Older cat and kitten intro

Eonblue

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I had a feral mother cat raise a litter of two kittens on my back porch/yard. Long story short after they were about 12 weeks old the mother left and so did one or the kittens. One stayed behind and up to that point all the cats acted completely feral and would flee even from eye contact. This female one stayed behind and changed its behavior over one day and became the most friendly kitten I've ever encounter and let me pick it up and bring it inside.


This was about 4 months ago and I have an 8 year old female resident cat. I didnt really know how to introduce cats and pretty much screwed that up from the get go. After some googling and attempting a proper introduction I didnt seem to be getting anywhere and my resident cat seemed to just get more and more aggressive. I talked to my vet and she put her on prozac. It helped A TON. Calmed her down in so many aspects (she was a very timid cat and would hide under the bed when anyone came over, she now comes out and greets everyone. I worked with them daily after letting the medicine kick in and placed the kitten in a kennel covered in blanket so only the front was visible and played with them and fed them treats and did my best to feed them together as often as I could. (The prozac decreased my cats appetite quite a bit at first when she was adjusting). Things seem to be progressing they even "nose kissed" through the kennel a time or two and I saw little or no aggression from my resident cat. So I asked a friend to come over and help try a face to face...it went horrible and within 10 seconds I was breaking up a cat fight. Did I progress to fast? Is my resident cat just never going to accept a house mate? She was adopted from a shelter and was part of a TNR at one point so I dont really know her previous history with other cats.
 
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Eonblue

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Another question maybe I can get an answer to before I get home from work tonight. Where do I go from here? They had one previous scuffle before I started the medicine when the kitten escaped her room. Do I move back one step? Do I completely cut them off for a while? Should I go home and do my normal feeding/play at the kennel?
 

rubysmama

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Hello and welcome to TCS. Thanks for feeding/caring for the feral mom and her kittens, and giving the friendly kitten a home.

How old is the kitten now? If 6 month-ish, is she spayed yet? If not, that could help with the bonding between her and your older cat.

About the cat fight, how bad was it? Hissing / growling /swatting? Or was there fur flying and/or bloodshed?

Either way, probably take a step back.

Here's some TCS articles with more info:
How To Fix An Unsuccessful Cat Introduction | TheCatSite
How To Introduce A Kitten To An Older Cat | TheCatSite
How To Successfully Introduce Cats: The Ultimate Guide | TheCatSite
How To Safely Break Up A Cat Fight | TheCatSite
 
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Eonblue

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Hello and welcome to TCS. Thanks for feeding/caring for the feral mom and her kittens, and giving the friendly kitten a home.

How old is the kitten now? If 6 month-ish, is she spayed yet? If not, that could help with the bonding between her and your older cat.

About the cat fight, how bad was it? Hissing / growling /swatting? Or was there fur flying and/or bloodshed?

Either way, probably take a step back.

Here's some TCS articles with more info:
How To Fix An Unsuccessful Cat Introduction | TheCatSite
How To Introduce A Kitten To An Older Cat | TheCatSite
How To Successfully Introduce Cats: The Ultimate Guide | TheCatSite
How To Safely Break Up A Cat Fight | TheCatSite

Thanks for your reply. The kitten Is 7 months old now and had been spayed since 20 weeks. I'll do my best to describe the fight. The kitten was laying down being submissive and my adult cat began to approach with zero signs of aggression I could see so I let it happen, even with her tail held straight up. By the time they got close I dont know what sparked it but hissing yowling and swatting started , at that point I reacted and made noise and tried to stop it and the kitten ran 4 foot to a corner with the older cat right behind her I was able to scoop up the adult cat at that point and seperate them. It happened all really fast and honestly I couldn't tell you who made contact with who but I checked them both for injuries and I saw nothing.
 

ArtNJ

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Yes, describe the cat fight please. Sometimes adult cats are scared of kittens. Weird, but true. And sometimes instead of just hissing and growling, they will charge the kitten and swat a couple of times. I call that "charge swatting". Charge swatting seems to mean "STAY AWAY! I DONT WANT YOU NEAR ME!" which while not great, is also very very different from "I'll kill you!" So we need to determine if you had charge swatting or a real fight to give proper advice.
 
