At the beginning of December, we purchased a 2 month old kitten for the household. He was a birthday gift, but also somewhat of an opportunity for companionship for our 8 year old female who has lived alone her whole life. We read up on how to introduce a kitten to an older cat, and carried out the instructions. It didn't go as bad as we thought... she would give the occasional growl and hiss, but no overt physical aggression. However, ever since we released the two to mingle around a couple weeks ago, it's been a bit rough for the two. The kitten is super energetic and always wants to play, but our female wants nothing to do with him. It's understandable, she is older and has never been super playful. The problem is, while they can tolerate each others' presence in a room and even sit next to each other at times, our female will swat and hiss at our kitten if he comes too close. I've been reading online and a lot of people say you have to start the introduction process over if it doesn't go well... should we? Another thing I'd like to note is that we have tried giving our female treats in his presence, and have even purchased a Feliway pheromone diffuser. Any help would be much appreciated.
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Older cat having a hard time with new kitten
- Thread starter tinyvoid
- Start Date
No, you don't have to restart. A little hissing and swatting when the kitten bothers her is no big deal. She doesn't want to be jumped on and no amount of intro will fix that. The intro process gets rid of stranger danger, hopefully, but not wanting to be jumped on is a different issue. They will sort it out, eventually, and get closer to full toleration in time.
I would make sure you give breaks to your older cat so that she doesn't have to spend all of her time around the kitten. The kitten needs lots of play (with you) to use up his endless energy but introducing him to kicker toys and then tossing them at him when he becomes too much for your girl might help distract him a bit. Picking him up and taking him away from her at times will also be helpful as it will tell her that you 'have her back' and won't allow him to annoy her 24/7. He will eventually learn 'boundaries' from her, but in the meantime, make sure she knows you will help her out with that aspect.
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #4
Yes, we do pick up the kitten and take him away from her at times, and sometimes we'll even put the kitten in a separate room for about an hour if he becomes too rambunctious and won't leave her alone. Is there anything else you would suggest or do you think we've done everything necessary in terms of the introduction process?
Usually with the introduction process, they tell you to move from step to step that is in alignment with the slowest adapting cat. So, if you feel you didn't rush introductions based on how your older cat responded, then there is not much reason to retract from where you are at - other than to give your girl more time to be 'at peace'.
The big thing is to ensure your older cat feels secure in her home and has some favorite places to go to that will enable her to get away from him. He is still pretty young, so are there cat trees or perches higher up that she can get to that he cannot? If so, you might even want to place her on one of those and let her watch him 'from above' while you feed her treats and another person plays with him. Knowing she has places to go to where she can still see him, but he can't get to her might help some.
I don't know what process you used, so maybe taking a look at these TCS articles might give you some additional clues? The second article really only addresses where you are in the process at the tail end of the article.
How To Successfully Introduce Cats: The Ultimate Guide – TheCatSite Articles
How To Introduce A Kitten To An Older Cat – TheCatSite Articles
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #6
That's the thing... she doesn't have many places she can go to escape the kitten unless he's been put in a "kitty time-out". He's an Abyssinian mix, so he loves to climb and will scale just about anything to get at her. I can imagine he wouldn't have a very hard time climbing a cat tree. As for which process we used, we followed the steps of this YouTube video.
