Introduction Of A Young Cat To An Older Pair

[Tomrok]

Hello, my apologies for the very long post to follow, but I wanted to provide as much detail as possible in hopes of giving a very good sense of our particular situation.

My wife and I have a pair of 7 year old litter mates, Kosmo (male) and Leeloo (female) who we've always kept as indoor cats. Of the pair, Kosmo is the one that most exhibits alpha behavior. He is quite a bit possessive and is very, very attached to me most of all. We can have two of one toy and he'll be interested in the toy Leeloo is playing with. If I'm petting Leeloo, he'll sometimes want to come over as well. Somewhat oddly to me, when neighborhood cats approach our deck window, it's Leeloo that exhibits aggression and goes into patrol mode and Kosmo has never seemed too interested.

Anyhow, two months ago we came across an extremely sweet 1 year old male cat who was so endearing to us, we couldn't resist trying to bring him into our household. We had always maintained that we would not attempt this, but we thought on it for a week, read up many different articles on introductions and concluded that with dedication we could make it work. So we went forward with adopting the young cat we now call Kenobi.

Over the first two weeks we kept Kenobi in a spare bedroom behind a closed door. We attempted scent swapping with wash cloths we would trade between territories daily. We conducted meal time on either side of the door while moving the siblings dishes closer to the door every 24 hours. Kosmo, being very much in love with food, was right up against the door quickly. Leeloo is much more skittish by nature so it took her longer to reach the door. During this time every evening my wife or I would take the kitten into another bedroom to play and close the door while leaving Kenobi's room open for the siblings to explore. What I observed was that Leeloo would explore Kenobi's room several times over the course of an hour. Kosmo however came in one time, seemed a bit overwhelmed and then refused to explore the room much again. He would mostly just sit outside away from the room and look in.

Moving forward, over the next week, we tried cracking the door open during meal times to provide a small view while ordering some baby gates. We began to attempt holding play sessions on either side of the closed door, which seemed to mostly work well even if the siblings were a bit wary. When we received the gates, the following week we began to feed them with the gates up and a towel mostly obscuring the bottom gate which we gradually removed over the course of a week. We also tried to continue play sessions, which again went mostly okay.

Now, at a month in, we had the completely uncovered gate separating Kenobi from the siblings. Kenobi is a vocal little guy and by this point very much wants the run of the house, which he had only been getting in short private sessions over the first month. So he would tend to park himself right at the gate and make his desire known. Naturally Kosmo and Leeloo tended (and still do) to go up to the gate and hiss at him. By this point they seemed to not care about his scent alone, but the sound of his voice doesn't go over great with them. I remained encouraged though as during meals food was the focus and nothing else mattered to them.

Three weeks ago we decided to attempt to bring him outside of the room and play with Kenobi on one end, while I played with Kosmo and Leeloo about 25 feet away. At first, this seemed to be okay, however each session Kosmo became less and less willing to play at all. Leeloo was entirely content to play. Unfortunately we encountered issues trying to keep Kenobi focused on his end of the room and he was overly eager to want to charge over to play with the siblings toy. That didn't go over particularly well but there was nothing more than hissing and posturing. Unfortunately from this point on it felt like we could make no progress with Kosmo as he would just get moody during the play session and grumbly/growly if Kenobi ventured too close or looked in his direction.

At this point we attempted some sessions of having Kenobi out of the room with them. The first time this didn't seem to go terrible as he was just exploring and window watching out our deck window while Kosmo and Leeloo observed from a high napping place. The second time however, Kosmo approached Kenobi and sniffed his back with no reaction which was great. However, he then sniffed Kenobi's rear end and his reaction was less than great. We had an incident or two where Kenobi wanted to chase Kosmo. For the most part the worst we had was hissing/growling out of Kosmo and/or Leeloo with posturing and swatting but no contact. We had maybe one or two near fights where I had to throw in a towel.

We began keeping Kenobi in a harness and leash to prevent him from going into chase mode, however this still resulted in some not so friendly interactions when Kosmo or Leeloo would approach him or try to get past him. We have not observed Kenobi hiss even once in response to either of them. For the most part he seems to almost not care when Kosmo is hissing in his face. He'll tend to kind of plop over on his side sometimes when the posturing/swatting begins. However, he will also engage in the false swats too before plopping over and even a few times has gotten fed up and initiated posturing of his own. Interestingly, he seems to very much respect when Leeloo hisses at him even though Kosmo is more the alpha, he takes her more seriously and backs off much easier. We also began trying meal time without the gate, which the one constant is that they will all eat and there is peace once eating has begun. At times in any feeding scenario, gate/no gate, Leeloo will not want to eat her portion of dry food closely even though she had no issue with the wet food.

