Introduction was going swimmingly and suddenly took a turn for the worse

[Julesbiscuits]

I think my last big worry with the process taking so long was that it felt cruel to Jonesy to not be a part of everything that goes on here for so long, but now that he's getting enough playtime and we know him a little better, he seems to be more ok with his bathroom quiet time when need be/and overnight. He even started playing with the toys in there by himself when he does get bored, I can hear him. And he really is great with our daughter, he calms down before approaching her and is very careful around her. Never tries to go in her playpen either, which is a struggle I've had with Misfit (he does it for attention lol)

 

[Alldara]

Those all sound like excellent ideas! The ripple mat sounds amazing! Let me know how that goes. We can't justify one here in our space.

Whew child-proofing and cat-furniture can be a difficult one. Sometimes they go hand-in-hand like our locks on the cleaning cupboards. We really limited the type of trees we had when my neices was little (she didn't live here but they stayed for 5 days at a time so she should be able to navigate the space independently).

I found that those cube bookshelves put sideways were great. We could leave some of the shelves empty for the cats and put toys in other cubes. You can anchor them to the walls but we wanted ours in front of the window for the cats to see our and to have some child safe plants for Montessori activity of plant watering. We have a small dog-crate with a fuzzy blanket and we took the door off for child safety. There's a blanket on top and honestly, our niece would crawl into it with her little stuffies to play too. Lily never minded.

The bright side of Jonsey is that he's growing up with the baby already there so he will learn easy like Nobel did!

I'm so happy that you are starting to feel more uplifted about the situation and VERY proud of you for sticking a hard situation out when it went against your instincts at first.

 

[Julesbiscuits]

So last night we had them at the gate together, Jonesy actually mostly ignored Misfit and walked off to go see what I was doing in the kitchen(my partner was taking the lead this time.)

My partner was concerned because at one point Jonesy was sticking his arm through the gate with his claws out. I think my partner is worried Jonesy was trying to hurt Misfit because Misfit looked a bit offended. But I don't think Jonesy would scratch him or had any intention of making contact. He did seem a little irritable about the lick treat (I think he was hungry, after I fed him he was much happier he eats SO MUCH lol it's hard to tell if he's just begging or if he actually is hungry)

Misfit also gets very excited when he sees Jonesy playing with a toy, he actually climbed the gate (we have them doubled up, neither can get through it) I'll post a picture. He doesn't get very excited when I try to play with him with a toy alone though. I think if we left them to their own devices (with the gate) Jonesy would probably mostly ignore Misfit at this point but periodically try to find a way through the gate. Misfit goes right up to the gate to watch him but moves away when he gets close unless there's a treat. Anyways, they seem pretty ambivalent. Not particularly friendly but no obvious signs of stress from either.

 

[Julesbiscuits]

We had a gate meeting just now and it seemed like a good time. Jonesy wasn't distracted by toys but after a couple instances where he lunged a paw through and Misfit walked away he seemed to realize that Misfit wouldn't engage with him if he did that so I actually saw him hunker down by the gate and tuck in his front paws and just watch Misfit play with the laser. And when Misfit came close he resisted the urge to pounce through the gate. Then I led him away to the other room with some food and now Misfit is investigating all his stuff in the bathroom. So while he's still obsessed with Misfit he's starting to pay attention to signals. This was also the first time I did anything with them while home alone with the baby!

Misfit seems more playful right now; he's been getting the zoomies more and being more energetic! Honestly I'm wondering if most of his stress signs that I see are because of me and less so Jonesy, it's like he can tell I'm worried and doesn't want to do anything to make me more nervous. So sitting back with precautions in place and letting them interact seems to be improving outcomes. In fact, I might be more obsessed with Misfit than Jonesy is!!! All their best moments happen when I'm not hovering 🥲

 

[Alldara]

That's lovely. It seems like it's going so well!

Likely Jonesy was putting his claws out to grasp things not to hurt. They can grab things with their claws.

 

[Julesbiscuits]

Had a funny interaction with Jonesy today... So I went into the bathroom to relieve myself about an hour ago and I always close him out to keep him from play attacking while I use the toilet. Well, this time he waited outside the bathroom in his play tunnel and went for my ankle as I left the bathroom. I, having had a glass of wine and being fed up with such things tried "NO" first to no avail (he wasn't hurting me but still.) But then without even thinking about it I did the highest pitched "AH!" I've EVER done. I don't know why but I always thought that kind of thing never worked. I grew up with puppies and puppies just don't respond to that, they think you're playing even more and double down.