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Eonblue

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Yes, describe the cat fight please. Sometimes adult cats are scared of kittens. Weird, but true. And sometimes instead of just hissing and growling, they will charge the kitten and swat a couple of times. I call that "charge swatting". Charge swatting seems to mean "STAY AWAY! I DONT WANT YOU NEAR ME!" which while not great, is also very very different from "I'll kill you!" So we need to determine if you had charge swatting or a real fight to give proper advice.
I described it in my post above, It seemed very much like a fight to me with chasing and all but I'm no expert. The previous time it happened the cat was able to chase her to a corner then out of the the living room down a hallway and into the kittens safe room before I was able to catch up and break it up. Before I even knew what a cat introduction was it was just swatting until at one point my older cat pinned the kitten down and seemed to be trying to bite her, that's when I realized oh I cant just let these cats figure it out like all my friends were telling me , lol. All interactions have never resulted in blood or injuries as far as I'm aware.
 
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Eonblue

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I really dont know how far it would go, it seems loud and crazy but with no injuries it might be just what you describe as a charge swatting
 

ArtNJ

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Charge swatting is usually not a sign of intent to injure. Its just a weird response to fear. Fighting tends to be more of a rolling around screaming thing. It was probably a "listen up you little *&^!" pin with maybe a "submit to me" bite thrown in. With the kitten already being 6 months, its not totally impossible there was some intent to injure there, but unlikely. Your friends are not necessarily wrong. However, some 8 year olds can really take a long time to tolerate a kitten, and its not wrong to take your time with the introduction process. You don't want to let them do their own thing, still have lots of stress in 2 months, and wonder if you could have helped them more. At some point, however, you need to let them work it out. There is no perfect process that will necessarily get rid of all the stress.
 
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Eonblue

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Charge swatting is usually not a sign of intent to injure. Its just a weird response to fear. Fighting tends to be more of a rolling around screaming thing. It was probably a "listen up you little *&^!" pin with maybe a "submit to me" bite thrown in. With the kitten already being 6 months, its not totally impossible there was some intent to injure there, but unlikely. Your friends are not necessarily wrong. However, some 8 year olds can really take a long time to tolerate a kitten, and its not wrong to take your time with the introduction process. You don't want to let them do their own thing, still have lots of stress in 2 months, and wonder if you could have helped them more. At some point, however, you need to let them work it out. There is no perfect process that will necessarily get rid of all the stress.
What would be your advice on what to do tonight? In a week? In a month? Should I just start putting then together and breaking this up as it happens or just let it happen?
 

ArtNJ

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What would be your advice on what to do tonight? In a week? In a month? Should I just start putting then together and breaking this up as it happens or just let it happen?
Well, I don't have the timeline of what happened when. The kennel method is not as good as putting a gate up in a doorway, because with a gate you can just leave it up and they can potentially see each other 24/7. With a kennel I assume you did maybe an hour or two a day, for I don't know how long? So its a little hard to say if you got all the mileage out of an intro that you could have. (Kennel method is really best saved for if your in a studio or one bedroom and a gate is just unworkable, but certainly it can work and some members have used it successfully.)

At some point over 6 months, kittens start getting perceived as adults, and they become more like adults hormonally, and there is more of a possibility of true fighting. Due to some sort of biological hardwiring, kittens of 6 months and under essentially never get attacked with intent to injure -- charge swatting and pinning sure, but no real injuries.

The other competing concern is that sometimes with a kitten and an older resident cat (and 8 qualifies), its the long slow road to toleration, and you can potentially have stress for a couple of months. So that favors making sure you have milked any progress you can realistically get from an introduction, just so the second guessing isn't too painful, even if, perhaps, there might not have been much else you could have done.

So provide a timeline of what was done when if you like, and I and/or others will try and give recommendations. rubysmama rubysmama linked our guides. When you do put them together make sure there is not a true fight with rolling around on the floor screaming, hair being ripped out. Anything else, the older cat will eventually calm down. And that is super unlikely. You can read a dozen of these without scrolling back far in time at all, but I can't remember a single incident of a kitten getting actually injured, other than maybe a minor scratch from the swatting.
 
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Eonblue

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Well, I don't have the timeline of what happened when. The kennel method is not as good as putting a gate up in a doorway, because with a gate you can just leave it up and they can potentially see each other 24/7. With a kennel I assume you did maybe an hour or two a day, for I don't know how long? So its a little hard to say if you got all the mileage out of an intro that you could have. (Kennel method is really best saved for if your in a studio or one bedroom and a gate is just unworkable, but certainly it can work and some members have used it successfully.)

