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1 cat had for 11 years...introducing 1 or 2 new kittens ok?

post #1 of 4
2/8/11 at 3:10am
Thread Starter 
Hello everyone. I am new to the forums, just saying hi to everyone. I wanted to see if I could get help from some of you. I have a cat Louise (girl fixed) that I have had for 11 years. What I want to do is get either 1 or 2 kittens so we would have a total of either 2 or 3. The reason I want to get 3 is so both of the kittens will have each other to rely on during the introduction stage. Or would it be better to just get 1 kitten?

How should I go about doing this? We live in a 2 bedroom condo. A buddy of mine spoke to me about slow introducing the cats. Can anyone give me some pointers or maybe even layout instructions on how to get the new kitten(s) to be welcomed by Louise?

Thanks so much for the help!
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post #2 of 4
2/8/11 at 10:19am
I'm going through the same thing right now.

My Abby is 12 1/2 years old. I just adopted two 4 month old kittens a couple weeks ago.

I decided to go with 2 kittens because they were litter mates and bonded together. Plus Abby being older, I figured that a small kitten would torment her too much and be overly playful with her. I figured that with 2 kittens, they could entertain each other and Abby would still be able to get her time in with me for her lovings and cuddles and still be able to participate in playing with the kittens when she felt up to it. A single kitten would probably have too much for Abby at this point in her life.

My experience so far is in these threads:

http://www.thecatsite.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=226609

And you can see the baby gate setup here:

http://www.thecatsite.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=226631
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post #3 of 4
2/8/11 at 10:53am
Welcome to tcs ! I've introduced a kitten to an older cat in the past. How it will go really depends on the personalities of the cats involved.

There are lots of sticky threads about how to do this successfully on this site. Also among the behavior articles.

If you want 2 kittens, I'd go for that. They are a lot of work, though. They will entertain each other, and that helps.

Kittens who have been socialized to people and stayed with their mother until at least 10 weeks are the best bet. And if you get them from a reputable shelter or rescue, health problems will be less likely.

Have fun!

Robin
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post #4 of 4
2/8/11 at 5:02pm
Has Louise been around other cats before? Or was she an only cat? Lynxx was an only cat for 9 years and wanted nothing to do with Luna and Midnight. He was very upset about them. Also he was sick to (we didn't know). So that didn't help. He didn't like Luna, and he hated Midnight.

We rescued Luna when she was thrown from a pick up. That's why we brought her home. Luna loved Lynxx, and wanted to be friends with him. She wanted to cuddle and play with him. He didn't even seem to know what she was doing. He acted like she was attacking him, when she was laying next to him.

Well she wouldn't leave him alone. So we went with the suggestion of getting another kitten. That way the 2 of them would play together, and leave Lynxx alone. My mother's friend at work found a kitten 3 days after we brought Luna home. She insisted he was 5 or 6 weeks old. I wanted him at least 8 weeks, because Luna was 12 weeks. Well Midnight was very tiny, we had to keep him in my room so he wouldn't get hurt. Later we found out he was only 3 weeks old. So we had him in my room only, luckily Luna was very interested in him, and stayed at my bedroom door pawing him under the door. But she still wanted Lynxx to occupy her.

By the time Midnight was big enough, and he and Luna could finally play together, it didn't really matter because Lynxx died.

So I'd suggest 2 kittens, that you know are close in age, that way it will work out better for you, than it did for us.
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