Cats accepting a newbie

[Steve B.]

New member. Long time cat owner, many cats in 40 years.

Tough situation.

2 young male cats, 30 mos. old, siblings and moved to this house from foster at 6 weeks
. They had a 20 yr old female existing in the house when they moved in, got along OK, as the existing female was the queen of the house. The fact that they were small kittens meant she told them what was what. 20 year old Zoey passes away May 2022.

Fast forward to October 2023, we adopt a 10 year old female - Kas, our nephews cat who for a variety of reasons did not move with the family to Spain. We agreed to take her in, we had had her boarding with us when she was younger, knew and liked her.

She spent her 10 years as a solo cat in a very small NYC apartment, is now in a large multi story house, so lots of new territory to discover.

Except the existing young male siblings are not readily accepting her. As they grew up play fighting each other and chasing, that is a behavior they tried on with
Kas. As she has poorly developed (none) experiences with other cats, the running and chasing has been a problem. She has learned to jump onto counters to escape, only will carefully seek out the downstairs living room and very careful trips to the second floor. The male siblings sleep in different bedrooms on the second floor, so when Kas hears that things are settled down, she will explore. She has been sleeping in the first floor kitchenette area, usually on her favorite blanket. Will not sleep on the second floor or spend any real time there. She is an affectionate people cat and I feel like she would desire to sleep in proximity to her humans, that is not yet possible. We placed Feliway dispensers throught the first floor, doesn’t seem to have any affect.

If and when one of the male siblings encounters Kas out and about, they are likely to challenge and if she runs, she gets chased, with much screeching and hissing. If they calmly approach her, she will hiss and swat if they get too close.

It’s been 3 months. They are very, very slowly acclimating, but the chasing and challenging is still occurring. I like this girl and would desire to keep her, but wonder if she would be better off in a different living situation. We potentially have the option to move her to nephew 2’s new apartment. He has house sat for Kas, likes her and likes cats. On the other hand I hate the idea of her moving yet again. At her age I want her to have a good living situation. Not sure how much time to give it before she gets along with my two boys.

 

[Furballsmom]

Hi
I personally would move her right away to nephew 2's place. Everything about it, from the size of territory to one person and no other cats, is better for her.

 

[ArtNJ]

This is just a young cat/old cat thing. It goes this way a high percentage of the time. More normal than the relationship with the 20 year old tbh. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don't.

It should continue to improve with time, but they will likely never be friends and she might continue to have stress for a fairly long while. Eventually, you'll get to where they bother her less and she is fine with them unless they are bothering her, but it really can't be said how long it will take.

I had one of these where like 2 years after the kittens arrived the older cat played with them for about 60 seconds when she had elevation and they did not. For real, I almost cried, because the process was long and stressful.

 

[Steve B.]

The relationship between the 2 - 8 week old kittens and the 20 year old female, who had her scent all over the house, was somewhat planned in that we hoped the kittens would be too small to start challenging the older female. That seems to work and they established a comfortable relationship for a year. This situation we knew was fraught with potential problems as the kittens are essentially grown cats in a territory they have owned for new 3 years. Enter the new girl, with very few experiences interacting with other cats. We expected problems. We had hoped the 2 existing boys would adapt. They haven’t as we wanted, they act like bullies at times.

I commented to my wife about posting here, she asked me if I could now give up the female and the truth is I cannot. I love her to death, she’s a really sweet and good girl, just needs time. We laughed that the apartment she grew up in was about the size of our kitchen and dining room. Suddenly she adds to that space a living room, full basement and 3 bedrooms upstairs. A bit overwhelming and I suspect and she’s just slowly getting used to the added space, compounded that she might get ambushed around a corner.

 

[Furballsmom]

Enter the new girl, with very few experiences interacting with other cats. We expected problems. We had hoped the 2 existing boys would adapt. They haven’t as we wanted, they act like bullies at times.

she asked me if I could now give up the female and the truth is I cannot. I love her to death, she’s a really sweet and good girl,

It would be appropriate if you were to think of her perspective and situation.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with ArtNJ, except that I am in this case. You are asking far too much of a 10 year old cat, including to have her come into a huge (to her) residence that, as you commented is still full of the 20 year old's scent, and additionally, bullying young ones.

You are a long long way from giving her up when you have a ready-made situation for her, that would be completely wonderful for her.

How far away from you is Nephew2's apartment?

 

[Steve B.]

