I've been reading through some of the existing introduction threads and though it seems we have a somewhat similar situation to a couple others, it also has unique challenges. We are making progress but some extra hand holding wouldn't hurt! This is probably going to be a bit long as we've been going at this for a few weeks already now.
We have 3 resident cats. We had 4 but lost our oldest earlier in the year. We have 2 boys and 1 girl all seniors (age 12-14) Caspian, Orion, and Splenda. They're pretty chill cats and haven't had many issues with new cats in the past, including each other, a friend's cat, various community cats that would hang around our old houses (mostly outside but there was the one that broke into our house once. They were fine with it.) We were originally planning on getting another girl but met a super friendly 3 year old boy at the shelter and after thinking about it and looking around at female cats for a couple weeks we decided he's our kitty and went to see about taking him home. We named him Sebastian. Aka Bastian.
We were a bit nervous as the shelter mentioned he did better with kittens while he had been in their community room and would likely also be good with female cats. But they were optimistic he'd be OK with our boys, too, as he was in their community room before he was neutered and he had been neutered before we brought him home.
It's been 7 weeks. Initially we didn't want any real contact because we know shelter kitties can come with some contagious things so we held off until he could get in to the vet and by that point he'd developed a URI so had to be kept separate for another couple weeks, roughly 4 weeks total. Though we did occasionally open the door a crack and feed treats once his symptoms were going away.)
I can't say the introductions are going *bad* so much as just... Slow. Turns out he's a VERY PLAYFUL cat so we had to start to really focus on enriching his environment and playing with him a lot or he'd jump on us. Still does sometimes when he gets agitated/over stimulated and we can't distract him quickly enough. I very much don't think he's an aggressive cat, just super playful.
This is where the slowness comes in with the introductions. We had been having him explore the house with the other cats for a few minutes supervised but inevitably he'd end up jumping on one of the other cats. Once or twice fur ended up flying though they were easy enough to separate we decided to take a step back and do a much slower introduction. I think he was trying to play and it escalated from there.
Currently they get their meals on either side of a makeshift gate (thanks to whoever suggested wire shelves in another thread!) They're all perfectly fine with this. There's the occasional grumble or hiss, not necessarily directed at Bastian. More between the resident cats (Orion likes to sniff at the other cats wet food bowls even though he absolutely will not touch wet food and they don't like him doing that.)
Very occasionally my husband will bring Bastian to me in bed on the weekend and he and the other cats have some treats before Bastian goes back to his room (except Splenda. She's skittish around humans that aren't me and also not very big on treats.) We trade their places almost every day for at least an hour with the resident cats going in his room and Bastian getting the run of the rest of the house.
We've started to allow short supervised visits with one cat at a time. It's going pretty well, I try to always have cardboard handy which has been helpful. Usually he sniffs them first but he typically jumps on them after that. We let a resident cat choose if they want to enter his room with him. So far it's only been Caspian and Orion choosing to do so. With Orion, Bastian first sniffed then jumped on him. I don't recall any loud noises before they were separated. Orion cowered for a minute grumbling while I kept Bastian from approaching him again (with the cardboard) then eventually Orion left the room. He immediately returned (now with the gate between them) for treats.
With Caspian yesterday Bastian sniffed him... Then bit the back of his neck in what I believe is a show of dominance. Incidentally Orion does this to Caspian, too. Idk what it is about Caspian that elicits this reaction from other males. But in any case no major reaction there either, Bastian let go, I put down the cardboard, Caspian sauntered out the gate and immediately returned for treats on either side of the gate.
Usually the door is closed completely when meals are done or soon after (mainly because the gate wasn't secured) but I wanted them to have more time to choose whether or not to interact through the gate and was able to leave the door open with the gate in place most of the day yesterday, except when I was outside and when Bastian was out in the house. It went very well, though I got nervous when Bastian was sitting behind the gate just staring at Orion who was sleeping on the couch. Eventually he lost interest and he didn't much pay any attention to Caspian being basically right next to him outside the gate that whole time.
