playful cat

I am having a problem with our newest cat and our 2 other cats. Kitt is a stray I brought in about a month ago. He was very sick for the first 2-3 weeks we had him and he did fine with the other cats and slept A LOT. Now he is feeling better and wanting to play.

The problem is, he doesn't seem to have any concept that our other 2 cats do not want to play constantly. Emma does not ever want to play and gets really upset when Kitt tries to chase her. Sheridan will play sometimes but is annoyed when Kitt suddenly jumps on top of him when he is taking a nap.

We have not had any fights, but Kitt is clearly driving my other cats nuts. Right now we deal with it by squirting Kitt with water when he chases Emma. For now we are letting Sheridan sort it out himself because Sheridan DOES want to play sometimes. Also, Sheridan seems to be able to deal with Kitt a lot better than Emma. Usually when Sheridan doesn't want to play, he becomes a statue and Kitt eventually gives up. However, Kitt doesn't seem to be getting the message and I know Sheridan is getting really sick of it.

How can we get Kitt to be more sensitive to what the other cats want? Will he settle down once he is more used to feeling better? Is there a better way than what we are doing right now?

For background info, all cats are spayed/neutered, all of them have all their claws and they are all older than 2 years.

I'm sorry I can't help other than to say, do you really know how old kitt is? You say all your cats are over 2. He sounds like he's a younger cat. I know Blossom was a lot more active in the 1st 10 mths of her life b4 she quietened down.

We don't know how old he is. The vet thought he was around 2 but that is just a guess. He could very easily be younger. I'm sure he has all his adult teeth though.

The adult teeth are all through by 7 mths.

Oh ok, well I am sure he is older than 7 months. So I guess he is somewhere between 7 months and 2 years old?

When he is getting wild I will start playing with him to try and wear him out if at all possible. I'm not sure if this makes the problem better or worse. I really can't wear him out though. We will play with the feather toy for an hour and then afterward he is still chasing the other kitties.

We went out and got a ton of toys for Kitt. That seems to have helped. Right now when he is chasing one of the other cats, we squirt him to make him stop, pick him up and take him to the toy basket and have him start playing with a toy. Hopefully he will learn that when he is in a playful mood it is appropriate to play with a toy, not annoy another cat.

Last night nothing was working though. I played with him for about an hour before bed. He still would not stop going after Emma. We had to seperate him in a bathroom for the night.

We went out and got a ton of toys for Kitt. That seems to have helped. Right now when he is chasing one of the other cats, we squirt him to make him stop, pick him up and take him to the toy basket and have him start playing with a toy. Hopefully he will learn that when he is in a playful mood it is appropriate to play with a toy, not annoy another cat.

Last night nothing was working though. I played with him for about an hour before bed. He still would not stop going after Emma. We had to seperate him in a bathroom for the night.

Any other ideas on how to handle this situation?