It would be appropriate if you were to think of her perspective and situation.

With this comment in my last post, it's clear that is exactly what we are doing

"We laughed that the apartment she grew up in was about the size of our kitchen and dining room. Suddenly she adds to that space a living room, full basement and 3 bedrooms upstairs. A bit overwhelming and I suspect and she’s just slowly getting used to the added space, compounded that she might get ambushed around a corner."

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with ArtNJ, except that I am in this case. You are asking far too much of a 10 year old cat, including to have her come into a huge (to her) residence that, as you commented is still full of the 20 year old's scent, and additionally, bullying young ones.

How far away is Nephew 2's apartment ?

Kind of no good choices. She either stays with us, or moves to yet another location (Brooklyn to Long Island and back to Brooklyn at N2). I don't like the idea of relocating her yet again to what would be her 3rd home, with fewer guarantees of her living condition. Nephew 2 is in a new apartment with his girlfriend, I "think" girlfriend/housemate likes cats and/or has lived with them before, not sure. We are somewhat trying to reduce stress on an 11 year old by not making her relocate, balanced by the stress of the 2 males being mildly abusive (there is no actual fighting, just noise) and hoping that gets better. As far as I can tell, there are no great tricks to help behavior issues in the male cats, short of constantly monitoring and stopping issues. Cats are gonna be cats is the bottom line and it's just unpredictable.

I had some success 10 years ago introducing a male 3 year old into a house with 2 older indoor cats (about age 5 or so). This was an outdoor cat whose owner was in local jail and not home to feed, thus the outdoor cat was ready to defect to whomever could feed him on a regular basis. Turned out to be us, and it actually all worked well, as outdoor cat went out so was not needing to establish territory in the home, he would just sleep and eat inside and then go out. Not the same situation.

As per typical and difficult to predict or understand cat behavior, the 11 year old and the 2 younger males all seemingly respect each other in a neutral territory that is a the cat porch, a screened in porch where they can all hang out and watch birds and squirrels. They seem to tolerate each other outside.

 

[Alldara]

Does she have some space in a day that's blocked off from the younger boys?

If they are doing well in neutral territory, can you back up the intros a bit?

Also try taking a worn shirt of yours and rubbing it on her and then the two boys.

If you can, I'd also recommend washing the walls and such first. Taking as much of the smell of your deceased cat out of the intro areas. I have had good luck with using a Swiffer wet pad to clean the walls and baseboards quickly just to mute some of the smells. Then you can take that same worn t-shirt with all the cats smells and rub it around your baseboards. Many posters on the nonrecognition aggression thread had success with that so I've been recommending it for intros too.

Placing many boxes and tunnels around the house will also help for the chase. It makes extra pathways and safe havens. The boxes also help to reduce stress even in a shelter environment if you have a few cozy ones. They also make brand new "scent soaker" places.

 

[Steve B.]

Without closing doors and/or isolate in separate rooms, the 3 cats have access to each other. It’s obviously a territory thing as the 2 younger males will at times sleep/rest in a spot where the older FM usually sleeps but is momentarily unoccupied. So a placing scent thing. Looking at it from the boys perspective, it’s obvious they don’t understand why she won’t play, chase, run, etc…., which is something they’ve enjoyed all their years in this big house. We are making great effort to teach the 2 boys that chasing is not acceptable behavior with Kas, nor is occupying her sleeping locations, by moving them, and/or shouting to discourage chasing. I have yo remember they are just cats being cats and need to continue to give the boys love and attention. Cant spend too much time scolding them, that’ll just make them upset.

The scent ideas are good ones. I will be dragging out the swifter tomorrow to wipe down obvious rubbing locations, then trying to re-scent as it where many spots.

 

[Alldara]

Try not to shout if you can. They might view her as the reason they are in trouble

 

[ImaRobot]

Without closing doors and/or isolate in separate rooms, the 3 cats have access to each other. It’s obviously a territory thing as the 2 younger males will at times sleep/rest in a spot where the older FM usually sleeps but is momentarily unoccupied. So a placing scent thing. Looking at it from the boys perspective, it’s obvious they don’t understand why she won’t play, chase, run, etc…., which is something they’ve enjoyed all their years in this big house. We are making great effort to teach the 2 boys that chasing is not acceptable behavior with Kas, nor is occupying her sleeping locations, by moving them, and/or shouting to discourage chasing. I have yo remember they are just cats being cats and need to continue to give the boys love and attention. Cant spend too much time scolding them, that’ll just make them upset.