However, after a couple of weeks of not so great attempts at allowing mingling, we believe we've possibly gone too far off the plan and that we're regressing rather than progressing. As of today, we decided to reboot and did the morning meal time behind gates. I know it's only been two months, which isn't a lot of time but we're beginning to wonder if we're hurting more than helping and where can we go from here? What type of routine should we try to get into at this point? We're starting to lose a little hope but I really want this to work so I'm trying to take a breather and figure out how to proceed. Though I am still encouraged by the fact that they'll all eat, Kenobi doesn't hiss, and there hasn't been a very violent confrontation.

If you stuck through my long winded post, I thank you and appreciate any and all advice!

 

[Ms. Freya]

Hi Tomrok,
Welcome to TCS!

Sometimes cat introductions can be an incredibly slow process. The good news is that you sound like you actually have a good handle on it. I'm glad you backed up a few steps. We've had a few cases here where the only way to describe the was 'one step forward, two steps back'.
One thing I don't think I saw in your post: Are all three spayed or neutered? I'm asking because having an intact cat in the bunch will likely make the process that much more difficult.

Since you've had luck with the gates so far, I would keep them separate, but able to see and hear each other and keep that set up going until they honestly ignore each other no matter what's going on. One thing I've found worked when introducing adult cats was not to give them any reason to be in the same space if they don't want to, so let them mingle, but not try to enforce play with them in proximity, just let them be in proximity.

If you haven't already seen them, we have some great introduction suggestions in this article: How To Successfully Introduce Cats: The Ultimate Guide

I know it seems discouraging, but you're on the right track! Some cats will never be more than grudging roommates, so the fact that you've gotten them to the point where they can ignore each other while eating is a great step.

 

[Tomrok]

Thank you, that is very reassuring!

All three have been spayed/neutered. One other thing I did not note, is that Kosmo of late has shed his reluctance to explore Kenobi's room when he is not inside. He was even interested in inspecting Kenobi's napping areas.

Our home is a single floor house but has a good amount of space. There is a big open room that is between our TV room and the end of the house where the bedroom is. I've noticed that while Kenobi is gated, Kosmo will tend to spend some of his time in the middle of the large room. He cannot actually see Kenobi from where he sits, but it's almost as if he's just waiting to see if Kenobi wanders out. Though I suppose this at least gives him time to adjust to Kenobi's vocalizations.

We figure that we should continue our previous routine of having one of us spend some time with Kenobi in his room either playing or just giving him some company. When we've done this, Kosmo tends to observe from a short distance, especially if one of us is playing with Kenobi. Is this useful in helping them to adjust, or should our time spent with Kenobi be kept out of open view? I only wonder because of how attached Kosmo in particular can be to me. Both Kosmo and Leeloo will at times approach the gate while we visit and hiss if Kenobi is somewhat near the gate and makes eye contact.

I'm thinking it could be best for both ourselves and the cats if one of us continues with our normal routine relaxing in the TV room while one of us spends an hour or so in with Kenobi. That way they have the option of relaxing with one of us as usual or wandering to the gate to observe if they wish. We also want to get back to routinely swapping towels between areas for scent recognition. Possibly even get back to occasionally moving Kenobi to another room so that they may explore Kenobi's room if they feel like it. Finally, we try to stick to giving treats at the gate before closing the door for the night. Hopefully given more time doing all of this they will begin to ignore him more and more until we can proceed further.

 

[Ms. Freya]

I agree that the more normal you can keep things the better. Cats love their routines, so they'll probably come to the conclusion that Kenobi isn't bad if they get to keep their routines. Since he's so attached, maybe keep Kenobi's playtime separate until the hissing stops. I don't know. Personally, I've usually let all of the cats see me interact with the new cat, just as a visual that the new one is one of mine too.

Sometimes it takes so long for them to get used to one another. Our Freya still hissed at Wendel occasionally even after they'd been together a couple years.

 

[Tomrok]

After over a month of keeping Kenobi separated by the baby gates (outside of one ninja escape incident involving scaling the gate and getting through the cardboard barrier at the top, oops!), with occasional room swapping I can't say we're seeing a lot in the way of progress yet unfortunately. On the plus side, Kosmo and Leeloo will readily eat at the gate and will inspect the room when Kenobi is not in there. However, without the food distraction they'll go up to the gate and make noise before attempting to swipe through the gate. Kosmo tends to let out a half growl/half elongated annoyed meow with hissing. Leeloo just hisses and starts swatting. They'll keep it up for a short bit rattling the gate until they just kind of walk away in a huff. If we have him out of his room and gated in our TV area, if I'm not keeping them distracted with toys they will remain glued to the other side of the gates.

