Any Ideas To Fix This Botched Introduction?

[shieara]

Hello!

I wanted to see if anyone had suggestions on how to better introduce a new cat into my current crowd. The kitties in question:

Merlin - 8 year old neutered male aka Mister Hissy
Pixie - 9 year old spayed female aka Lady Crankypants
Sammy - 10 month old recently neutered male aka Freshmeat

It's been about two weeks. When I first brought Sammy home I set up a safe room with his food, water, litter box, toys and bed. I kept him in there while everyone sniffed under the door. There was some hissing and growling from Pixie and Merlin, but that stopped after a couple of days.

Pixie was really curious so I decided to crack the door and let them see each other. There was no hissing, angry body language, growling, or anything aggressive so I let him out for a little bit. They nose bumped and she watched him a little bit then went to sleep. So everything seemed like it was going great. Merlin gave Sammy the hiss and went to hide under the bed, but there was nothing crazy from him either.

Then about four days ago Sammy decided that he wanted to play with Pixie and he jumped on her. Pixie does not like being touched unless she initiates it. When Merlin tries it she growls, hisses and runs away to hide under the couch. However, with Sammy she went absolutely crazy. She started yowling, had the puffed tail, and chased him. I grabbed Sammy and separated them to start over.

Since then it has been war. If I let him out of his room Pixie will stalk him and attack. Sammy is afraid of her and tries to retreat under the bed or a desk to get away. She will hang out at the door to his room just to see if she can get him.

I've got a video of one of her attacks. This one is pretty mild and I missed a lot of the action since I had to give her a squirt from the spray bottle to break things up. Any ideas on what I should do?

 

[abyeb]

Of course you can fix a not-so-great introduction! Probably the easiest way to do this is to re-introduce them. Lots of cat owners are in exactly the same boat as you. This article is a great help: How To Fix An Unsuccessful Cat Introduction

 

[Furballsmom]

Hi! You could try some music, --there is an app called Relax My Cat, and also there's MusicForcats . com, maybe it will help calm things a little

 

[KarenKat]

Try building up Sammy’s confidence with solo play sessions. We had some fighting and chasing before our new kitty Olive learned that she wouldn’t get chased if she didn’t run away. Building up Sammy’s confidence will help with that.

 

[Elphaba09]

As others have stated, this should resolve itself after reintroductions and some other tactics are thrown into the mix.

Pixie's behavior reminds me a lot of our Tara, or how Tara used to be.

Go back to the safe place stage. Give them more time to interact safely. After a couple of days, switch their locations. Put Merlin and Pixie in the safe place, and let Sammy out into their space, even for just an hour or so. Keep doing that for a couple of days, then start feeding them a safe distance from each other but within sight of each other. Slowly move their dishes closer together. After they seem to be tolerating that, let them have supervised playtime. Get their favorite toy and play with all of them in the same room.

If there continues to be the stalking, redirect the stalking cat. For our Tara--or when any of the other cats had an issue, but, honestly, it was mainly Tara--I would say her name and click my fingers. If that did not stop the behavior, I would physically stand near her or move her to a different area. I spoke sternly without raising my voice. She has not attacked the other cats--especially Astrid--in a long time. Sometimes she will start stalking, but it is now at the point where I click my fingers, point next to me, and she stops stalking to come over to me. I found that petting her when she was behaving the worst was enough to calm her and redirect her.

You may want to get calming spray, too. We have a few different kinds because some work better on certain cats. It is pretty helpful, especially during storms.

 

[shieara]

Thank you I am going to give these suggestions a try. Hopefully everyone will get along eventually and things will go back to normal.

 

[Furballsmom]

.

 

[shieara]

When I do a room exchange how long should I leave Pixie and Merlin in his room? Just an hour or so or should I do it when I'm sleeping to split the day in half.

I don't want Pixie to feel like I love Sammy more then I do her. She's a cranky old woman, but she's my crankypants.

 

[marmoset]

I agree that starting introductions over would work. Take your time and go slow- go slower than you did before.

Now, also think about the areas Pixie is stalking/ charging at Sammy. In the video Sammy had moved to under the desk to hide but in doing so he cornered himself in with no safe way to exit without having to pass Pixie. For cats that haven't learned to get along yet that's just a bad recipe. He needs some safe avenues of escape.

I think the expert on this issue is Jackson Galaxy. He's solved a lot of inter-cat aggression issues by providing surfaces for cats to traverse so they don't have to enter each others' space if they aren't comfortable. He's got numerous videos on youtube as well as a very popular show.

 

[Furballsmom]

She's a cranky old woman, but she's my crankypants.

 

[shieara]

I agree that starting introductions over would work. Take your time and go slow- go slower than you did before.

Now, also think about the areas Pixie is stalking/ charging at Sammy. In the video Sammy had moved to under the desk to hide but in doing so he cornered himself in with no safe way to exit without having to pass Pixie. For cats that haven't learned to get along yet that's just a bad recipe. He needs some safe avenues of escape.

