New Kitten advice needed

Today we brought home a new 10 week old girl. She is beautiful but I am encountering problems with my 10 month old resident male cat Parker. He is scared of her .

I had the girl in the bathroom separated but Parker was curious and showing no signs of aggression towards the girl so we decided to give it a go. We held each one of them on our laps and hoped for the best. The little girl didn't seem the least bit interested in Parker until she took a leap at him. He backed away and ran right out.

Since then I have tried to do scent exchange with a some socks but Parker won't even go near hers and she on the other hand was rolling all over his.

To make matters worse the maintenance man came unexpectedly and had to do work in the bathroom leading to a forced meeting. The kitten was kept in a carrier and after Parker sitting there staring at her for about 10 minutes he began to hiss.

We have kept them separated since but I am afraid I messed up there meeting with unrealistic hope.

Any suggestions would help on where to go from here thanks.

You may have to start the intro process all over again. Although even a intro process done to a T is going to have cats hissing.

Personally I didn't follow the "proper" intro, I did give a safe room (sat and read aloud, because he was very shy, 4 months in the shelter), did allow the new cat to explore without dealing with the resident cat but then went ahead and opened the safe room door. Yeah there was hissing, but nothing more.

It's been 6 weeks now and the two love each other--no napping together yet but all in good time.

Leslie

Unfortunate but true, this is the most difficult and stressful ages to introduce. It is best to introduce kittens under 4-5 months and younger or wait till they are atleast 1 year, spayed/neutered another benefit. At ten months he is going through hormonal changes and territorial exceptance/defense. A kitten is care free, with no boundaries and unaware of any limitations. This can either scare or threaten him.

It doesn't sound like he's scared of her, so much as he's (naturally) annoyed with the new intruder.

I don't think the situation is messed up. Hissing isn't too bad. What you don't want to see is attacking or non-play fighting. They'll be doing some hissing and avoiding as they try to establish dominance... particularly the mature cat will hiss at the kitten to teach her what behavior is unacceptable.

I'd just continue by giving them a little bit of supervised time together every day, and then put them back in their separate areas for the rest of the time. Over time you'll be able to increase their time together, and you'll be able to see when they're getting along well enough to live together.

thanks for all the advice... here is an update. I have been doing supervised visits and they seem to be getting better Parker now allows her to come sniff him nose to nose and he follows her around. The only problem is with this following he has been batting her once and a while the last 2 intro sessions... is this bad?

I think they'll be fine. Batting is his way of letting her know he's had enough or she's doing something wrong. If you ever watch mother's with their kittens they do the same thing. 10 weeks old the kitten is VERY curious about everything and is just being shown the boundaries. It will take time for them to get used to each other and until then there will be batting and hissing. It's the full out fighting you have to watch for. They will play fight (which can look pretty serious) but as long as fur isn't flying or blood being shed purposely I normally don't interfere except for an occassional hand clap or shout letting them know it is getting out of hand.

One thing you may want to invest in is a laser pointer. This will give them a chance to play together without attacking each other. Good luck!