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- May 31, 2022
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Hi,
I'm wondering if I am going about this the wrong way. Here's the situation: We have a now 10 month old kitten, who we have had since he was 4 months. He loves to chase and surprise pounce the elders (13 and 15), which they obviously do not care for. He often does behave himself and everyone gets along (or at least tolerates one another), except for when he gets in his play mode. Play mode is very annoying to the older cats. I work from home and I can't always drop everything to play with him, but I also can't be running back to remove him from the situation every 2 minutes. So, when he is annoying the elders, I block him off from the two back bedrooms where the elders hang out. The elders appreciate this very much. He often isn't great at following their "leave me alone" cues of hissing and growling at him, which is also why I have just been separating everyone. I use floor to ceiling baby gates (otherwise he scales them and hops over). Everyone has food/water/litter box on each side of the gate. If he is behaving himself and not in crazy mode, I do remove the gates. Depending on how busy I am at work, often I just leave the gates up until I'm done for the day. The gates are also removed at night (mostly because it's a fire hazard). Also, the gates are mostly removed on the weekends unless he is creating a lot of stress or if he isn't behaving when we need to leave the house (meaning, we don't want him bugging the older cats while we aren't home if he's already acting like a pest). I'm a little worried that by doing this the kitten is losing out on learning how to be appropriate socially. But at the same time, I want give the older cats some peace and space when they want/need it. Is what I'm doing ok or should I be trying to go about it another way? Thanks in advance!
I'm wondering if I am going about this the wrong way. Here's the situation: We have a now 10 month old kitten, who we have had since he was 4 months. He loves to chase and surprise pounce the elders (13 and 15), which they obviously do not care for. He often does behave himself and everyone gets along (or at least tolerates one another), except for when he gets in his play mode. Play mode is very annoying to the older cats. I work from home and I can't always drop everything to play with him, but I also can't be running back to remove him from the situation every 2 minutes. So, when he is annoying the elders, I block him off from the two back bedrooms where the elders hang out. The elders appreciate this very much. He often isn't great at following their "leave me alone" cues of hissing and growling at him, which is also why I have just been separating everyone. I use floor to ceiling baby gates (otherwise he scales them and hops over). Everyone has food/water/litter box on each side of the gate. If he is behaving himself and not in crazy mode, I do remove the gates. Depending on how busy I am at work, often I just leave the gates up until I'm done for the day. The gates are also removed at night (mostly because it's a fire hazard). Also, the gates are mostly removed on the weekends unless he is creating a lot of stress or if he isn't behaving when we need to leave the house (meaning, we don't want him bugging the older cats while we aren't home if he's already acting like a pest). I'm a little worried that by doing this the kitten is losing out on learning how to be appropriate socially. But at the same time, I want give the older cats some peace and space when they want/need it. Is what I'm doing ok or should I be trying to go about it another way? Thanks in advance!
