Hey everyone. Long post so I apologise in advance.
So I have a resident cat who is 5 years old. He's a little sweet heart who just wants to eat, sleep and cuddle up with someone 24/7. We can occasionally encourage him to play, but normally doesn't last longer then a few minutes before he wants to cuddle again. He also has two bad back legs due to being hit by a car prior to me rescuing him.
8 months ago, we rescued a 3-4 week old kitten who was found alone and almost dead. No sign of his mother or other kittens after waiting hours. The choice was to leave the kitten to die or take him. We chose to take him.
After an expensive vet visit and weeks of caring for him, we got him back to a healthy state. This is were be began the slow introductions.
For several weeks, we slowly allowed the cats access to each other, following Jackson Galaxy's and other professionals advice. We were very easily able to have them eat next to each other, no hissing etc. Once we allowed them access to each other, we could see the kittens play was very aggressive but my resident cat was able to push back a lot of the negative behaviour. However, due to the behaviour still being constant and play aggressive from the kitten, we weren't able to have them having free access to the house. Only supervised play.
We set up a room for the kitten and installed a screen door as the bedroom door so he was still apart of the family, bonding etc. During this time, the kitten got plently of supervised play outside of his room. The play aggression continued despite positive interventions.
Over the next few months as the kitten got older, the play aggression got worse and my older cat got more annoyed by the behaviour. We quickly got the kitten dexed and started all the tips we found... Feliway, ending all interactions on positive notes, lots of climbing spaces, separate get away spaces, time apart, LOTS of play, love and cuddle etc etc etc etc.
But the kitten just got more aggressive. It's not fighting aggression, more he just wants to rough house sooo bad, but my resident cat wants absolutely NOTHING to do with him. They'll happily coexist in a room, as long as the kitten stays well away. But he never does. He keeps trying and it's getting worse week by week. We try and tire him out, but we can literally play with the kitten from after work till bedtime but he still won't be tired.
At the 7 month mark, we are losing our minds. We had to basically seperate the time each cat gets. So we decided to spend a tone of money and hired a cat behaviourist. We got some of the great advice like clicker training etc. We did have some very minor improvements, but still having to intervene every few minutes most nights.
The play aggression use to just be a pounce and runaway, but this has esculated the last two months. The play aggression fights is now the kitten stalking the resident cat, jumping onto his back, then aggressively biting his neck trying to drag him to the ground. My resident cat is then yowling and hissing trying to run away. I race to intervene. In that time before I get here, the resident cat doesn't try to stand up for himself but instead runs away. This then causes the kitten to chase him, starting the cycle again. It's awful to watch.
We're now at the point were the resident cat gets the house in the morning, the kitten gets the house in the afternoon, then the night time is spent trying and seperating them all night. My partner and I are exhausted. We are expecting a baby in November and have no idea how we can keep this up.
We have three options:
1. We keep them separated and doing slow short meeting as we've been doing and hope they'll get to the point of co existing. Using all the advice of the cat behaviourist, YouTube etc.
2. We rehome the kitten to a family member. Unfortunately the family does work long hours, but is otherwise home during all his spare time. He seems like he'll be a good cat parent but I'm still so scared to ever rehome him.
3. We try a trial with a kitten the same age and energy level as our kitten and see if once he has a play mate, the attention will be off the resident cat.
We think the best option is number 2, but both my partner and I are in tears even thinking about the idea. We absolutely ADORE the kitten. He's truly come an amazing cat. He's independent but has moments of being so affectionate. He'll snuggle under the blanket with us and give little licks. He as a slight problem with biting when over excited, but it's getting better with training. His personality is so weird and cute!
On one hand we know the stress on the resident cat and the kitten having to be locked away a lot isn't fair on either of them. We just want the best. But on the other hand, our hearts are breaking at even the thought of him going somewhere else... Like what if they don't care him for the same way, what if they let him outside accidentally etc.
Please please just anyone give us advice? What do you think we should do?
