Hi all!
Almost a month ago we brought an older cat (her owners said 7, her vet records say 9.5) into our home because her previous owners were unable to bring her to the seniors home they moved to. Mindy is spayed, and has never lived with other cats before. Our resident cats are two adult neutered males, Jem (7) and Merle (2-3). The boys get along incredibly well, and are often grooming one another, racing around the house together, playing, etc.
Over the past month we have slowly moved through stages of introduction including scent and site swapping, visuals with barriers and treats, and meeting without barriers (but while distracting the boys with treats).
As of right now, Mindy spends most of her time in her safe room but we try to give them some intro time together every day. During intros, Jem especially is very curious and seems to really want to be friends- he approaches her slowly, slow blinking and trilling the whole time. She is initially okay with this- they’ve touched noses every time we’ve had them out together, and the other day she even let Jem give her a few friendly licks on the forehead! Merle is much more neutral towards her, but they’ve also touched noses.
A couple minutes into sharing space, Mindy starts to get overstimulated - if either of the boys comes close to her for a 2nd or 3rd time before she’s ready, she will hiss and growl, and maybe even swat. The boys are getting much better at listening to her signals and keeping away when she’s hissing, which is great to see. We tend to keep the boys away from her for as long as she’s comfortable, letting them say hi intermittently, and then when she expresses desire to return to her safe room we close her back up in there.
I guess my question is where do we go from here? My hope is that she will become more comfortable with the boys and they’ll be able to hang out in the same room with us, even if Mindy won’t join in on the epic cuddle and groom sessions anytime soon. Is seeing the boys daily for 5-20 minutes enough to move this goal along? Should we be giving them more access? Less? Advice would be greatly appreciated. I’ve read the intro guide from this site but there’s not really information on what to do after the cats have met, so any thoughts are welcome!
Almost a month ago we brought an older cat (her owners said 7, her vet records say 9.5) into our home because her previous owners were unable to bring her to the seniors home they moved to. Mindy is spayed, and has never lived with other cats before. Our resident cats are two adult neutered males, Jem (7) and Merle (2-3). The boys get along incredibly well, and are often grooming one another, racing around the house together, playing, etc.
Over the past month we have slowly moved through stages of introduction including scent and site swapping, visuals with barriers and treats, and meeting without barriers (but while distracting the boys with treats).
As of right now, Mindy spends most of her time in her safe room but we try to give them some intro time together every day. During intros, Jem especially is very curious and seems to really want to be friends- he approaches her slowly, slow blinking and trilling the whole time. She is initially okay with this- they’ve touched noses every time we’ve had them out together, and the other day she even let Jem give her a few friendly licks on the forehead! Merle is much more neutral towards her, but they’ve also touched noses.
A couple minutes into sharing space, Mindy starts to get overstimulated - if either of the boys comes close to her for a 2nd or 3rd time before she’s ready, she will hiss and growl, and maybe even swat. The boys are getting much better at listening to her signals and keeping away when she’s hissing, which is great to see. We tend to keep the boys away from her for as long as she’s comfortable, letting them say hi intermittently, and then when she expresses desire to return to her safe room we close her back up in there.
I guess my question is where do we go from here? My hope is that she will become more comfortable with the boys and they’ll be able to hang out in the same room with us, even if Mindy won’t join in on the epic cuddle and groom sessions anytime soon. Is seeing the boys daily for 5-20 minutes enough to move this goal along? Should we be giving them more access? Less? Advice would be greatly appreciated. I’ve read the intro guide from this site but there’s not really information on what to do after the cats have met, so any thoughts are welcome!