Cat intos month 16

[saharahoshi]

Long story short 2 year old boy and 9 year old girl, are on behavior meds, diffusers etc., 2 prior escapes with fur flying, a third escape today and probably aggression or redirected aggression, full on hissing no one was hurt. I've read The Cat Site Resources and articles o. Intros.

I'm at a loss they are still separated because of life issues us humans had to deal with. We are moving in a month because our current place is awful. Is there hope that a new place and starting off on the right foot might work? Does anyone have a spreadsheet of what their cat i to daily schedule looks lije? Example: week 1 do xyz at x time?

I'm so sorry to keep posting on here.

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

I posted a LOT when I was integrating two kittens into a household that already had two adult cats, one female and one male, so don't worry about that .

Some cats never get along. There are people here on TheCatSite who have cats living in separate room, on different levels of their houses, etc. It's rare, but it does happen. My own four never really were what I would call friends, but they did learn to coexist without too many issues.

We followed the "rules" in the intro articles step by step until there was no hissing, growling, etc. And the key was that when we went to the next step, if hissing started up again, that meant we went too fast and we went back to the previous step until everyone was comfortable. since you have admitted that "life issues" have gotten in the way of cat introductions, I think you might just want to start over completely from step one, which is scent swapping. Whether or not you want to wait until you are in your new residence or not is up to you as to whether you will have to time to devote to these intros. BUT, you cannot say I'll spend one week on step one, then one week on step 2, etc. It's totally on the cats when you move to the next step. It's when they are comfortable with that step that you progress to the next step.

 

[saharahoshi]

Absolutely, when I say life issues I mean hospitalizations from Covid despite working from home and isolating (before a vaccine was available), job layoffs, and a few deaths in tge family. We will go at the cats pace

 

[danteshuman]

Wow you have been through the emotional ringer during this pandemic! I hope you are taking care of yourself! What gets me through my insanely stressful medical crises is doing something I love, every day...... even if just for 5 or 15 minutes! It gets me through my MS attacks as I wonder what I will loose during this attack (will I loose the ability to write? Will I be able to walk?) Weirdly enough it is what people going through chemo do to. For me it is being outside in the garden, watching the birds. What ever brings you joy & nourishes your soul; do it!!

I would start the intros at step 1, take it as slow as the most reluctant cat wants & moving may help.

I hope each cat gets the run of the place half the time (with the other cat locked in a room.) It helps spread their scent around; so both cats own the space. I would even use crates coveted in a towel to switch the cats without them seeing each other if need be.

Now some cats just hate all other cats. We encountered that once with an abandoned cat that was cat aggressive. It took us 18 months to find him a home where he could be the only kitty! (It was during the housing crisis & the no kill shelter was full! Every week/month I called!) He lived in the garage and after a year didn’t want to kill the other 3 cats! If he could have been friendly with the resident cats, we would have kept him. If one of your cats is cat aggressive; they may need to be only kitties.

Sometimes the best outcome you can hope for is the cats tolerating each other (& not trying to kill each other!) Sometimes you wind up having to rehome a cat for their own good....... though I hope 6 months after you move both of your cats will be living together peacefully!