Hi everyone!
I have a 2 year old big cat named Khajiit (hello Skyrim fellas), who I adopted when he was about 8 months old. He lived in a shelter until I brought him home, and was used to another cats.
He is just the sweetest, mellowest cat ever, very energetic and loves company. So, me and my boyfriend (we live toghether) wanted to get him a playmate to keep him company while we're at work.
2 weeks ago we adopted a beautiful cat, a girl called Pidgeon. She was found in my cousin's basement and had just delivered 4 kittens. She was then spayed and the kittens were adopted and we decided to get her.
The vet says she is not even 1 year old yet. The girl is very sweet with the humans and loves being petted, but is still a bit skittish. For the first 2 days we kept her in a bedroom, doing place swaps, scent swaps and everything. As she seemed to be adapting well, in the third day we opened the door just a crack for them to see each other. No bad reactions, and we let her roam a little.
Khajiit got really defensive, growling and hissing at her, but never attacking.
We kept that meeting short and put her back in the room. The next day we tried again, and suddenly Khajiit seemed to decide that she was not a threat and went from defensive to REALLY curious.
He would follow her around and tried to get close to her, but she went nuts, growling, and hissing.
In the past week we had great advances, and she is roaming the house freely, playing with us, playing alone and only get scared if he gets too close too fast.
THE PROBLEM HERE:
He decided that he wants to play with her. About twice a day he goes in his hyper mode, and runs like crazy, jumping around her and startling her. He already got 4 long scratches (superficial though) in the nose but didn't learned his lesson.
He tries SO HARD just touch her with his paw or smell her, but she doesn't want close contact and swat him. They never had a full blown up fight, just occasional swats.
We try to play with him to tire him up, but he is not responding to toys or the games we used to play before, and seems obsessed with her, even when she is locked in the room.
And, adding up, lately she is showing some signs of dominance, smacking him to steal his food (we feed them in separated rooms but open doors) and not covering her poop in the box. He doesn't look distressed about it, and just back down to watch her eat.
We are still keeping her in the room at night and when we are not there (with a little crack open, where they play paws often), but we don't know what to do about his constant advances (lock him up when he gets hyper? let them figure out themselves?) and we don't know if we should start treating her as the dominant cat.
Can anyone help us?
I have a 2 year old big cat named Khajiit (hello Skyrim fellas), who I adopted when he was about 8 months old. He lived in a shelter until I brought him home, and was used to another cats.
He is just the sweetest, mellowest cat ever, very energetic and loves company. So, me and my boyfriend (we live toghether) wanted to get him a playmate to keep him company while we're at work.
2 weeks ago we adopted a beautiful cat, a girl called Pidgeon. She was found in my cousin's basement and had just delivered 4 kittens. She was then spayed and the kittens were adopted and we decided to get her.
The vet says she is not even 1 year old yet. The girl is very sweet with the humans and loves being petted, but is still a bit skittish. For the first 2 days we kept her in a bedroom, doing place swaps, scent swaps and everything. As she seemed to be adapting well, in the third day we opened the door just a crack for them to see each other. No bad reactions, and we let her roam a little.
Khajiit got really defensive, growling and hissing at her, but never attacking.
We kept that meeting short and put her back in the room. The next day we tried again, and suddenly Khajiit seemed to decide that she was not a threat and went from defensive to REALLY curious.
He would follow her around and tried to get close to her, but she went nuts, growling, and hissing.
In the past week we had great advances, and she is roaming the house freely, playing with us, playing alone and only get scared if he gets too close too fast.
THE PROBLEM HERE:
He decided that he wants to play with her. About twice a day he goes in his hyper mode, and runs like crazy, jumping around her and startling her. He already got 4 long scratches (superficial though) in the nose but didn't learned his lesson.
He tries SO HARD just touch her with his paw or smell her, but she doesn't want close contact and swat him. They never had a full blown up fight, just occasional swats.
We try to play with him to tire him up, but he is not responding to toys or the games we used to play before, and seems obsessed with her, even when she is locked in the room.
And, adding up, lately she is showing some signs of dominance, smacking him to steal his food (we feed them in separated rooms but open doors) and not covering her poop in the box. He doesn't look distressed about it, and just back down to watch her eat.
We are still keeping her in the room at night and when we are not there (with a little crack open, where they play paws often), but we don't know what to do about his constant advances (lock him up when he gets hyper? let them figure out themselves?) and we don't know if we should start treating her as the dominant cat.
Can anyone help us?
Maybe give her places to "hide" in when he gets hype...empty cardboard boxes seem to be a favorite around here. I know you are in an apartment but do you have "vertical" places for them like a cat tree/scratcher they can climb up?
