Introduction gone wrong

luizaballerina

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Recently I adopted a new cat, Lulu. She’s 2 years old. She is very cuddly and can be very playful. At home, I have another cat Walley, 2 years old, male, and a 13 year old small dog. So for the first few days, we kept Lulu in a separate “safe” room and she adjusted very quickly to the new space. She began showing signs of wanting to see the rest of the house, so about 3 days in, we moved onto phase 2 and let her roam around without the other pets in another room. We let her do this about twice before she met my dog. Immediately she started hissing at him. He’s very peaceful and didn’t make any moves at all. She pawed at him a little and then hid under the bed for a while. Since then, they’ve encountered each other again and no foul play occurred, she’s just a little apprehensive of him. So after she was a little more comfortable around the house, maybe day 5, we moved onto phase 3, letting Walley into her safe room to sniff her scent. As soon as he got into the room, his tail lowered and he looked scared. He very slowly and cautiously sniffed every single thing in the room. Eventually his tail was back in the air and was as if everything was normal to him again. We thought that Walley would be sniffing under the door of the room and stuff, but he didn’t. So the next day, we tried to have them see each other through cracking the door open just a little. Lulu always ran to the door of her safe room the second it opened, so really we just had to get Walley to approach the door. I placed him on the ground in front of the door crack and as soon as he saw her he backed up. He spent a long time staring at her from afar, not coming near her at all, meanwhile she’s sticking her nose as far out as she can and trying to open the door more. Later that day, I saw Walley come near the door and sniff the crack under the door. The next day, we tried the same thing and Walley got the slightest bit closer, still not close enough to really get a good look at Lulu. That day, we let Lulu roam the house again, no other pets. Since we don’t have 2 cat crates yet or a screen/gate, we couldn’t get the cats face-to-face time with a barrier. So, we thought the next step should be a supervised introduction. We had my mom in the safe room playing with Lulu and I brought Walley in and set him down. IMMEDIATELY, Lulu started hissing at him and advancing towards him, and within seconds a HUGE fight broke out. Walley backed away from Lulu and she ran after him. She then advanced onto him as he tried to defend himself. It seemed like a lot of scratching and biting were involved, but neither of them appeared injured afterwards. Next, Walley runs behind a curtain and I grab Lulu before she can attack him again and take her out of the room. Walley was extremely scared. His pupils were as wide as can be and his hair was standing up a bit. He remained in the same spot behind the curtain for a while. I petted him to comfort him a bit and it seemed to work, although he was making growling noises still. After a while, I tried to coax him out with food and toys, and he was still very upset because he clawed the toy out of my hand. Eventually, my dad coaxed him out as he came back into the living room tail up and back to his normal self. The introduction couldn’t have gone worse! I really need some advice on how we should proceed. Should I not have introduced them in Lulu’s safe room? Please help!
 

Krienze

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So, I've never had a fight break when meetings happened out so I'm not 100% sure on the handling there BUT from what I understand, when a meeting goes wrong, your best bet is to trek back and start over completely.

=( I'm sorry about the fight. That had to have been scary for you.
 

ArtNJ

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You mostly just went way too fast. An introduction between two adult cats is usually going to take weeks. These two cats are young, which helps a lot, and you might have gotten lucky with a quick intro. However, with a dog involved it is certain the newcomer will be highly stressed and lash out if you go quickly, so needing at least several weeks is a certainty, and it could take longer. Yes, as mentioned by Krienze Krienze the remedy is backing up and trying again. Let me link our guides for you.

How To Fix An Unsuccessful Cat Introduction – Cat Articles
How To Successfully Introduce Cats: The Ultimate Guide – Cat Articles
How To Safely Introduce A Cat And A Dog – Cat Articles

Now what these guides do not cover is whether there should be alterations for a multi-pet house like you have. In other words, should you sequence things? I've not had a dog and will defer to others that may chime in on this, but I tend to think the best idea would be to follow the plan of the cat introduction guide, and include the step where the new cat's safe room is screened off by double stacked baby gates so all pets can see and get used to each other, then when this seems to be going well, separate out the cat, and try the leashed intro from the dog guide (because this is the most critical introduction). But again, I'll defer on that to those that have done this 2 way intro! Good luck!
 
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