At some point over 6 months, kittens start getting perceived as adults, and they become more like adults hormonally, and there is more of a possibility of true fighting. Due to some sort of biological hardwiring, kittens of 6 months and under essentially never get attacked with intent to injure -- charge swatting and pinning sure, but no real injuries.

The other competing concern is that sometimes with a kitten and an older resident cat (and 8 qualifies), its the long slow road to toleration, and you can potentially have stress for a couple of months. So that favors making sure you have milked any progress you can realistically get from an introduction, just so the second guessing isn't too painful, even if, perhaps, there might not have been much else you could have done.

So provide a timeline of what was done when if you like, and I and/or others will try and give recommendations. rubysmama rubysmama linked our guides. When you do put them together make sure there is not a true fight with rolling around on the floor screaming, hair being ripped out. Anything else, the older cat will eventually calm down. And that is super unlikely. You can read a dozen of these without scrolling back far in time at all, but I can't remember a single incident of a kitten getting actually injured, other than maybe a minor scratch from the swatting.
Yah , you got it about right one or two sessions a day totaling about that much time. For only about 2 months now. Would it be a good idea to fashion a sturdy gate to the kittens room and let them interact safely while I'm at work? I always read that it was always important to control the encounters and make them enjoyable as possible. I haven't tried long sessions at all is that what I should do?
 
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Eonblue

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I should say about 2 months since I started the prozac, which in my head was kind of a reset button and I treated it as such.
 

ArtNJ

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Well, there are different schools of thought? One school of thought is that introductions are all about desenitization therapy. This is the same way some therapists help humans with phobias. They start you out with a cartoon spider 12 feet away, and then when you don't have a panic attack, they move to a real spider in a cage 10 feet away and before you know it, there is one on your hand (eek!). They don't say ok great, you aren't sweating with the spider 6 feet away, so now we are going to have an ice cream break! Thats a different theory, that positive associations are helpful, and some cat experts sometimes combine this separate theory into their recommended approaches. However, I've never found it to correspond too well with reality. For example, most cats stressed by another cat won't accept petting or treats, and mutual play is often unachievable as well. For a second example, an incredibly high % of cats finish the introduction, go to face-to-face, and show signs of continuing stress, with growling and hissing -- and they get over it! Sometimes, it takes a long time, especially with older cats. So I'm in the gradual desensitization camp -- just as its OK and EXPECTED that the human is going to sweat when the spider is brought two feet closer, its OK and EXPECTED that at each step of the intro there can be tension, growling and hissing. Thats the point -- to spend enough TIME at that step to see that the spider -- i.e., the other cat -- isn't actually so bad. It seems to work -- the cats get seem to get tired of growling and hissing, at least till one moves to the next, harder step (moving the spider closer if you will). So to me, you have the gates up until there is no hissing or growling, or at least till there is no further improvmenet, and thats all you can do -- you have to put the spider on the hand, there is no intermediate step left. If you think about it this way, its totally understandable that there will tension left at the last step -- no matter how much prep you do, the spider on the hand is a whole nother thing! The prep isn't to eliminate the stress of having the spider on the hand, its just to make sure the human doesn't have a stroke or choke on their own vomit :) Haha, in other words, its to get the cats close enough that they can finish on their own without actually fighting, and there is no perfect process where face-to-face is necessarily tension free. Thats why the advice of your friends is so popular, and has at least a good portion of truth in it.

Back to your situation, one or two hours a day for two months is not nothing! The people that try 5-10 minute things, I think that adds up to zero -- what you did is not that though. So I am very unclear whether 24/7 with the gates will help. However, other than the hassle of getting a gate setup and living with it for a bit, there isn't much reason not to try it for a week or two and see whats going on, if it seems like there is still tension that this step can work on. On the other hand, if the cats were totally chill with the crate, maybe its just not realistic to think that a gate will help. So I could go either way on that.

(P.S. I wonder if this website would let me post an article called "Spiders, cats and ice cream breaks"?)
 
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Eonblue

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It was pretty good with the kennel but it wasnt perfect. It was where I thought a face to face wasnt gonna be a fight in 10 seconds but obviously I was wrong I'm a woodworker and cnc operator by trade, I can fabricate up pretty much anything. Let me ask a few questions about that now.. should they be able to fit a paw through if they want or should it only allow sight and scent ? I'm deffiently willing to try this
 

ArtNJ

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There are some pictures of home made gates in the "ultimate guide" link provided by Rubysmama above. Its pretty common for cats to try and play pawsies when things are going ok, so I don't think you need to prevent that. They can't really fight with just a paw through.