When I say Jonesy let go INSTANTLY and ran across the living room in shock it's an understatement. Clearly the little man has SOME manners after all! I almost felt bad, he was so taken aback! I'm hoping this translates to interactions with Misfit but I don't know...

He also swiped at our daughter through the crib slats last night but I think he instantly knew he wasn't supposed to because he immediately ran off back to the toy my partner was waving and didn't come back. It'll take some work but he has the empathy needed to figure things out I think. He really doesn't want to hurt anyone!

One question: they're ... Kind of playing pawsies under the door? I caught Misfit laying pretty chill in front of the door Jonesy is behind at the moment and it seemed all cool but then I think a claw accidentally touched him and he got upset for a second. Not too upset, he just jumped up and kind of swatted at the paw and kind of squinted a bit like he was feeling irritable. But he stayed by the door and he has complete freedom to leave whenever he wants. I'm really puzzled as to what kind of relationship they'll have when this all shakes out, my friend said she thought Jonesy would be the "dominant" one (her words, not mine, I don't really believe in that) but it seems to me that Misfit will hold most of the cards being that he's acting like such a curmudgeon right now!

 

[Julesbiscuits]

 

[Julesbiscuits]

No Jonesy paws in that picture but they were there before.

 

[Julesbiscuits]

I do think that once they're integrated I will have a no Jonesy in the room the baby is sleeping in rule until she's older. Right now she sleeps in our room but we're hoping to transition her to her own room when we move.

Until then, would it be better to have a "no cats in the bedroom during sleepy times" or would it be ok to let Misfit have bedroom privileges and Jonesy not? Misfit likes to sleep tucked by my legs, ever since he was a baby (Julian never wanted to sleep together so it worked out)

I do think it would be nice for Misfit to have a break at night from kitten shenanigans.

 

[Alldara]

Julesbiscuits Yes. A high pitched sound like that always works. I really recommend it. It's how cats communicate with eachother if they accidentally pinch each other or something.

Pawsies is a good game. of course, cats will surprise own another from time to time. No need to worry. Sometimes my boys surprise one another and even get poofy surprised tails.

It's always interesting to see how the relationships unfold. They'll take turns being the dominant one for different situations, just like humans take turns taking lead. You'll learn about them a lot both individually and together as it unfolds.

It's perfectly fine to give Misfit that time at night. He might need it for even the first year or so. and to keep them out of the baby's room is good. Make sure to keep Jonsey's nails trimmed.

 

[Julesbiscuits]

Wow he is DRAMATICALLY sensitive to the yelping. My partner just tried it when he went for his ankle and he ran all the way back to the bathroom. Poor sensitive little guy.

 

[Julesbiscuits]

So my partner did a gate meeting earlier and this happened!

March 9, 2023

Jonesy still reaches as far as he can through the gate to Misfit with his claws out... And Misfit sits just out of reach. It's not a swatting motion... more of a reach and grab motion. We give treats periodically throughout the meeting, but also give them some time to interact. I definitely need to get more harness time on them but I think the gates are improving things, too. I have more videos of this session as well, but the files are kind of big so my partner is going to send them to me another way. I'm trying to post them for science in case someone in a similar situation stumbles across this later!

My partner also said that when the session ended and he put Misfit away to swap Jonesy back to his room, Misfit beelined for the gate when he let him back out.

I am having a little trouble with the looming necessity of nail trimming though. With Misfit we never did it, I tried once and he was growling so I didn't push it and he's never seemingly had a problem with them getting uncomfortable so I've just never broached it with him since he is very careful with his claws. With Jonesy.... The vet already had to have 5 people restrain him for a shot and blood draw and the rescue said they couldn't restrain him either so I'm incredibly nervous to trim his nails, I'm like if they're having no luck how the heck am I going to do better?

I did send an email to the rescue letting them know where we're at, mostly to reassure myself that if things really aren't working we can bring him back. Which isn't even a question, they're a great rescue, I used to work for them, but I worry about these things. I also don't like disappointing people. I don't want to, and I think that if I let my partner be the muscle and me the brains of the operation, so to speak, that things might fare better.

 

[Alldara]

Julesbiscuits most cats when needing to be restrained fight VERY hard. It's normal.

Best to use a restraint free method for nail trimming. Get him used to you touching his feet as much as possible.