I think the expert on this issue is Jackson Galaxy. He's solved a lot of inter-cat aggression issues by providing surfaces for cats to traverse so they don't have to enter each others' space if they aren't comfortable. He's got numerous videos on youtube as well as a very popular show.

Yeah I need to move that desk a little bit so that he can escape around the sides. There aren't too many dead ends around the house but there is a narrow hallway and the stairs I have to figure out.

 

[radarlove413]

I'm going through a bit of this right now with our introductions! Dunlop is being a bit of a jerk with Cocoa. I also agree that making escape routes will really help the situation. If Pixie goes for Sammy, does she attack him and then give him the "staredown," or is it an attack that doesn't stop and draws lots of fur or blood?

After trying to keep Dunlop away from Cocoa, I wasn't fast enough yesterday and they both darted downstairs. Cue a few yowls and puffy fur from Dunlop. When I made it with the spray bottle, they'd both stopped and Dunlop was giving Cocoa the most menacing staredown ever. He started calming down, and that's when I realized that he was needing to let Cocoa know who's boss. Cocoa was a champ, and after 20 minutes of hiding, he came out, Dunlop stared at him again, and then proceeded to lay beside him and stop bullying him. Cocoa is still nervous around Dunlop (who wouldn't be?) but letting things come to a head actually really helped our situation so far. Not saying it'd help your situation like it did ours, but I know that reading about other experiences has REALLY helped me stay calm during our process!

 

[shieara]

I'm going through a bit of this right now with our introductions! Dunlop is being a bit of a jerk with Cocoa. I also agree that making escape routes will really help the situation. If Pixie goes for Sammy, does she attack him and then give him the "staredown," or is it an attack that doesn't stop and draws lots of fur or blood?

After trying to keep Dunlop away from Cocoa, I wasn't fast enough yesterday and they both darted downstairs. Cue a few yowls and puffy fur from Dunlop. When I made it with the spray bottle, they'd both stopped and Dunlop was giving Cocoa the most menacing staredown ever. He started calming down, and that's when I realized that he was needing to let Cocoa know who's boss. Cocoa was a champ, and after 20 minutes of hiding, he came out, Dunlop stared at him again, and then proceeded to lay beside him and stop bullying him. Cocoa is still nervous around Dunlop (who wouldn't be?) but letting things come to a head actually really helped our situation so far. Not saying it'd help your situation like it did ours, but I know that reading about other experiences has REALLY helped me stay calm during our process!

I've never let it get far enough to see if blood would be drawn or fur flying. It's weird. They can eat within a couple feet of each other no problem, and she can tolerate him if he's hanging out in the living room, but when he tries to go down the hall or up the stairs she attacks. I think it's some kind of resource guarding, but I'm not sure how to break the pattern. I haven't really seen much improvement after doing another week of room swaps.

 

[radarlove413]

I've never let it get far enough to see if blood would be drawn or fur flying. It's weird. They can eat within a couple feet of each other no problem, and she can tolerate him if he's hanging out in the living room, but when he tries to go down the hall or up the stairs she attacks. I think it's some kind of resource guarding, but I'm not sure how to break the pattern. I haven't really seen much improvement after doing another week of room swaps.

No worries, I totally understand. If my incident had happened at a slower speed, I would have tried to stop it too. (If it helps, there was a tiny pile of Cocoa fur on the floor after it ended, but he's a fluffy boy)

It definitely does sound like resource guarding. When we introduced our Donatello to Dunlop, they'd behave pretty decently around us, but the minute we thought we were safe we'd hear some yowls when Don tried to leave his sight. Cue a fur pile, and both cats trying to be top dog. Dunlop felt like he needed to follow him to make sure he wasn't claiming certain territory, and Don felt the need to claim some spots for his own (understandable!). Unfortunately, I didn't have a great way non-physically break this pattern, because separating them only made it worse. Eventually, when I realized they actually didn't want to do real harm to each other, I had to let them do their thing for a few days to sort it out.

If any other members have a better solution that worked, I would also be super happy and excited to hear them!

 

[shieara]

Success! Well, mostly.

I left them alone today when I went to work and came home to three cats sharing the living room and kitchen peacefully. There is still a little hissing from Merlin if Sammy tries to get too close, but he and Pixie seem to have come to an understanding. I will still need to keep them separated during feeding since Sammy scarfs his food like he is starving and the others like to take their time, but I am so happy it looks like things will worked out.

Thank you everyone who commented and gave me encouragement. This was a stressful few weeks but I am glad things are looking up.

 

[Furballsmom]

This is SUCH wonderful news!!!

Sammy scarfs his food like he is starving

Maybe there's something in there that might help;
18 Awesome Cat Feeding Tips By Thecatsite Staff Members