After having adopted my older cat (4 yr old female) in January and running into a host of anxiety issues for her in the next few months and only being able to cure some of them through therapeutic means, my vet suggested trying to get her a companion in order to ease the isolation when I was away at work. After extensive consulting with the vet and the volunteers at the shelter where I adopted her, we determined that a kitten would probably be the least threatening addition to the environment. While I have never seen her interact with another cat, my older cat's reactions to the kitten have been...rather opposite of what I was expecting.
While they haven't interacted much, as I'm keeping the kitten isolated until, at least, she's fully recovered from her spay surgery and working on slowly introducing each other to their scents before allowing any extensive face to face interaction, the few times that they have gotten glimpses at each other when I've had the door open to where I'm keeping the kennel I set up for the kitten (mostly when I'm cleaning the litter box), my older cat's reaction has been to hiss and run, of all things. And she will then spend the next five to ten minutes hiding until I'm able to ease her tension with toys or other distractions. She usually doesn't get aggressive during these incidents, and the one time she did, it was little more than a yowl and a snarl at me, and was immediately followed by her leaping up onto the bed and mewling pathetically as she curled up next to me.
I think the main thing I'm wondering is why she would be demonstrating fear in the face of the kitten's presence and moreover, how it might be best to manage these introductions given the reaction that she's been having. Especially since the kitten is eager to the nth degree to play with her and makes every attempt to stage a jailbreak to do so while I'm cleaning her kennel.
While they haven't interacted much, as I'm keeping the kitten isolated until, at least, she's fully recovered from her spay surgery and working on slowly introducing each other to their scents before allowing any extensive face to face interaction, the few times that they have gotten glimpses at each other when I've had the door open to where I'm keeping the kennel I set up for the kitten (mostly when I'm cleaning the litter box), my older cat's reaction has been to hiss and run, of all things. And she will then spend the next five to ten minutes hiding until I'm able to ease her tension with toys or other distractions. She usually doesn't get aggressive during these incidents, and the one time she did, it was little more than a yowl and a snarl at me, and was immediately followed by her leaping up onto the bed and mewling pathetically as she curled up next to me.
I think the main thing I'm wondering is why she would be demonstrating fear in the face of the kitten's presence and moreover, how it might be best to manage these introductions given the reaction that she's been having. Especially since the kitten is eager to the nth degree to play with her and makes every attempt to stage a jailbreak to do so while I'm cleaning her kennel.