So I have a resident cat who is 5 years old. He's a little sweet heart who just wants to eat, sleep and cuddle up with someone 24/7. We can occasionally encourage him to play, but normally doesn't last longer then a few minutes before he wants to cuddle again. He also has two bad back legs due to being hit by a car prior to me rescuing him.
8 months ago, we rescued a 3-4 week old kitten who was found alone and almost dead. No sign of his mother or other kittens after waiting hours. The choice was to leave the kitten to die or take him. We chose to take him.
After an expensive vet visit and weeks of caring for him, we got him back to a healthy state. This is were be began the slow introductions.
For several weeks, we slowly allowed the cats access to each other, following Jackson Galaxy's and other professionals advice. We were very easily able to have them eat next to each other, no hissing etc. Once we allowed them access to each other, we could see the kittens play was very aggressive but my resident cat was able to push back a lot of the negative behaviour. However, due to the behaviour still being constant and play aggressive from the kitten, we weren't able to have them having free access to the house. Only supervised play.
We set up a room for the kitten and installed a screen door as the bedroom door so he was still apart of the family, bonding etc. During this time, the kitten got plently of supervised play outside of his room. The play aggression continued despite positive interventions.
Over the next few months as the kitten got older, the play aggression got worse and my older cat got more annoyed by the behaviour. We quickly got the kitten dexed and started all the tips we found... Feliway, ending all interactions on positive notes, lots of climbing spaces, separate get away spaces, time apart, LOTS of play, love and cuddle etc etc etc etc.
But the kitten just got more aggressive. It's not fighting aggression, more he just wants to rough house sooo bad, but my resident cat wants absolutely NOTHING to do with him. They'll happily coexist in a room, as long as the kitten stays well away. But he never does. He keeps trying and it's getting worse week by week. We try and tire him out, but we can literally play with the kitten from after work till bedtime but he still won't be tired.
At the 7 month mark, we are losing our minds. We had to basically seperate the time each cat gets. So we decided to spend a tone of money and hired a cat behaviourist. We got some of the great advice like clicker training etc. We did have some very minor improvements, but still having to intervene every few minutes most nights.
The play aggression use to just be a pounce and runaway, but this has esculated the last two months. The play aggression fights is now the kitten stalking the resident cat, jumping onto his back, then aggressively biting his neck trying to drag him to the ground. My resident cat is then yowling and hissing trying to run away. I race to intervene. In that time before I get here, the resident cat doesn't try to stand up for himself but instead runs away. This then causes the kitten to chase him, starting the cycle again. It's awful to watch.
We're now at the point were the resident cat gets the house in the morning, the kitten gets the house in the afternoon, then the night time is spent trying and seperating them all night. My partner and I are exhausted. We are expecting a baby in November and have no idea how we can keep this up.
We have three options:
1. We keep them separated and doing slow short meeting as we've been doing and hope they'll get to the point of co existing. Using all the advice of the cat behaviourist, YouTube etc.
2. We rehome the kitten to a family member. Unfortunately the family does work long hours, but is otherwise home during all his spare time. He seems like he'll be a good cat parent but I'm still so scared to ever rehome him.
3. We try a trial with a kitten the same age and energy level as our kitten and see if once he has a play mate, the attention will be off the resident cat.
We think the best option is number 2, but both my partner and I are in tears even thinking about the idea. We absolutely ADORE the kitten. He's truly come an amazing cat. He's independent but has moments of being so affectionate. He'll snuggle under the blanket with us and give little licks. He as a slight problem with biting when over excited, but it's getting better with training. His personality is so weird and cute!
On one hand we know the stress on the resident cat and the kitten having to be locked away a lot isn't fair on either of them. We just want the best. But on the other hand, our hearts are breaking at even the thought of him going somewhere else... Like what if they don't care him for the same way, what if they let him outside accidentally etc.
Please please just anyone give us advice? What do you think we should do?
