How To Help Our New Cat Gain Confidence?

Apologies in advance for being lengthy.

We have a 1 yr old F (spayed) cat for about 7 months now. I'll call her M1. We adopted a second 3 yr old F (spayed) cat three weeks ago. Initially we kept the new cat, M2, in her own room but we started site swapping early because she would always want to follow us outside the room. They were able to eat within a couple feet of each other with the door open a crack. After a week, we put up a baby gate and before we could stop her, M1 jumped over and they met face to face. There was some initially hissing when either cat got too close to each other. But that first night, M2 gingerly explored more while M1 followed her around at a distance.

Since then, we have kept them both free roaming. M1 keeps trying to play and get close to M2 but M2 will low growl or hiss whenever she feels like M1 is too close. M1 now spends most of the days underneath beds in different rooms upstairs. I am able to feed them treats within about a foot of each other. They will eat peacefully. I can also play with both of them with a chaser toy. M1 will play, then I'll dangle it in front of M2 and she'll play. But she's still fairly skittish. They can also lay together in a room however it sort of feels like M1 is blocking M2 from the door. M2 sometimes will even flip on her back if M1 is laying a safe distance away.

Every time M2 ventures out, M1 will be interested. M2 gets scared and runs and M1 will chase. M2 has been exploring the downstairs lately at night when M1 goes to sleep with us. This morning, M1 followed me down and M2 was still downstairs at the time. She got nervous, and ran to the upstairs... which of course M1 chased her all the way. During this we can hear M2 hiss but we haven't found blood or signs of any bad fights.

I think this is all normal in the sense that M2 is just nervous in a new home and M1 is being overly playful? How do we help M2 become more comfortable so she can stand her ground more? My fear is that the more she runs, the more M1 chases and I don't want them to form the relationship where M1 is always chasing M2. It just seems like M2 is always hiding when M1 is around. As soon as she hears M1 coming up the stairs (bell on her collar), I hear her bell sounds as she runs under a bed.

Some other tidbits is that they both are eating and it seems like they are fine using each other's litter boxes. We have one on each floor. The only issue is M2 eats slower and takes breaks and it seems like M1 will eat both their food.

I think they are doing great. If you don’t have up high places, like cat trees in most rooms I would add them so M2 has the ability to watch things from above rather than below. However some cats are cave dwellers so that is no guarantee she will use them. Other than that the best thing you can do is ignore her fearful behavior and let her continue to explore and adjust on her own.

It sounds like things are going well. I might give M2 some more time in the broader house without M1 so she can feel like there are established hiding places and secure areas she can fall back to that are outside of the safe room. Also, if you can play with M2 in the main living areas of the house while M1 is put in a room for a little while, that will increase her confidence in those areas of the house.

We just got through a two month introduction process and the chasing does end up tapering off. Part of the process of getting it to do so was to raise our new cat's confidence to the level that she would chase back. Once it became more reciprocal, our resident cat backed off. So give her some alone time, some rough play, and some time to acclimate and you'll get there.

Just to give you a sense, it took us three weeks before the cats were able to hang out together, five before we allowed them to free roam, and eight until chasing stopped and they were able to live in relative peace. So patience is key. Best of luck!

Here are some images of them playing in M2’s safe room. M1 (resident cat) is the calico. Thank you everyone for the positive encouragement. I was just so scared after watching M1 chase M2 all the way up the stairs this morning worried that I’ve been reading their situation wrong. Looks like it’ll be another lengthy while of chasing but we will definitely try and bring M2 to the main areas downstairs to play so she can feel more comfortable and hopefully chase back or stand her ground eventually.

They both seems very relaxed and comfortable in these pictures.

(Sorry I don't know why the images turn sideways on the computer!)
M2 is fairly OK in her safe room and they can play like that. But she will quickly revert back to hiding under things. It does sound like it’s mostly a matter of getting them used to one another! That’s a relief .

