and try to make them as positive as possible and distract (play, food, treats) in order to get them to break any focus or negativity.
Oh, and we are rewarding K for going near the gate even if T isn't right there, and I think she's starting to go to the gate more often as a result (though she is really focused on the treats and studiously ignoring T).
I wanted to give an update: we let T explore part of K's territory (downstairs) while we fenced in K in the kitchen. We combined it with mealtime so that we could more easily lure T back up to her room with food if needed.
It ended up being only for ten minutes because I got worried K was getting too agitated...
K hunkered down in front of the gate to watch T, my partner reported that she looked anxious (I couldn't see her face, I was behind her). I distracted her with many treats and she seemed alright, maybe a little confused/uncertain.
T sniffed around a bunch and was probably overwhelmed with the new area to explore - she didn't touch her dry food at first but in the last few minutes she started to eat it slowly (again, she usually eats at light speed, so she must have been nervous).
Because K started huffing a bit, even with treats, we brought T back upstairs and let K back out. K immediately did a round of checking on things and sniffing, but then settled back into her heated box (where she normally goes after a meal these days).
I guess I would consider that successful since nothing overtly negative happened between them? We'll keep doing this as time allows, set-up is a bit difficult.