Last night after dinner something caught Bastian's attention outside his room. We're not sure if it was Splenda or something outside in the yard. But, he decided to see if he could jump the not at all sturdy gate. It came crashing down and frightened us all. My husband and I were convinced there was going to be a fight, tails were puffed, all four cats ran for the couch to go under/behind it. I grabbed the cardboard. Bastian was behind the couch with his head under, Splenda was under the couch, Orion and Caspian were behind the couch on the other side (it's up against a corner.) Somehow I managed to maneuver the cardboard between Bastian and the other cats and he allowed my husband to pick him up and bring him back to his room with lots of soothing "good boy"s.
Thankfully this morning nobody seemed traumatized enough by the crashing gate to avoid it and continued to eat just fine next to it. I was able to keep the door open for quite a while again though not as long, as we're working on making a taller more secure gate.
At one point today Bastian was napping on my husband in his room and Caspian decided to come in and lay on me. It was at least a few minutes before Bastian noticed Caspian in the room and he stayed on my husband for a bit (while staring me down like "excuse me why are you petting brother and not me?" So I gave him some pets and smooches too) he jumped down and started to sniff at Caspian who basically turned around and sauntered out of the room with Bastians nose in his butt. I would have waited to see what would happen, but I didn't want Bastian in the rest of the house with all the other cats quite yet so I picked him up and closed the door behind Caspian. Nice calm encounter.
We're most nervous with Splenda partly because she's smallest but also because she is most likely to act like prey. It's also going to have to be me alone introducing them cause of her skittishness with my husband. We tried having the door open with the gate up when they traded spaces today but the resident cats so hate being cooped up, Splenda was trying to dig her way under the gate and got herself stuck in a corner backed up to the gate with Orion in front of her and then Bastian charged her through the gate (he stopped at the gate, no paws or anything, she didn't react at all but she was facing Orion.)
I have some pictures but they won't load. I may have to try from my computer another time. For the most part I don't think Bastian is aggressive, just very playful and the other cats aren't used to that. Most of the times he has jumped on them they've been walking away from him. Not running, just walking.
Anyways that's where we're at! I'm hopeful that at least Bastian and Caspian will be able to coexist soon.
We have 3 resident cats. We had 4 but lost our oldest earlier in the year. We have 2 boys and 1 girl all seniors (age 12-14) Caspian, Orion, and Splenda. They're pretty chill cats and haven't had many issues with new cats in the past, including each other, a friend's cat, various community cats that would hang around our old houses (mostly outside but there was the one that broke into our house once. They were fine with it.) We were originally planning on getting another girl but met a super friendly 3 year old boy at the shelter and after thinking about it and looking around at female cats for a couple weeks we decided he's our kitty and went to see about taking him home. We named him Sebastian. Aka Bastian.
We were a bit nervous as the shelter mentioned he did better with kittens while he had been in their community room and would likely also be good with female cats. But they were optimistic he'd be OK with our boys, too, as he was in their community room before he was neutered and he had been neutered before we brought him home.
It's been 7 weeks. Initially we didn't want any real contact because we know shelter kitties can come with some contagious things so we held off until he could get in to the vet and by that point he'd developed a URI so had to be kept separate for another couple weeks, roughly 4 weeks total. Though we did occasionally open the door a crack and feed treats once his symptoms were going away.)
I can't say the introductions are going *bad* so much as just... Slow. Turns out he's a VERY PLAYFUL cat so we had to start to really focus on enriching his environment and playing with him a lot or he'd jump on us. Still does sometimes when he gets agitated/over stimulated and we can't distract him quickly enough. I very much don't think he's an aggressive cat, just super playful.
This is where the slowness comes in with the introductions. We had been having him explore the house with the other cats for a few minutes supervised but inevitably he'd end up jumping on one of the other cats. Once or twice fur ended up flying though they were easy enough to separate we decided to take a step back and do a much slower introduction. I think he was trying to play and it escalated from there.
