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- Oct 16, 2018
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Hi all, I was hoping to hear from some people who have personally dealt with long-term cat intros of two cats that turned out to not be as compatible as you hoped.
My first cat (Coffee, age 3, spayed) is quite shy and reserved, and just terrified of the new cat (Maui, 5 years old, spayed). "New" being about 20 months now... I know, it's bad. They're not separated at all times, they sleep in the same room together (our bedroom) and have some time out together during the day. The problem is that when they have access to each other, Coffee stays on her perch the whole time. It's really quite sad to see. Maui is very type-A, dominating, chasing her if she happens to move (she was not like this at the shelter when we picked her up!), which just further cements Coffee's fear. Honestly, I don't think Maui is interested in hurting her, it's more of a game to her. If she happens to catch up to her (Coffee is the faster/more agile one so she usually gets away), she just sort of stands over her in a dominant stance while Coffee hisses and is quite vocal. They have never drawn blood in a fight (except one time that Maui jumped onto Coffee's perch and Coffee swiped her in the face) but Coffee is clearly NOT happy about it at all. I don't know if this is them trying to work out their hierarchy and I should just finally ignore it, or if it's good to keep intervening?
I do try to play with Maui to tire her out and Coffee to build her confidence, I just think they need more help than that at this point. Right now, because of the lockdown I'm at home most days and my boyfriend works Monday-Thursday. Our routine so far is that he wakes up at 5 and takes Maui out of the bedroom with him, and that allows Coffee a nice stretch and roam around while I sleep in til about 8:30-9. During this time she comes down and uses the litter box which is super important because she suffers from idiopathic cystitis so she needs to have access to the box without being chased out of it by Maui. She only pees once per day (she has always been this way, it's not because of Maui).
I guess my question is: should I just start leaving the doors open, after Coffee does her morning litter box routine, and try not to feel so bad about her being on the perch? Will she eventually get bored of being up there and come down and stand up to Maui? Or will she just sit up there and waste away her whole life? I guess I worry that the 3-4 hours of stretch time in the morning will be enough for her to spend the next 21 hours on her perch, and never feel that desire to change the status quo... I don't want to see her confined to a little shelf because she's too afraid to stand up to Maui.
My first cat (Coffee, age 3, spayed) is quite shy and reserved, and just terrified of the new cat (Maui, 5 years old, spayed). "New" being about 20 months now... I know, it's bad. They're not separated at all times, they sleep in the same room together (our bedroom) and have some time out together during the day. The problem is that when they have access to each other, Coffee stays on her perch the whole time. It's really quite sad to see. Maui is very type-A, dominating, chasing her if she happens to move (she was not like this at the shelter when we picked her up!), which just further cements Coffee's fear. Honestly, I don't think Maui is interested in hurting her, it's more of a game to her. If she happens to catch up to her (Coffee is the faster/more agile one so she usually gets away), she just sort of stands over her in a dominant stance while Coffee hisses and is quite vocal. They have never drawn blood in a fight (except one time that Maui jumped onto Coffee's perch and Coffee swiped her in the face) but Coffee is clearly NOT happy about it at all. I don't know if this is them trying to work out their hierarchy and I should just finally ignore it, or if it's good to keep intervening?
I do try to play with Maui to tire her out and Coffee to build her confidence, I just think they need more help than that at this point. Right now, because of the lockdown I'm at home most days and my boyfriend works Monday-Thursday. Our routine so far is that he wakes up at 5 and takes Maui out of the bedroom with him, and that allows Coffee a nice stretch and roam around while I sleep in til about 8:30-9. During this time she comes down and uses the litter box which is super important because she suffers from idiopathic cystitis so she needs to have access to the box without being chased out of it by Maui. She only pees once per day (she has always been this way, it's not because of Maui).
I guess my question is: should I just start leaving the doors open, after Coffee does her morning litter box routine, and try not to feel so bad about her being on the perch? Will she eventually get bored of being up there and come down and stand up to Maui? Or will she just sit up there and waste away her whole life? I guess I worry that the 3-4 hours of stretch time in the morning will be enough for her to spend the next 21 hours on her perch, and never feel that desire to change the status quo... I don't want to see her confined to a little shelf because she's too afraid to stand up to Maui.
