- Joined
- Nov 20, 2022
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- Purraise
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My wife and I could use some help with an integration that has not gone well at all. We both have had cats all our lives, and had previously integrated cats - we'd had two cats pretty much at all times since 2008, and we volunteered with a shelter for about 10 years, so it's not our first circus, but things have not gone well. It might be easiest if I do this in a timeline, just to keep details in order:
Long story short: my 15-year old cat seems to just not want to interact with the new cat after following pretty much every interaction precaution and tactic in the book. If anyone has suggestions on how we can get her to be OK with him even showing curiosity about her, or standing her ground if he pounces to play, or any success with anti-anxiety meds for cats, I'd love to get the details.
Starts off with Taters (15) and Cecilia (12). We adopted Ceci when she was 1 and Taters was 5.
8/13/22: Cecilia has a sudden medical crisis and passes away unexpectedly.
8/26/22: We feel ready to look for another adoptable cat and meet Freddie at a nearby shelter. We spend an hour or so with him that day and really like him. He is recovering from a shoulder injury and wasn't running around much but was active, making good progress, and pending another X-ray from the shelter's vet. The shelter is OK with us waiting to hear about the shoulder before making a decision.
9/3/22: The shelter vet says his shoulder's coming along just fine. We bring home a scent-swap sample to Taters. She sniffs it and has no reaction - this is promising, since she'd panic over shelter cat smells in the past.
9/9/22: Freddie comes home with us. We put him in our 2nd floor, closed off from the rest of the house, with food + water + litter.
9/13/22: We begin scent-swapping between Taters and Freddie. Freddie is curious, Taters is disinterested. Taters goes for her annual vet wellness check - other than slightly high liver ALT values, no issues.
9/16/22: We let Freddie explore the 1st floor under our constant supervision with Taters secured in another room for a few minutes. We repeat this process over the next few days, occasionally letting them come within sight of each other. Taters hisses a little but nothing too much.
9/23/22: We start feeding them at opposite ends of the kitchen. They eat. Taters does the occasional hiss but over tim
e and short exposure, she doesn't seem to mind.
10/1/22: Occasionally Freddie will get a bit too close to Taters but she bops him and hisses, and he backs off. Other than Freddie sitting in a hallway between the door to the litter boxes and Taters, who hides a little more than normal in the basement, things seem to be going smoothly.
10/5/22: Taters' normal squeaky meows turn into just quacks - she'll open her mouth and no sound comes out. She occasionally looks like she's trying to cough up a hairball but comes up with nothing, or some foamy clear fluid. This continues for a few days.
10/8/22: Taters loses interest in the food that she's always liked. We try to tempt her with treats - she has a nibble, but not much.
10/9/22: After around 18 hours since her last confirmed food intake, we take her to the emergency vet, where they do X-rays and a CBC, and administer subcutaneous fluids. No evidence of blockage or primary organ issues. We're given scrips for throat/stomach coating meds and stool softeners in hopes of clearing up what may be constipation. She eats her normal wet food not long after we get home. We return Freddie to the upstairs and cease their interaction for the time being.
10/12/22: Other than the wet food and very minimal amounts of lickable treats, Taters still hasn't really eaten or had a bowel movement. We check in with our normal vet, who gives us a prescription appetite stimulant and syringes for force-feeding baby food. The vet asks us to check in if things don't improve in two days.
10/14/22: Still no improvement in her food/water intake. We're unable to get in touch with our vet and take her to the emergency vet. They re-run the blood tests that she got done last month, and administer an anti-nausea injection and subcutaneous fluids. Again, no issues other than slightly elevated ALT. The E-vet advises us to talk to the regular vet about an ultrasound. We get larger capacity force-feeding syringes and A/D prescription food, with the instruction to force-feed her 1tsp 4x daily, mashed into a slurry with extra water.
10/18/22: After 3.5-4 days of force feeding, Taters begins eating of her own volition. She goes to the vet and gets another checkup - all appears well. We schedule for an abdominal ultrasound next week, the earliest available slot we can get for the doctor who performs them.
After this, we tried a few more attempts at interaction. 90% of the time, Taters hisses at Freddie and wants nothing to do with him. If we leave Freddie to his druthers, he'll pounce on her to play, and Taters screams and yowls bloody murder. We separate them. At one point it got so bad that Taters fled into the basement and Freddie chased, continuing the fight. Taters peed herself in fear at some point during this encounter.
11/11/22: I buy Feliway diffusers for all the main rooms in the house where Taters hangs out and one for the upstairs for Freddie, and we get a Sentry calming collar to put on Freddie as well. We up his food intake - maybe he's hungry and in hunt mode - and also play more with him to get his energy out on toys. We keep him separated via an ad hoc gate made of wire shelving - they can see each other through it occasionally, but that's it.
11/16/22: Freddie manages to pull the gate open while I'm out of the house on errands. I find Taters on the bed, Freddie hanging out in the bedroom, seemingly neither of them having any problem. I find out later on that day that there was a scuffle - tufts of Taters' fur are around the spot where I saw her, and she'd peed through the sheets. Nature's Miracle on the affected surfaces.
11/17/22-11/19/22 - occasional supervised interactions. We stand guard between Freddie and Taters - he never gets closer than 2 feet to her. She growls and hisses if he makes eye contact or gets too close. Yesterday after one session where we take Freddie away from getting too close, we find a few hours after that fact that she's peed on the bed again - near where she was sitting when we took him from her just then.