Currently they get their meals on either side of a makeshift gate (thanks to whoever suggested wire shelves in another thread!) They're all perfectly fine with this. There's the occasional grumble or hiss, not necessarily directed at Bastian. More between the resident cats (Orion likes to sniff at the other cats wet food bowls even though he absolutely will not touch wet food and they don't like him doing that.)
Very occasionally my husband will bring Bastian to me in bed on the weekend and he and the other cats have some treats before Bastian goes back to his room (except Splenda. She's skittish around humans that aren't me and also not very big on treats.) We trade their places almost every day for at least an hour with the resident cats going in his room and Bastian getting the run of the rest of the house.
We've started to allow short supervised visits with one cat at a time. It's going pretty well, I try to always have cardboard handy which has been helpful. Usually he sniffs them first but he typically jumps on them after that. We let a resident cat choose if they want to enter his room with him. So far it's only been Caspian and Orion choosing to do so. With Orion, Bastian first sniffed then jumped on him. I don't recall any loud noises before they were separated. Orion cowered for a minute grumbling while I kept Bastian from approaching him again (with the cardboard) then eventually Orion left the room. He immediately returned (now with the gate between them) for treats.
With Caspian yesterday Bastian sniffed him... Then bit the back of his neck in what I believe is a show of dominance. Incidentally Orion does this to Caspian, too. Idk what it is about Caspian that elicits this reaction from other males. But in any case no major reaction there either, Bastian let go, I put down the cardboard, Caspian sauntered out the gate and immediately returned for treats on either side of the gate.
Usually the door is closed completely when meals are done or soon after (mainly because the gate wasn't secured) but I wanted them to have more time to choose whether or not to interact through the gate and was able to leave the door open with the gate in place most of the day yesterday, except when I was outside and when Bastian was out in the house. It went very well, though I got nervous when Bastian was sitting behind the gate just staring at Orion who was sleeping on the couch. Eventually he lost interest and he didn't much pay any attention to Caspian being basically right next to him outside the gate that whole time.
Last night after dinner something caught Bastian's attention outside his room. We're not sure if it was Splenda or something outside in the yard. But, he decided to see if he could jump the not at all sturdy gate. It came crashing down and frightened us all. My husband and I were convinced there was going to be a fight, tails were puffed, all four cats ran for the couch to go under/behind it. I grabbed the cardboard. Bastian was behind the couch with his head under, Splenda was under the couch, Orion and Caspian were behind the couch on the other side (it's up against a corner.) Somehow I managed to maneuver the cardboard between Bastian and the other cats and he allowed my husband to pick him up and bring him back to his room with lots of soothing "good boy"s.
Thankfully this morning nobody seemed traumatized enough by the crashing gate to avoid it and continued to eat just fine next to it. I was able to keep the door open for quite a while again though not as long, as we're working on making a taller more secure gate.
At one point today Bastian was napping on my husband in his room and Caspian decided to come in and lay on me. It was at least a few minutes before Bastian noticed Caspian in the room and he stayed on my husband for a bit (while staring me down like "excuse me why are you petting brother and not me?" So I gave him some pets and smooches too) he jumped down and started to sniff at Caspian who basically turned around and sauntered out of the room with Bastians nose in his butt. I would have waited to see what would happen, but I didn't want Bastian in the rest of the house with all the other cats quite yet so I picked him up and closed the door behind Caspian. Nice calm encounter.
We're most nervous with Splenda partly because she's smallest but also because she is most likely to act like prey. It's also going to have to be me alone introducing them cause of her skittishness with my husband. We tried having the door open with the gate up when they traded spaces today but the resident cats so hate being cooped up, Splenda was trying to dig her way under the gate and got herself stuck in a corner backed up to the gate with Orion in front of her and then Bastian charged her through the gate (he stopped at the gate, no paws or anything, she didn't react at all but she was facing Orion.)
I have some pictures but they won't load. I may have to try from my computer another time. For the most part I don't think Bastian is aggressive, just very playful and the other cats aren't used to that. Most of the times he has jumped on them they've been walking away from him. Not running, just walking.
Anyways that's where we're at! I'm hopeful that at least Bastian and Caspian will be able to coexist soon.