Hi!
I've read all the great advice that's been posted about how to introduce a new cat in to the home, unfortunately it's possibly a little late for some of it so I'm after some help!
We recently went on holiday to Turkey and put out little cat (Mia - a year and a half old) in to the cattery, which is also the Blue Cross where we got her from.
When we picked her up we looked at the other rescue cats for adoption and there was a lovely soft cat there of a similar age (estimated at just over a year). We decided to take her, though we were worried about how she'd get on with Mia, so the Blue Cross said we could have her for two weeks without filling in the adoption papers just to see how they get on.
So home they get, out the both come and after a bit of sniffing, there's a hiss and Mia goes running off. They both settled down in different parts of the living room and laid there for the evening without a problem, then it came to bed time. We usually let Mia go where she likes, and normally she'll sleep in our room. The new cat (Jess) decided she liked the look of the area under our bed and slept in there, Mia was a bit scared to go near her and slept in the spare room. We were awoken in the night to some hissing and a bit of chasing! After that things calmed down.
I turned to the all knowing internet for advice and found out we should have done the introduction much more gradually (my wife's parents have 4 cats and they have always just thrown them in together without problem, so we just followed their example!) so I'm worried it's a little too late.
Last night we fed them on opposite sides of a slightly open door so they could associate their smells with eating (a tip I read) and we've set Jess up with her own room and confined her to that whilst we sleep, and let Mia roam the house as she's used to. That ensured a nice night's sleep (though Jess did start a little miowing about 4am, I went down to her, gave her a stroke and she went back to sleep) but this morning Mia has just hissed at Jess and ran off the instant we opened her door.
Any suggestions on what to do? The most vital thing to us is that Mia is happy in the long run, we don't want to distress her. By the same token we want to give Jess a lovely new home.
My wife is giving them both equal attention at the moment but is really trying to not let her get herself attached to Jess in case Mia just flat out doesn't get on with her and we have to hand her back to the blue cross.
We've had a bit of chasing, a bit of hissing but no bloodshed yet. Is that a good sign? I don't expect them to be instant best friends but if we could get them to tolerate each other then that'd be amazing.
I've read all the great advice that's been posted about how to introduce a new cat in to the home, unfortunately it's possibly a little late for some of it so I'm after some help!
We recently went on holiday to Turkey and put out little cat (Mia - a year and a half old) in to the cattery, which is also the Blue Cross where we got her from.
When we picked her up we looked at the other rescue cats for adoption and there was a lovely soft cat there of a similar age (estimated at just over a year). We decided to take her, though we were worried about how she'd get on with Mia, so the Blue Cross said we could have her for two weeks without filling in the adoption papers just to see how they get on.
So home they get, out the both come and after a bit of sniffing, there's a hiss and Mia goes running off. They both settled down in different parts of the living room and laid there for the evening without a problem, then it came to bed time. We usually let Mia go where she likes, and normally she'll sleep in our room. The new cat (Jess) decided she liked the look of the area under our bed and slept in there, Mia was a bit scared to go near her and slept in the spare room. We were awoken in the night to some hissing and a bit of chasing! After that things calmed down.
I turned to the all knowing internet for advice and found out we should have done the introduction much more gradually (my wife's parents have 4 cats and they have always just thrown them in together without problem, so we just followed their example!) so I'm worried it's a little too late.
Last night we fed them on opposite sides of a slightly open door so they could associate their smells with eating (a tip I read) and we've set Jess up with her own room and confined her to that whilst we sleep, and let Mia roam the house as she's used to. That ensured a nice night's sleep (though Jess did start a little miowing about 4am, I went down to her, gave her a stroke and she went back to sleep) but this morning Mia has just hissed at Jess and ran off the instant we opened her door.
Any suggestions on what to do? The most vital thing to us is that Mia is happy in the long run, we don't want to distress her. By the same token we want to give Jess a lovely new home.
My wife is giving them both equal attention at the moment but is really trying to not let her get herself attached to Jess in case Mia just flat out doesn't get on with her and we have to hand her back to the blue cross.
We've had a bit of chasing, a bit of hissing but no bloodshed yet. Is that a good sign? I don't expect them to be instant best friends but if we could get them to tolerate each other then that'd be amazing.
