- Joined
- Jul 25, 2012
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So, we finally got a new cat after we lost one in September, mainly to give a companion to Pims, our 4 year old resident cat.
(See this post where I was asking for advice and explaining the situation).
Her name is Shadow, a 2 year old all-black little lady. We got her two weeks ago, and after reading a lot of material on introductions (on this site and others), we took a few days off work and followed the plan:
- Confinement room for the first 4/5 days. It took her just under 2 days to eat and use the litter normally, after finding a couple of safe places she liked in the confinement room. She was rather quiet at this stage, so Pims was barely aware of what was happening.
- After about 4 days, we started the scent exchange process: stroking with socks, letting Pims smell her scent of us after we visited her, swapping toys and blankets. Pims was quite curious and sniffing around, without showing agression.
- After 6 days, she started being very vocal and demanding to come out of her room and explore the rest of the house. We allowed her that while Pims was locked in a room with either one of us, or a favourite toy to help him relax. Continuing scent exchange, not neglecting Pims, and we had the feeling it was all going rather well.
- A couple of days later, she's demanding to be let out of the room pretty much all the time, so we started visual introductions through a glass door. This went ok in the sense that Pims wasn't running away from the meet, but keeping his distance and watching her intently. She's quite nimble, so she's exploring lots of places, and Pims just sniffs around where she is.
- Two more days, and we started getting them together at meal times. Pims eating at his usual spot, Shadow eating at the threshold of the room with a direct line of vision between the two. Pims looked a bit nervous, but nothing too bad.
Now we're at the stage where we want to let them work it out - we no longer lock one in when dealing with the other, and they have access to each other. Shadow now looks completely comfortable in our home, and seems to want to make friends. Pims will let her approach a bit, and once she reaches a certain distance, it's hissing and growling until she turns away. This looks ok to me - he's telling her he's not ready yet, and at least she's not insisting.
A couple of bad situations happened: when crossing each other in the stairs, due to the narrow nature of the location, the safe distance wasn't respected and Pims tried to whack her once. This morning, Shadow was having a bit of mad half hour and obviously wanted to play, which wasn't to Pims' taste at all. Interestingly, when she's sleeping somewhere he *will* come and investigate, provided she's not looking. As soon as she turns around, he hisses and goes away (not particularly running, just going away). One major success was on Sunday, having both of them napping in the same room, although on different sofas, only a few yards apart. Surely this is the sign of some kind of relaxed attitude and trust?
This is kind of what we expected all along. We got Shadow from a foster home, and she's used to sharing with other cats. Pims, however, only really ever got along with his sister, and is used to being bullied by several other cats in the neighbourhood. As far as he's concerned, for him another cat = bad thing.
So my question is: is the situation desperate, or do we need to give it time? I don't think we've done anything particularly wrong so far in the introductions process (feel free to tell me otherwise), but it feels like we've hit the limit of Pims' tolerance. Will he finally accept her after a while? What can we do to help? The 'distance' Pims wants to keep between them seems to shrink slowly every day, but could just be an impression.
Since the day we decided we would get another cat after his sister died, the priority has always been on him - if having Shadow or another cat is going to make him stressful and unhappy, I'd rather return her (even if we'd like to have two). As much as we want it to work out, we want him to be ok first and foremost, so don't want to do any lasting 'damage' done to him.
(See this post where I was asking for advice and explaining the situation).
Her name is Shadow, a 2 year old all-black little lady. We got her two weeks ago, and after reading a lot of material on introductions (on this site and others), we took a few days off work and followed the plan:
- Confinement room for the first 4/5 days. It took her just under 2 days to eat and use the litter normally, after finding a couple of safe places she liked in the confinement room. She was rather quiet at this stage, so Pims was barely aware of what was happening.
- After about 4 days, we started the scent exchange process: stroking with socks, letting Pims smell her scent of us after we visited her, swapping toys and blankets. Pims was quite curious and sniffing around, without showing agression.
- After 6 days, she started being very vocal and demanding to come out of her room and explore the rest of the house. We allowed her that while Pims was locked in a room with either one of us, or a favourite toy to help him relax. Continuing scent exchange, not neglecting Pims, and we had the feeling it was all going rather well.
- A couple of days later, she's demanding to be let out of the room pretty much all the time, so we started visual introductions through a glass door. This went ok in the sense that Pims wasn't running away from the meet, but keeping his distance and watching her intently. She's quite nimble, so she's exploring lots of places, and Pims just sniffs around where she is.
- Two more days, and we started getting them together at meal times. Pims eating at his usual spot, Shadow eating at the threshold of the room with a direct line of vision between the two. Pims looked a bit nervous, but nothing too bad.
Now we're at the stage where we want to let them work it out - we no longer lock one in when dealing with the other, and they have access to each other. Shadow now looks completely comfortable in our home, and seems to want to make friends. Pims will let her approach a bit, and once she reaches a certain distance, it's hissing and growling until she turns away. This looks ok to me - he's telling her he's not ready yet, and at least she's not insisting.
A couple of bad situations happened: when crossing each other in the stairs, due to the narrow nature of the location, the safe distance wasn't respected and Pims tried to whack her once. This morning, Shadow was having a bit of mad half hour and obviously wanted to play, which wasn't to Pims' taste at all. Interestingly, when she's sleeping somewhere he *will* come and investigate, provided she's not looking. As soon as she turns around, he hisses and goes away (not particularly running, just going away). One major success was on Sunday, having both of them napping in the same room, although on different sofas, only a few yards apart. Surely this is the sign of some kind of relaxed attitude and trust?
This is kind of what we expected all along. We got Shadow from a foster home, and she's used to sharing with other cats. Pims, however, only really ever got along with his sister, and is used to being bullied by several other cats in the neighbourhood. As far as he's concerned, for him another cat = bad thing.
So my question is: is the situation desperate, or do we need to give it time? I don't think we've done anything particularly wrong so far in the introductions process (feel free to tell me otherwise), but it feels like we've hit the limit of Pims' tolerance. Will he finally accept her after a while? What can we do to help? The 'distance' Pims wants to keep between them seems to shrink slowly every day, but could just be an impression.
Since the day we decided we would get another cat after his sister died, the priority has always been on him - if having Shadow or another cat is going to make him stressful and unhappy, I'd rather return her (even if we'd like to have two). As much as we want it to work out, we want him to be ok first and foremost, so don't want to do any lasting 'damage' done to him.