Long story short: my 15-year old cat seems to just not want to interact with the new cat after following pretty much every interaction precaution and tactic in the book. If anyone has suggestions on how we can get her to be OK with him even showing curiosity about her, or standing her ground if he pounces to play, or any success with anti-anxiety meds for cats, I'd love to get the details.
Starts off with Taters (15) and Cecilia (12). We adopted Ceci when she was 1 and Taters was 5.
8/13/22: Cecilia has a sudden medical crisis and passes away unexpectedly.
8/26/22: We feel ready to look for another adoptable cat and meet Freddie at a nearby shelter. We spend an hour or so with him that day and really like him. He is recovering from a shoulder injury and wasn't running around much but was active, making good progress, and pending another X-ray from the shelter's vet. The shelter is OK with us waiting to hear about the shoulder before making a decision.
9/3/22: The shelter vet says his shoulder's coming along just fine. We bring home a scent-swap sample to Taters. She sniffs it and has no reaction - this is promising, since she'd panic over shelter cat smells in the past.
9/9/22: Freddie comes home with us. We put him in our 2nd floor, closed off from the rest of the house, with food + water + litter.
9/13/22: We begin scent-swapping between Taters and Freddie. Freddie is curious, Taters is disinterested. Taters goes for her annual vet wellness check - other than slightly high liver ALT values, no issues.
9/16/22: We let Freddie explore the 1st floor under our constant supervision with Taters secured in another room for a few minutes. We repeat this process over the next few days, occasionally letting them come within sight of each other. Taters hisses a little but nothing too much.
9/23/22: We start feeding them at opposite ends of the kitchen. They eat. Taters does the occasional hiss but over tim
e and short exposure, she doesn't seem to mind.
10/1/22: Occasionally Freddie will get a bit too close to Taters but she bops him and hisses, and he backs off. Other than Freddie sitting in a hallway between the door to the litter boxes and Taters, who hides a little more than normal in the basement, things seem to be going smoothly.
10/5/22: Taters' normal squeaky meows turn into just quacks - she'll open her mouth and no sound comes out. She occasionally looks like she's trying to cough up a hairball but comes up with nothing, or some foamy clear fluid. This continues for a few days.
10/8/22: Taters loses interest in the food that she's always liked. We try to tempt her with treats - she has a nibble, but not much.
10/9/22: After around 18 hours since her last confirmed food intake, we take her to the emergency vet, where they do X-rays and a CBC, and administer subcutaneous fluids. No evidence of blockage or primary organ issues. We're given scrips for throat/stomach coating meds and stool softeners in hopes of clearing up what may be constipation. She eats her normal wet food not long after we get home. We return Freddie to the upstairs and cease their interaction for the time being.
10/12/22: Other than the wet food and very minimal amounts of lickable treats, Taters still hasn't really eaten or had a bowel movement. We check in with our normal vet, who gives us a prescription appetite stimulant and syringes for force-feeding baby food. The vet asks us to check in if things don't improve in two days.
10/14/22: Still no improvement in her food/water intake. We're unable to get in touch with our vet and take her to the emergency vet. They re-run the blood tests that she got done last month, and administer an anti-nausea injection and subcutaneous fluids. Again, no issues other than slightly elevated ALT. The E-vet advises us to talk to the regular vet about an ultrasound. We get larger capacity force-feeding syringes and A/D prescription food, with the instruction to force-feed her 1tsp 4x daily, mashed into a slurry with extra water.
10/18/22: After 3.5-4 days of force feeding, Taters begins eating of her own volition. She goes to the vet and gets another checkup - all appears well. We schedule for an abdominal ultrasound next week, the earliest available slot we can get for the doctor who performs them.
After this, we tried a few more attempts at interaction. 90% of the time, Taters hisses at Freddie and wants nothing to do with him. If we leave Freddie to his druthers, he'll pounce on her to play, and Taters screams and yowls bloody murder. We separate them. At one point it got so bad that Taters fled into the basement and Freddie chased, continuing the fight. Taters peed herself in fear at some point during this encounter.
11/11/22: I buy Feliway diffusers for all the main rooms in the house where Taters hangs out and one for the upstairs for Freddie, and we get a Sentry calming collar to put on Freddie as well. We up his food intake - maybe he's hungry and in hunt mode - and also play more with him to get his energy out on toys. We keep him separated via an ad hoc gate made of wire shelving - they can see each other through it occasionally, but that's it.
11/16/22: Freddie manages to pull the gate open while I'm out of the house on errands. I find Taters on the bed, Freddie hanging out in the bedroom, seemingly neither of them having any problem. I find out later on that day that there was a scuffle - tufts of Taters' fur are around the spot where I saw her, and she'd peed through the sheets. Nature's Miracle on the affected surfaces.
11/17/22-11/19/22 - occasional supervised interactions. We stand guard between Freddie and Taters - he never gets closer than 2 feet to her. She growls and hisses if he makes eye contact or gets too close. Yesterday after one session where we take Freddie away from getting too close, we find a few hours after that fact that she's peed on the bed again - near where she was sitting when we took him from her just then.
Magnus also toofs himself when he's kicking a kicker toys because he fights his own feet. 