Body language looks good on both. If she was really really fearful you wouldn’t see her at all because she would be as far under the bed as she could get.

Just a quick update for everyone! We took the advice on giving M2 more time downstairs without M1 around. I put her in her carried, made sure she saw that I closed M1 in a room, and then brought her downstairs. I opened the carrier door onto our cat tree. She didn't run back up like before! She did hop down and go under the couch initially but we were able to coax her out with treats and even got her to play with the feather chaser for a bit. She explored around for about an hour and a half. Skittish but seemed very happy. Even had bits where she wasn't slinking but walking with her tail up.

We did use a carrier to bring her back up because we didn't want to release M1 and have her be chased back upstairs again. When M2 was let out she went back to her usually place laying/hiding underneath the guest bedroom.

This morning, M2 was downstairs when I came down. The past two times she ran upstairs. Today she stayed under the couch even with M1 around. I fed them both some treats before I left for work. I saw M1 on the coffee table looking down with her tail swishing. She jumped down but I think M2 hissed so M1 backed off. The last I saw before I had to go to work, M2 was under the couch still and M1 was lounging on the rug looking at her.

Seems like it's working giving M2 more time by herself downstairs. I'm very hopeful that they will be able to coexist fine. I'm just really hoping that M2 will be able to stand up for herself in the sense that she will no longer seem like she's running for her life when M1 chases her. I'm also hoping M1 will learn to back off and stop chasing/preying on her.

Thank you all for the advice! I'm very encouraged!

it seems things are doing good, just the random thought after reading your posts: I would take the bell off the resident cat - I can imagine the sound may additionally scare a new cat

So quick update. We’ve been giving M2 a lot of time alone downstairs. She’s been more confident exploring only when she knows that M1 is locked up in another room.

The really great thing is M2 will come down on her own sometimes very very cautiously when we are hanging out in the living room with M1. However M1 will always chase M2 back upstairs. I can’t tell if it’s M1 being aggressive or M2 noticing M1 staring at her and gets scared. She always runs away first and M1 chases.

What should we do from here? Or keep doing what we are doing and M2 will slowly get more confident?

Also here’s a photo of them. They’ll eat treats together in one of the upstairs rooms face to face. We are thinking M1 just doesn’t want M2 in any other rooms.

This is great news! Once we got to this point, we started gating the stairs when M2 was downstairs, so when M1 would chase they couldn’t run upstairs. Our M2 started finding new safe spots downstairs which helped further increase confidence. Might be worth a shot!

This is one of their small chases I caught on photo. Usually it starts when M2 is out in the open. M1 hopped on the bed. M2 is on top, she was giving a low growl and M1 was slowly approaching. Both their tails were twitching pretty rapidly. It was at a standstill where they were staring at each other while M2 was still low growling. M1 settled into a crouch position. Then as soon as M2 makes a move to go back under the bed M1 leaps and chases.

In this photo is M1 the bottom cat (resident cat) playful or aggression or fear? And is M2 fear or aggression? We think M2 is fearful but we still have a hard time telling how M1 feels.

I have so many photos of our two nearly identical to this on our bed. For some reason it became their primary battle ground, perhaps because it has so many varying heights and areas of territory to 'own'. The body language is definitely fearful for both of them. Helicopter ears, tail flicking, etc. That's not necessarily a bad thing though - it's natural at this stage.

What happens when they both get under the bed together?

cheeseburger said:

I have so many photos of our two nearly identical to this on our bed. For some reason it became their primary battle ground, perhaps because it has so many varying heights and areas of territory to 'own'. The body language is definitely fearful for both of them. Helicopter ears, tail flicking, etc. That's not necessarily a bad thing though - it's natural at this stage.

What happens when they both get under the bed together?

Click to expand...

