Adult Cat Won't Leave New Kitten Alone

ZimPyre

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So I have an adult female cat named Yui. She's almost a year old and a super social cat that likes to be around other cats. Since I have work a lot and feel bad having to leave her on her own, I just adopted a new kitten to keep her company. The only issue is, she won't leave it alone. I admittedly introduced them a little fast since I've introduced Yui to lots of other cats and know for a fact that she isn't aggressive towards newcomers, and she was fine with the kitten at first. The kitten explored around a little and the two of them sniffed each other and started getting used to each others scents.

Then, Yui pinned the kitten down and bit its neck. I obviously intervened and pulled her off of the kitten. She kept doing that same thing over and over again. When I looked it up, I saw that it was a dominance thing and that it should be fine to let it happen as long as the kitten isn't crying out or hiding (which it wasn't at first). But, now she just won't leave the kitten alone and keeps trying to bite its neck to the point of the kitten crying out.

I've tried locking the kitten back in it's carrier to let them just see each other through the bars since I have a pretty large pet carrier, but both of them hated that. No matter how many times I pull Yui away or say no, she just won't stop going after the kitten. For now, I have the kitten in my room and Yui locked outside of my room, but she's been at the door meowing and scratching for the last 10 or 20 minutes and just won't give up.

Why is she so adamant about biting the kittens neck? She's gotten to the point where she's stressed herself out so much that she's panting. Should I be concerned? Should I keep them separate, or is this really nothing to worry about?

If it helps, Yui isn't fixed (I'm planning on getting her fixed very soon though) and the kitten is just barely old enough to be away from its mother.
 

Furballsmom

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She's gotten to the point where she's stressed herself out so much that she's panting.
Hi
I would suggest keeping the kitten contained away from her until it is a little bit older/larger and getting Yui spayed in the meantime. It won't take very long timewise for the kitten to be big enough to be able to stand up to a bit of rough handling.

Give the kitten all it can eat, a warming bed and a heartbeat toy. Try Cat Music for Yui.

How To Introduce A Kitten To An Older Cat – TheCatSite Articles
 

FeebysOwner

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I agree with the above. The most likely reason your cat is pinning your kitten down is to show dominance. Yui probably feels threatened by the new kitten and wants to show who’s in charge. Depending on the age of the kitten, this is not a good situation at all.

I don't have much to offer since I am not sure how to get Yui out of her panic state about the kitten, but the only thing you can hope to do is keep them completely separated, and love on both of them so each will feel secure. When you go to work, you might consider blockading the door where the kitten stays, so Yui can't go anywhere near it for now. You need to get Yui calmed down - and spayed.
 

ArtNJ

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One year olds love love love to play, and that is what is going on. Respect to the very knowledgeable posters above, but I disagree with dominance. One year olds ignore whether the kitten actually want to play, thats true, but otherwise its all normal play. Cats are predators, and play by simulating hunting, fighting and defense behaviors. In the wild, the bite is a go-for-the-kill move to end small prey. In play, its a totally normal thing. It doesn't happen that much between two equally matched cats, because they move around and resist too much. Sub in a small kitten that is easily pinnable, and play bites become super common. You also get a lot of play bites when an adult just doesn't give a hoot, and just lays there ignoring a more active playmate. You know its play, because it always is, and if it wasn't the kitten would literally be dead.

There is a super simple test for whether you need to intervene. Ignore how the kitten acts when actual rough play is going on -- ignore any squeals, running, hiding etc. Rather, look to whether the kitten comes right back in a few minutes and acts like nothing happened, or even initiates play sometimes. If the kitten does that, its a clear signal that everything is fine, and there is zero problem despite the way it might look to human eyes. If, by contrast, the kitten starts acting afraid even when rough play is not actively going on, thats a problem. Let sensei kitten be your guide :)
 

danteshuman

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I agree with ArtNJ the kitten will tell you if it is to rough. You do need to get your 1 year old fixed ASAP! She probably already has gone into heat and will keep going into heat until she is knocked up. It will make her hormonal.

Cats usually are very patient with wee baby kittens. Then around 4 months start teaching them manners with a clawless bop to the head.
 

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I'll bow out to those who feel confident in their advice to you. However, I do want to say - the younger the kitten, the more cautious you need to be. You do have "sensei kitten" to a degree because you have introduced to Yui to other cats, but I suspect that what brought you here to this site was a greater sense of hesitation than you've felt in the past. It would seem to me, that somehow this is different to you, so let that be part of your "sensei kitten' guide. I may be wrong, but I am guessing the other cats that Yui has previously been introduced to were not as young as this kitten??