We tried treats at the gate before bed, but it seemed like they were not at all associating the treats with Kenobi's presence, but rather they just decided that that time of night equals treats. At this point all I can think is to just keep up the current setup and hope that with more time they'll begin to tolerate his presence more.

 

[TommieSawyer]

If you haven't tried it yet, I would try putting Kenobi in a carrier or crate and put it in the room where one or both of the existing cats are. That way, the existing cats can get used to the new cat in "their" territory but without any threat. Just do a 10 minute session at a time or so. Then the next day, take one of the existing cats and put them in a carrier and put that cat where Kenobi usually hangs (in "his" territory). Then the next cat. Go back and forth each day with these short sessions, until the hissing stops. Once the hissing stops and they seem comfortable, then try again having them interact unrestricted.

This technique has worked very well for me when introducing new cats. Also, if you don't already, be sure to have a least one (preferably two) kitty litter boxes per cat.

 

[Tomrok]

If you haven't tried it yet, I would try putting Kenobi in a carrier or crate and put it in the room where one or both of the existing cats are. That way, the existing cats can get used to the new cat in "their" territory but without any threat. Just do a 10 minute session at a time or so. Then the next day, take one of the existing cats and put them in a carrier and put that cat where Kenobi usually hangs (in "his" territory). Then the next cat. Go back and forth each day with these short sessions, until the hissing stops. Once the hissing stops and they seem comfortable, then try again having them interact unrestricted.

This technique has worked very well for me when introducing new cats. Also, if you don't already, be sure to have a least one (preferably two) kitty litter boxes per cat.

Interesting, I had read something similar to that technique at one point but my wife and I were unsure as to whether that would be too stressful. This was when they seemed very, very skittish about entering his room at all though.

We keep a private litter box in Kenobi's room and two more outside of it for Kosmo and Leeloo. Though it occurs to me that the only room we had available to setup for Kenobi was the original location of the litter boxes, so I wonder if that's an additional source of territorial annoyance (though they utilize the new location with no issue).

 

[TommieSawyer]

Interesting, I had read something similar to that technique at one point but my wife and I were unsure as to whether that would be too stressful. This was when they seemed very, very skittish about entering his room at all though.

We keep a private litter box in Kenobi's room and two more outside of it for Kosmo and Leeloo. Though it occurs to me that the only room we had available to setup for Kenobi was the original location of the litter boxes, so I wonder if that's an additional source of territorial annoyance (though they utilize the new location with no issue).

It might be worth a try. It seems like you have done everything else possible. When we did this method the last time, we introduced a kitten to an existing cat. We put the kitten in my daughter's bedroom with a kitty litter box and food and water and that is where he lived for the first two weeks or so. I think I waited a week before trying the crate thing and then I went back and forth for another week (2 weeks total). That is all it took before I felt they were ready to meet face on. And now they are buds. (I think the cat that is in the crate somehow knows that they are not in danger from the other cats and therefore it is not as stressful as you might think. Sort of like when you take them to the vet, they actually prefer the crate while they are there because it is a safe space.)

Now both cats have free reign of the whole house and all 4 kitty litter boxes are in the basement lined up (and they have their preferences too! ).

 

[Tomrok]

It might be worth a try. It seems like you have done everything else possible. When we did this method the last time, we introduced a kitten to an existing cat. We put the kitten in my daughter's bedroom with a kitty litter box and food and water and that is where he lived for the first two weeks or so. I think I waited a week before trying the crate thing and then I went back and forth for another week (2 weeks total). That is all it took before I felt they were ready to meet face on. And now they are buds. (I think the cat that is in the crate somehow knows that they are not in danger from the other cats and therefore it is not as stressful as you might think. Sort of like when you take them to the vet, they actually prefer the crate while they are there because it is a safe space.)

Now both cats have free reign of the whole house and all 4 kitty litter boxes are in the basement lined up (and they have their preferences too! ).

We'll have to give that a try then. When we place Kosmo or Leeloo in Kenobi's territory, is that done with Kenobi in the room to walk up to their carriers? Or should he be kept away in another room?

 

[TommieSawyer]

We'll have to give that a try then. When we place Kosmo or Leeloo in Kenobi's territory, is that done with Kenobi in the room to walk up to their carriers? Or should he be kept away in another room?

I would begin by just putting the carrier in the room while Kenobi is nearby but not in the room. That way, Kenobi has the option of going in or not going in. If Kenobi doesn't go in at all or leaves the room promptly, I would still leave the cat in the carrier for 10 mins or so anyway just the same. That way Kenobi can begin to predict the situation and eventually feel comfortable enough to come up to the carrier and get a closer look.

Since the other cats have the rest of the house as their territory, when you bring Kenobi out in a carrier, I would set him down in a relatively neutral place such as the kitchen or living room. Somewhere that isn't right by their food or favorite spot, etc.