M1 backs off M2 under the bed. I have never been fast enough to see this... But I believe M2 will usually hiss/swipe when she's under. We've only heard a single yowl once out of a bunch of times this has happened. But it's quiet right after. Whenever they go under, there's no more fighting. It just gets quiet and M1 will walk out from under the bed. No running, but just sauntering out like nothing happened. Sometimes M1 walks to the foot area under the bed and sits calmly (M2 is always under the head area when she runs in).

Such a mixture of feelings!!!

Yesterday was amazing. We were so proud of M2. When I was hanging out with M1 downstairs we heard M2 on the stairs I went and M2 cautiously came down and explored even though she knew M1 was there. When M1 jumped down from her chair to chase M2, M2 stood her ground by cowering s little and hissing but she didn’t run!!

Today everything was normal seeming. We were letting M2 have her time alone downstairs. Went up to play with M1 before letting her out. Maybe this was the mistake? But she was getting s little agitated today at being left alone in a room. Well M1 chased M2 upstairs. We heard fighting. We yelled to break it up and came upstairs as fast as we could. Turned out M1 had put a little scratch right under M2’s eye. A little blood but it’s stopped since. We already have a vet appt this coming Sunday so we will definitely check it out further.

But we are so heartbroken! We immediately put M2 back in her safe room. Move her food and litterbox back. They were both already out in our house and they’ve been free roaming without bleeding incident for two three weeks. She bounced back really quick in my opinion. Didn’t seem to affect her. She was still cuddly with us and seems to be fairly relaxed laying around the room. I’m wondering if we will have to go back to the slow introduction? It’s discouraging because there were so many positives. Although maybe the spat was worse this time because M2 was willing to stand her ground.

We had a scratching incident too right before things got better.

I'll say again, if you can gate the stairs to limit access to one floor when they are together, this helped our situation a lot. For us, there was something about the stairs that made the cats crazy and significantly escalated things between them when they leveraged them in their chasing. My theory is that our resident cat was trying to forcefully chase the new cat back into 'her' territory, which was upstairs. So when we forced them to co-exist into our resident cat's downstairs territory, things eventually improved.

I wouldn't go backwards in introductions at this point unless the vet advises it's necessary. I would cut or claw cap everybody's nails.

cheeseburger said:

We had a scratching incident too right before things got better.

I'll say again, if you can gate the stairs to limit access to one floor when they are together, this helped our situation a lot. For us, there was something about the stairs that made the cats crazy and significantly escalated things between them when they leveraged them in their chasing. My theory is that our resident cat was trying to forcefully chase the new cat back into 'her' territory, which was upstairs. So when we forced them to co-exist into our resident cat's downstairs territory, things eventually improved.

I wouldn't go backwards in introductions at this point unless the vet advises it's necessary. I would cut or claw cap everybody's nails.

Click to expand...

Thank you for the reassurance! M2 seemed okay today. Noticeably less tolerant of M1. She hissed we soon as M1 entered a room she was in upstairs. But she seemed perfectly okay with coming back downstairs so I don’t think she has bad associations with it. They were both downstairs. Wonderful the first 30 minutes when M1 didn’t notice M2. But as soon as she did, M1 was hyper focused. We couldn’t distract her with anything. She just stalked and then gave chase. They both hopped over the gate so we definitely need to stack them next time. My husband ran after them yelling and stomping so no fight broke out this time. I think we both are on edge from the incident last night. But we will keep at it. Hopefully I’ll have a good update on a couple weeks!

So it's been a couple days. There have been a couple times when all seems quiet but then we hear the cats (I think mostly just M2) yowling when they fight upstairs. When we run up, M1 casually walks away from wherever they were as if nothing happened. We haven't seen any new marks on M2 so we are unsure if this is building aggression or more working it out. The cat fight noises are a little unsettling for us.

M2 has gotten braver in the sense that she's more willing to come to the top of the stairs/middle of the stairs but not to the bottom. She's very watching of M1 and still seems pretty fearful of her. M1 still keeps staring intently and when she does this it's very hard to break her gaze away. We've been separating them at night when M1 is either locked in the room with us so M2 can roam or M2 is locked in her safe room and M1 can roam. We would like to have M2 with us but I think that would stress M1 out too much.