The biggest concern I have is with Yui not being spayed. She may be trying to protect her 'territory' in preparation for her 'own kittens', even if there won't (hopefully) be any.

Please keep us posted!
 

danteshuman

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I like keeping baby kittens within arms reach of me when I am awake and closely supervising their interactions with an adult/teenager cat. But I’m a helicopter cat mon. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Under 4 months = baby kitten in my opinion. Under 2 months = wee baby kitten 😉
 
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ZimPyre

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For now, I've got them separated until I trust Yui not to hurt the kitten. I have a small storage room where I've set up a place for the kitten to stay in. There's not a lot of room for it to move around unfortunately, but there is enough room for it to have its own litter box, food, water, cat bed, and some toys.

I've been in the process of trying to get Yui fixed for a little bit now, but for some reason all the vets near where I live are super booked out right now and so far the soonest appointment I've been able to book for her to get fixed is June 29.

You do have "sensei kitten" to a degree because you have introduced to Yui to other cats, but I suspect that what brought you here to this site was a greater sense of hesitation than you've felt in the past. It would seem to me, that somehow this is different to you, so let that be part of your "sensei kitten' guide. I may be wrong, but I am guessing the other cats that Yui has previously been introduced to were not as young as this kitten??
Most of the cats that Yui have been introduced to in the past have been younger and a lot smaller than her (she's a very large cat), but not to the degree that this new kitten is, so I'm more worried about her hurting it. There was a week or so a while ago when Yui was smaller when I took in a tiny stray kitten that I found outside my house, and one thing I learned in that week is that Yui is bad about playing rough even when dealing with much smaller cats. The stray ended up not living for very long because it was on the verge of starvation when I first found it and I wasn't able to book a vet appointment in time. But, yes things are still different now from how they were with that stray kitten, because Yui wasn't nearly as obsessed with it as she is with this new kitten. With the stray, she'd leave it alone for at least an hour after I'd separated them a few times. Now, she just won't leave it alone and is stressing herself out over it for some reason even when they aren't in the same room together.

For now, I've bought Yui a calming collar to hopefully help her stop stressing so much and I've got them separated. Hopefully I can find an opening before the 29th to get her fixed, but we'll have to see.
 

BoaztheAdventureCat

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So I have an adult female cat named Yui. She's almost a year old and a super social cat that likes to be around other cats. Since I have work a lot and feel bad having to leave her on her own, I just adopted a new kitten to keep her company. The only issue is, she won't leave it alone. I admittedly introduced them a little fast since I've introduced Yui to lots of other cats and know for a fact that she isn't aggressive towards newcomers, and she was fine with the kitten at first. The kitten explored around a little and the two of them sniffed each other and started getting used to each others scents.

Then, Yui pinned the kitten down and bit its neck. I obviously intervened and pulled her off of the kitten. She kept doing that same thing over and over again. When I looked it up, I saw that it was a dominance thing and that it should be fine to let it happen as long as the kitten isn't crying out or hiding (which it wasn't at first). But, now she just won't leave the kitten alone and keeps trying to bite its neck to the point of the kitten crying out.

I've tried locking the kitten back in it's carrier to let them just see each other through the bars since I have a pretty large pet carrier, but both of them hated that. No matter how many times I pull Yui away or say no, she just won't stop going after the kitten. For now, I have the kitten in my room and Yui locked outside of my room, but she's been at the door meowing and scratching for the last 10 or 20 minutes and just won't give up.

Why is she so adamant about biting the kittens neck? She's gotten to the point where she's stressed herself out so much that she's panting. Should I be concerned? Should I keep them separate, or is this really nothing to worry about?

If it helps, Yui isn't fixed (I'm planning on getting her fixed very soon though) and the kitten is just barely old enough to be away from its mother.
Get a second kitten to keep the current kitten occupied. My dad's senior female cat Pretty Kitty constantly tried to go after my (then) kitten Boaz. That all changed when my Dad and my brother brought their kittens home for Boaz to play with. Once she saw that Boaz had other cats besides her to focus on, she no longer felt threatened by him and she grew to tolerate him and the other kittens and ultimately leave them alone.
 
