Cats Getting Along Question

[MikeAndCats]

Has anyone had this kind of thing happen? It is a conditional fighting, i.e., only when Lisa is acting crazy and Callie approaches her.

Maybe I just need to help Lisa habituate to Callie's approach under this specific condition, so that she learns Callie is not a threat and thus learns to play instead of get scared.

 

[Furballsmom]

I know you said you don't think something like this will help, but a cat wheel and also possibly clicker training might accomplish quite a lot.

Maybe I'm wrong? but you sounded a little like you've given up on Lisa, but being approached by Callie while Lisa is in the middle of her own zoomies would be weird to any cat.

 

[misty8723]

I haven't read all the posts yet, but wanted to share my experience. Years ago we had two cats, Swanie and Cindy, who were best friends. When we lost Cindy, we wanted to get Swanie another companion so we adopted a female cat from a rescue (Persephone). We did the introduction, she was sweet as pie to us ,and Swanie seemed interested. When we finally let them interact, it seemed like it might be okay once they got to know each other better. However, I soon noticed that she was being a bit of a bully to Swanie. He would walk away. The final straw came when he was hiding in the closet and wouldn't come out, and I really didn't know why, so I carried him out and put him on our bed. Persephone also jumped up and immediately went after him and swatted at him. He jumped down and back in the closet, and I put her back in the room and closed the door. What you need to realize, my Swanie was a big boy, weighing in at 25 lbs, very solid body type. Persephone was tiny, 8 pounds tops, and he was letting her bully him. He had massive paws, one swat might have set her straight. But he was a lover, not a fighter. So size of cats doesn't matter when it comes to bullying. We made the reluctant decision to return her to the rescue, but I couldn't let her bully my soul mate kitty. A lot of people chastisted me for for doing that, but that is their policy and they will always take their cats back regardless of how long you've had them, and care for them until they're adopted or until their natural end of life. Since I've been volunteering there, I've even seen them take back older cats with medical problems, which they will treat, and quite often they do fiind adopters for them when they regain their health. Or they might become the office cats. One of the current office cats, 14 years old, just got adopted.

I would say if your brother is willing to take the new cat, let him. If you want a second cat, go to a rescue and spend time there. Not just an hour or two, go back several times. Talk to the staff. Talk to any volunteers. Tell them about your resident cat. They should have some ideas of which cats would be a good fit. But don't rely only on their suggestions, use your own instinct. I blame both the adoption counselor we were dealing with and my husband for Persephone. He wanted a cat, Persephone kept coming over to him and swatting at other cats who came near. He thought she was "protecting" him, but it raised red flags for me. I tried very very hard to interest him in other cats, but he wasn't having it, so since Cindy had been his heart kitty, I had told him it would be his decision, so Persephone it was. When we took her back, we were both in tears, because she was a sweet little kitty to us and it felt like failure, but they were very understanding, and immediately showed us a young cat (Darcy) who was beyond perfect. And they told us later that a young man had met Persephone and pronounced her the "perfect" cat for him, so it worked out for her too. The director told me about Persephone that they discovered she "REALLY didn't like other cats." So that's why I say, also use your instinct. At that rescue, once the cats are adoptable they put them together with other cats in rooms and observe them, and also rely on volunteers such as myself to report any behavior issues. Any cats being bullies will be separated and put into condos where they are listed as not liking other cats.

Good luck!

 

[di and bob]

You do know that every time a new cat goes to a vet and comes back smelling different you have to usually start over with introductions? I took all three of mine in at once to stop this. Really, swatting, growling, and hissing are all perfectly normal. Fighting is not. It will take months for your two to bond, not weeks. But it WILL happen!

 

[Johnscats]

I've had my 6 year old for about 5 years now. Just in early November, I took in a street cat who is very friendly (with me). I've done the introduction so that now I can let the new cat upstairs with the residential cat with no fighting. However, the new cat will hiss and swat at the residential cat when they get close, and she'll moan/growl when they lock eyes - but that is it. The new cat will look away turning her attention elsewhere after that, so she's not interested in doing anything with the residential cat other than this. The new cat is slightly larger and will ram the residential cat right out of her food bowl and eat it. The residential cat submits as she is smaller. I have to feed them separately or keep them apart at meal time. The residential cat was malnourished before I got her, and so she won't get big (at least that's what the previous owner told me). She is 8LB - is that small for 6y/o (she's a tuxedo short hair)?

So, my question is whether or not they can eventually get along or be able to get close without the new cat hissing/swatting. I really don't want my residential cat to have to not be the boss anymore. I can tell she's not happy about it. And I know its an individual situation, but is this possible, or is the new cat always going to be mean like this?

So one option: my brother wants to take the new cat if I don't want her. Maybe I'll give her to him and just get a smaller second cat (I really want a second cat now after this). Of course, I'd have to then deal with the unexpected things of that cat, but at least my residential will still be the boss.

So any advice or thoughts on this would help. I'm a pretty good single cat owner, but I'm not that good at owning multiple cats as this is very new to me.

I have the same problem as you and many others, what I have done is I rotate my cats every twelve hours from the basement to the upstairs, I wish I didn't have to, but they weren't hissing they were trying to kill each other. I have four cats so one female and another male up and two other males that are related down. It's a little hassle, but it works. All my cats were strays.

 

[MikeAndCats]

I don't think I sounded like I was giving up on Lisa. I'm just concerned that her FHS-like symptoms combined with the craziness could be generally bad for her even without the getting-along problem. But adding that in is additionally concerning. For now, I'm just monitoring them and stopping any confrontations when I see the precursors like stare downs, then I separate for a while. So, full intro will take longer than I thought.

Anyway, Callie had a vet visit yesterday, she got some vaccines, and they gave me the charcoal. I brought the urine sample back today. She has elevated white blood cells meaning either bladder infection or idiopathic cystitis. I've been giving her a tiny amount of baking soda and lots of extra water in her wet food, and I haven't seen any urinating outside the litterbox for a few weeks but still wanted her tested. Vet said I don't have to bring her back in unless symptoms come back. So we'll see what happens.

 

[Furballsmom]

Let us know how things are