The scent ideas are good ones. I will be dragging out the swifter tomorrow to wipe down obvious rubbing locations, then trying to re-scent as it where many spots.

I'm in a different, yet similar situation with my current girl I adopted mid December. I have two boys, this year they will be 7 and 4 years old. They are set in their ways of how they like to play, and they are very playful, yet affectionate cats. The new girl is definitely 100% not ready for that yet. They will try from time to time but I quietly get in the middle of them to stop them before anything happens, but sometimes they get a little too close while I'm distracted and she will swat and hiss.

Shes at least 5 years old at this point. They aren't aggressive with her and aren't bullying her, but she's a cat that has never had a comfortable living situation so does not know their intentions yet, and its only been 1.5~ months, so it'll definitely need more time. I keep her in her own room when I'm at work so the boys do not have access to her, when I get home I have two baby gates that I stack vertically so that way they have visible access to each other while I situate myself and unwind.

After I'm all ready to relax, I let down the gates while I supervise them all 100% of the time they are free. I'll try to entice the little girl to explore the rest of the apartment and while its getting better, she doesn't like exploring on her own and will head back to her safe room, but I'll entice her multiple times to come out and explore with me while the boys are distracted in her room and that's been working. Her not knowing the environment is one of the reasons she will get in her moods. She finally jumped into their cat tree which is in the far corner of the living room, which is amazing progress as far as I'm concerned. When shes done exploring I'll head back to the room with her and lounge around with her, and start playing with her toys, while the boys are around. I purposely put myself between them most times so that way she will feel comfortable, I'll also entice everyone to get into a bit of a circle while I give them treats.

I've now been doing this nearly every single day and its been going well, they can all be in the same general vicinity with each other, no ones scared, she'll still play eat and sleep even with them around. There are some days where they do try to push the limits of how close they get to her and she'll get mad, so I'll usually give it a day break before I do it again. I feel like the distance shes ok with them being is getting smaller as the weeks go by. It's an extremely long and drawn out process, but it is definitely making a difference the first time they saw each other through the baby gates she was hisses and swats at the gate itself. From time to time I'll also lock my boys up completely so she can explore completely hassle free, I feel this is helpful the most as during these times she'll even come sit with me on the couch while I watch TV, she wont do that when theyre free. When its time for sleep I kick the boys out of her safe room and let her have her peace, sometimes I sleep in there with her, others in the living room with the boys.

I'm not sure what you have or havent done yet, but hopefully you can get something out of the experience I'm having right now. I know in my case its going to be an extremely long and drawn out process, but I'm definitely seeing progress at the least. Has she had her own safe space that the boys cant access when she moved in or was it free reign as soon as she was moved in?

 

[Sarah M]

Hello,

I'm also in the process of introducing a cat to a multo cat household. I had a thread where you might find some tip that might work for you. Right now I've gone back to basics and am using the crate method to help my cats get along, one cat at a time. But my situation was very dire, I had a lot aggression from my resident cats towards the new kitten. This training plan was suggested by a member, it may help you. Kitten to multi-cat household introduction not progressing

 

[Steve B.]

Well a few weeks later, things seemed to be slowly setting down. We remembered to replenish the Felway dispensers, first time using, didn’t realize they run out as quick. Possibly that’s helping. One of our male 2-1/2 yr olds seems to be getting along with the newbie female, or at least there’s maybe less hostility. She doesn’t seem as afraid of him, will calmly walk past him in the kitchen, he doesn’t react. He ran up to her last week in the living room, but stopped short. She sat and stood her ground, male then glooped over in his side and stretched his front paws to her, very no aggressive behavior. 2nd male cat not as good, will still on occasion give chase, sometimes he ignores her. She watches these 2 males as they play, chase and play fight, which they’ve done as kittens and as they are brothers. She grew up alone and has poor cat social skills as result. As an observation that this 11 year old female grew up in a really tiny apartment in Brooklyn, that moving to this huge house might be overwhelming to her. She has less interest in spending any time on the 2nd floor, where she knows the 2 boys sleep. She is happy to scamp and run around playfully on the first floor and in the basement. Maybe that’s enough space for her. We would love it if she slept upstairs, there’s a separate room she could claim, it’s warmer, but to date have not been able to get her to stay upstairs for more then a few minutes. Slow process and less stress with them as the weeks progress.