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ZimPyre

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Update!

A few things should be mentioned. First off, I've just discovered that Yui is actually not a girl, she was a he all along. The person that gave him to me as a kitten told me he was a girl and I didn't have any reason to doubt him so I just believed that. Call it lazy (I'm aware it kind of was lazy on my part), but I never bothered to check and make sure even as he got older and turned into a pretty big cat. I decided to check out of curiosity today, and that's when I found out. Either way, it doesn't change too much since the kitten is too small to have enough hormones for him to try and breed anyways.

Secondly, at this point I'm 80% certain that Yui is only trying to play and just isn't too great at playing nicely. I let the kitten and Yui spend some time together in my room last night and watched them closely trying to follow "sensei kitten" and see how she reacted overall. And honestly, the kitten (her name is Mochi) didn't seem too bothered by Yui being rough with her. She'd occasionally cry out when I guess Yui was too rough with her, but she mostly seemed fine. She wasn't running away and hiding or anything. There's a little blue cat toy on my floor that she was playing with for a while, and anytime Yui pinned her down, once he was done she'd just go back to playing with the toy like nothing happened. After a little while, she did start to run away from Yui and that's when I separated them again, but things mostly seemed fine.

I let them spend some more time together earlier today and things went even better than last night. Yui was a lot more gentle than before. I still had to pull him away a couple times when I felt like he was being a bit of a bully, but overall he was being a lot calmer and it seemed less like he was trying to hurt Mochi and more like he just wanted to play.

With that in mind, I still want to keep them separate for the most part for now. Even if Yui is just trying to play, I don't want to risk it and Mochi end up getting hurt because of it. Either way, Yui is still significantly larger than Mochi and also rough when playing. For context, here's the two of them (they're both blurry cause the rascals wouldn't sit still):
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I've got Mochi living in the storage room for now while she's still small, but I feel bad leaving her in such a small room on her own all day. I call it a storage room, but the space that I have cleared out is about the size of a closet. There's more than enough room for her bed, litter box, food, and water, but there's only maybe 4 square foot of room for her to roam total. Obviously she has a few toys to keep her occupied and I go spend some time with her every few hours, but I still can't help but feel bad keeping her in there especially when she starts crying. Is there anything I could do to make the room less miserable for her, or have I already done basically all that I can?

Also, any advice on what to do with the two of them while I wait to get them both fixed? Mochi has an appointment to get spayed on the 6th of June since the shelter I got her from set up an appointment beforehand, but for now I still can't get Yui fixed till the 29th of June unfortunately. Should I keep them separate until they're both fixed just in case, or keep slowly letting them get used to each other and just keep a close eye on how they're both reacting?
 

FeebysOwner

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I would just keep them separated when unsupervised. I wouldn't necessarily stop the introduction process.

Be prepared for the possibility of non-recognition issues when each of them comes back from their appointments - towels/blankets with each of their scents on them that you can rub on the one coming home. Non-recognition issues don't happen every time, so there may be nothing to worry about - but it is always good to be prepared just in case.
 

Furballsmom

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Is there anything I could do to make the room less miserable for her,
Did you have a chance to pick up a purr toy, or a heartbeat toy? If you have a clock that ticks, muffle the sound a little with a towel wrapped around it, and that can mimic the sound of a heartbeat. Also, give her a folded blanket or wool shirt, or a warming bed.
 
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ZimPyre

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Did you have a chance to pick up a purr toy, or a heartbeat toy? If you have a clock that ticks, muffle the sound a little with a towel wrapped around it, and that can mimic the sound of a heartbeat. Also, give her a folded blanket or wool shirt, or a warming bed.
I have them ordered, but they're still in the process of being shipped to my house. The heartbeat toy is supposed to show up tomorrow, but the purr toy isn't going to get here until Monday. I also have a cat bed in there for her already, but should I still give her a blanket to sleep on since it would have mine and Yui's scent on it maybe?
 

danteshuman

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For your storage room, can you put a cat tree in there, to give her more vertical space? Or maybe a cardboard box with her bed in the bottom and she can climb up there & play with a toy. If she eats dry food a simple puzzle feeder will help help keep her entertained...... but expect a mess! I started putting my cat’s puzzle feeder on his food mat that has a small ridge yo keep the mess contained (then gave up on puzzle feeders.) Changing up her toys every time you stick her in there and maybe hiding a few treats every day would be good.
 
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