I've been trying to give a ton of encouragement and praise when M1 turns away from M2. For instance, when she lays down instead of crouching and staring. It seems to have helped some but not a whole lot.

Overall, I think this is going to be the reality of our situation for a couple weeks. We still need to work on getting M2 more confident and figure out how to distract M1 from her prey drive directed at M2. I'll try and update then!

Update! Slow and steady is the theme. We are now about 5 weeks in. We think introductions are going pretty fast actually. This is lengthy so thanks in advance for reading!!

Since my last post, We've stopped letting the cats free roam at night when we sleep. We keep M1 with us in the bedroom and we let M2 have the roam of the house. We hope this helps her feel more comfortable. It's cute because the next day we find that she has collected all sorts of toys from all over the house and brings them upstairs to her bed. They still free roam during the day. The important part is this also gives M2 a chance to use the litterbox without M1 guarding it. When M1 hears M2 in the litterbox, she sprints as fast as she can to it. We hear M2 growl/hiss loudly and some fight sounds. 99% of all growling/hissing in all situations come from M2. M1 does meow a lot but no growling/hissing; she was originally already a very chatty cat.

Positives:
- M2 originally stayed in safe rooms upstairs. The past couple of days she's come down to about the middle of the stairs to lie down and chill while we are in the living area (direct view of the stairs). M1 stares but generally allows her to be.
- M2 has also braved the second floor on her own
- M2 is willing to come out of hiding to eat treats even if M1 is around.
- M2 has been willing to stay still longer (a couple minutes) instead of running immediately when M1 shows up.
- Before when M1 chased M2 up the stairs we hear growling/hissing/yowling the whole way up. Now I hear their feet thumping from running but no vocal noises.

Cons:
- M1 seems to be litterbox guarding. They do seem OK with using both litterboxes we have at home interchangeably. We have a third box arriving in the mail today just in case; I do not want litterbox issues to start.
- M1 likes to "rush" M2 when M2 is hiding. One time when M2 was behind our floor mirror in the bedroom, M1 ran up and batted her. Doesn't look like any claws were out so we think she just wanted to play. M2 made a lot of noise and was NOT happy about it.
- M2 is scared of M1. She will slink around and when M1 appears, her ears go about sideways and flat and she growls/hisses, then tries running to the nearest hiding spot.
- M1 will "chatter" when she see's M2; not continuously but a few times when she first spots her. Exactly like this video online ().

Questions
- We can't tell who wants to be the dominant cat? M1 our resident cat is very comfortable, tail high, etc. She is younger by a few years but we feel like she is the alpha in terms of her confidence. However she does plop over in front of M2. We don't know if that means she's showing she's submissive and harmless or a power move that she's expressing she's THAT confident haha. One thing to note is that the food is on the second floor. Sometimes M2 is at the top of the stairs and M1 needs to get by her to go down the stairs to her food. She will be a little hesitant to walk past M2 because M2 is growling since she doesn't want M1 close to her. Wouldn't alpha not be scared at all?
- We also can't tell if M1 is displaying territorial aggression or just wants to play. We think it's a mix of the two.

Here's some photos of M1 and M2 interacting on the stairs going from the second floor to the first floor. We have a 3 story townhome and all the interaction I've described in the past is from the 3rd to the 2nd floor. 3rd floor contains all the bedrooms and safe rooms. 2nd floor is the living area. 1st floor is mostly neutral for them; M1 more comfortable because she's the resident cat but M2 likes going down to that floor too. Here's also M1 staring at M2.

M2 (new cat) is the one with white in her face.

M mandmcats : I just came across this thread today, so reading it for the first time. Just wondering if you got the 3rd litter box set up, and if it helped things at all.