I'll post some videos here. It takes time, maybe you only do one or two nails a day. (Unless the treat system REALLY works for him) but I've trained all my cats this way and even Magnus with his feet trauma will usually let me do them. Though, sometimes, I still can only do two a day so it takes me two days.

Instead of on a desk, I've seen some people put the treats on the cat's belly. Another poster on the forum even put the wet Churu treat on the cat's belly and it distracted them.

Magnus does NOT like being turned on to his back, so I have to do his standing up. I've never had another cat take issue with going on their back in that cradle position before.

 

[Julesbiscuits]

Thank you! I'll check those out! Maybe I'll even get Misfit's nails trimmed for the first time ever the only cat I've ever done a nail trim on was Julian but he was the most tolerant cat ever so he wasn't about to do anything about it, and he had issues with his claws getting caught on everything so I had to.

 

[Julesbiscuits]

I also did the catnip/wool dryer ball thing and it was a hit I think! I put it in his safe room and when I looked at it later it was clear he'd been wrestling with it

 

[Alldara]

Julesbiscuits Hope it works! When I started with Magnus, his foster mum had used the pinning method and I could only do one nail a day Most fosters do that here though, and from where we adopted from they always trim the nails before you pick up the kittens (so helpful ).

I was so relieved to hear Calcifer's foster used a no-pin method. He's as easy as Nobel used to be. She could only do one foot at a time by 5 months when he got here, but within a few weeks I could do all four paws at a time.

Magnus also has toe trauma, so that set all of our progress back. We had to soak his toes daily as he had an infection, and then an allergic reaction that the infection was secondary to and we didn't know until later.

It's best to do when they are a bit sleepy and you can scoop them into your arms.

PS. Happy to hear about the dryer ball! Wrestle toys definitely help a cat work out any frustration energy.

 

[Julesbiscuits]

Well, not the most positive update but I wanted to update everyone nonetheless: we will be bringing Jonesy back to the rescue, unfortunately. I spoke with them and my partner and we all feel that Jonesy would be happier paired with a kitten (and they have lots of those available!)

I took a step back and realized that this is a lot of change for Misfit in a really short time, and a lot of stress for me as my daughter starts to walk and we move houses. I also started to notice some concerning stress behaviors from Misfit; overall he seems less excited than he was at the start of this introduction, he's begun to eat less, he's acting worried about moving about the apartment any time Jonesy's been out right before, and last night he tried to run out in the hallway which he NEVER does (he does not want to leave the apartment EVER normally). Something about Jonesy just isn't vibing with him, and if Jonesy were older I would draw things out more months and see what we could do but since he's so young I think he really could benefit from a similar age playmate.

I think in the future we will try fostering since Misfit's not averse to other cats in general and I've always wanted to try fostering anyways! I did get over my fear of Jonesy for myself (a big deal for me!) but I've always held the stance that resident animals and people get veto rights on any new addition and both Misfit and my partner have spoken. He has so much going for him that I really think he won't be back at the rescue for very long at all!

I trust Misfit's judgement on these things, even since he was a kitten he's been very socially savvy so setting my own anxieties aside and just looking at his behavior and the situation more objectively I feel that something just doesn't feel right to him, either. Back in the day as a kitten he was a PITA to Julian but something feels different in the way Jonesy is; for example, Misfit would also repeatedly tackle Jules but a hiss was enough to have him back off for a split second and try from another angle; still annoying and not taking no for an answer but it felt different. I have trouble explaining it. I have noticed Jonesy get agitated/frustrated when Misfit raises objections however.

 

[Julesbiscuits]

I'm confident that one day we will find a match for Misfit, and that even if we don't he'll be happy with us still!

I'm going to guess that his best match will probably be either an extremely well socialized kitten who reads signals a little better or an older adult cat with a laid back personality and experience with other cats but who knows, life is long and takes turns you don't expect. I'm extremely grateful for all the advice I was given, it helped a lot with Jonesy over the past couple months and also benefited Misfit too! And I love these forums, particularly excited about the book club stuff!

We also found out through this process that Misfit LOVES clicker training and I'm very excited to continue that journey with him!

 

[Alldara]

Julesbiscuits I'm so glad that the rescue was able to facilitate this for you. It's never an easy decision. Especially doing all this with a new baby at home. You did your best and that's all anyone can do! You tried really hard and it didn't pan out, and unfortunately that's how it is sometimes.