Good afternoon!
I adopted a 3 mo. male kitten named Behr recently, and I'm worried that my 1 yr old cat Zoey has absolutely terrified him. She wasn't attacking him when I had them get familiar with each other, but there was some hissing and growling when he got a little too close. When she did reach out to swat at him (I was holding him at the time), I put him back in his safe room.
My worry is that while he was out getting to know Zoey, he had diarrhea twice in the space of 2 hours, and while I know this is most likely stress from a new environment, I'm just hoping that whatever fear Zoey may have inspired in him isn't permanent. It's difficult keeping him in his safe room because he cries and meows when I'm not in there with him, so my heart just breaks. I've read that slow and steady is the key with introductions, but I hope that this first impression of his new big sister isn't going to stick.
It's possible I'm rushing it and worrying too much, but I just wanted to know if there's anything I can do to help Behr with his fear and/or help Zoey stop intimidating the crap out of him (or at least ease it a bit). He's such a little guy and I don't want the diarrhea to last too long.
Thank you so much for any replies.
I adopted a 3 mo. male kitten named Behr recently, and I'm worried that my 1 yr old cat Zoey has absolutely terrified him. She wasn't attacking him when I had them get familiar with each other, but there was some hissing and growling when he got a little too close. When she did reach out to swat at him (I was holding him at the time), I put him back in his safe room.
My worry is that while he was out getting to know Zoey, he had diarrhea twice in the space of 2 hours, and while I know this is most likely stress from a new environment, I'm just hoping that whatever fear Zoey may have inspired in him isn't permanent. It's difficult keeping him in his safe room because he cries and meows when I'm not in there with him, so my heart just breaks. I've read that slow and steady is the key with introductions, but I hope that this first impression of his new big sister isn't going to stick.
It's possible I'm rushing it and worrying too much, but I just wanted to know if there's anything I can do to help Behr with his fear and/or help Zoey stop intimidating the crap out of him (or at least ease it a bit). He's such a little guy and I don't want the diarrhea to last too long.
Thank you so much for any replies.
But I feel quite a bit better now than I did when I first brought him home!