Being a woodworker is a huge advantage, because cats feel safer from elevated spaces. If you have ever watched that show "My Cat From Hell" with Jackson Galaxy, he recommends building cat "super highways" for like every single behavioral problem. Its pretty comical -- and yet, there is some truth there. I had an older cat that never liked the kitten, it was the long slow road to toleration. EVENTUALLY, they pretty much got to true, full toleration, and even played once or twice -- only when my older cat had elevation. If you type "cat superhighway" into google, it will bring up a ton of interesting products people are trying to sell -- which should give you, with your skills, some ideas for things you might be willing to build.
 

rubysmama

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(P.S. I wonder if this website would let me post an article called "Spiders, cats and ice cream breaks"?)
You and your spider analogies !!! :fear: I like the idea of an ice cream break though. :lol:

I'm a woodworker and cnc operator by trade, I can fabricate up pretty much anything. Let me ask a few questions about that now.. should they be able to fit a paw through if they want or should it only allow sight and scent ? I'm deffiently willing to try this
Being a woodworker, maybe you could rig up something like jcatbird did with lattice doors.
There's pics in this link; My Feral And Rescued Cats
 
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Eonblue

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Thanks so much for your replies everyone. I was pretty dejected last night over the fight but I have hope and a new plan now.
 

rubysmama

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Good luck. Hope things go well and they eventually become besties. Keep us updated.
 

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I had a feral mother cat raise a litter of two kittens on my back porch/yard. Long story short after they were about 12 weeks old the mother left and so did one or the kittens. One stayed behind and up to that point all the cats acted completely feral and would flee even from eye contact. This female one stayed behind and changed its behavior over one day and became the most friendly kitten I've ever encounter and let me pick it up and bring it inside.


This was about 4 months ago and I have an 8 year old female resident cat. I didnt really know how to introduce cats and pretty much screwed that up from the get go. After some googling and attempting a proper introduction I didnt seem to be getting anywhere and my resident cat seemed to just get more and more aggressive. I talked to my vet and she put her on prozac. It helped A TON. Calmed her down in so many aspects (she was a very timid cat and would hide under the bed when anyone came over, she now comes out and greets everyone. I worked with them daily after letting the medicine kick in and placed the kitten in a kennel covered in blanket so only the front was visible and played with them and fed them treats and did my best to feed them together as often as I could. (The prozac decreased my cats appetite quite a bit at first when she was adjusting). Things seem to be progressing they even "nose kissed" through the kennel a time or two and I saw little or no aggression from my resident cat. So I asked a friend to come over and help try a face to face...it went horrible and within 10 seconds I was breaking up a cat fight. Did I progress to fast? Is my resident cat just never going to accept a house mate? She was adopted from a shelter and was part of a TNR at one point so I dont really know her previous history with other cats.
Oh wow! I was in your shoes just a couple of days ago and here's how it worked out for me.
So I was trying to introduce 2 kittens to each other (my resident kitten is 5 months old and the new one is 2 months old) and there was a whole lot of drama before they finally accepted eachother. It might seem like they're just kittens so there's no big deal to introducing them but Ollie is unneutered (will be getting neutered soon) and for a kitten he was quite territorial. Anyway, I started by introducing a pet gate and the two of them would meet eachother through there but eventually they both started climbing over the gate. I had them separated for 2 weeks after that before I just let them roam and do their thing. There was an awful lot of fighting and it all seemed really bad but the injuries weren't that bad (Percy the 2 month old had a couple of mild scratches on his tummy). This happened for about 2 days and from then things have calmed down. There's still some swatting but now they've actually learned to love eachother. They even sleep, eat and groom each other. But with kittens it is a slightly different story as compared to a much older cat.

The good thing here is that your kitten is over 6 months old which means that she's not that small anymore so my advice would be to let them work it out from time to time but under supervision. If your kitten is running and hiding from your older cat then this would mean that there's some real aggression there but if she doesn't seem too scared of the other cat then there's not much to be concerned about. With an older cat it's all about time and patience. Eventually they will learn to accept and tolerate one another.
 
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Eonblue

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Been a couple days with the gate up while I'm at work. Older cat dosent seem to happy about it and is MUCH more aggressive in my after work sessions. I'm sure it's a big step /slap in the face for her but I have hope it's all part of the process
 
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