Problems with newly rescued Stray (sorry, long)

Recently, a little stray took up residence under our neighbor's shed. She is not a cat person, plus she is selling her house and will be moving soon. She did feel sorry for him and started feeding him.

We contacted a local TNR org for her, but she had to go out of town for 2 weeks and asked us to take care of it. So we caught kitty and took him to the TNR vet. He is between a year and 2 old, quite small, was not neutered. He tested negative for diseases, but had a bad ear infection due to ear mites. After the neuter, we took him home and he's been with us ever since, for a little over 2 weeks.

Which brings me to the first problem: He is integrating well with most of our cats, except for one. This one is a stray who adopted us 4 years ago, and quite dominant. He hates the newcomer and we had a fight on our hands the first time they inadvertently met (our dominant slipped onto the porch where newcomer stayed for the first few days).

The fight was quite ugly, with lots of yowling, hissing, posturing and wrestling. I was finally able to separate them with a broom. Since then, we have been extremely careful to keep them separated, but we have put little newcomer in a cat kennel in the living room for an hour or so every day, so our dominant one and he can see each other and get used to each other without a physical altercation.

Initially, there was lots of hissing and growling, now they hiss a little, look at each other for a while, and then dominant one will walk off and take a nap. It does not seem to have improved beyond that. From what I've been told, newcomer has fear aggression, and dominant one has territorial aggression.

Also, little newcomer has free run of the house at night as he gets along with the other cats and dominant one sleeps in the bedroom with us. In the morning, I put newcomer in my office before dominant one leaves the bedroom.

As soon as dominant one comes out, he sniffs all over the place and hisses when he scents newcomer. Is there any chance they will eventually both calm down and at least get to ignoring each other? And at what point should they be introduced?

And now, the second problem:

When newcomer does not want to picked up, he tries to bite. He mostly does this to my husband. He will first complain by meowing quietly, and then rear around and try to bite. He got hold of my husband's arm once already, but just scraped with his tooth, he did not bite down hard.

However, this is not acceptable behavior at all. Hubby has been dealing with it by firmly telling him NO and then putting him back down, but as that is what he wants anyway, I am afraid it's reenforcing the "if I don't want to be picked up, I'll bite and then I'll be put back down" behavior. Since we haven't ever run into this before, I'd much appreciate any advice.

Hi, thanks for the reply.

Actually, it's not a cat carrier, it's a large kennel. Large enough to keep a litterbox and food/water in, as well as move around. I draped a beach towel over half of it, so newcomer can retreat. The kennel was suggested on another website to help get cats used to each other by protected exposure.

We would re-home the little stray if we could only find a good home for him. Our area is overrun, stray dogs, stray cats, Humane Society and other rescue orgs filled beyond capacity, and not nearly enough potential homes. The one prospect we had did not work out. We will keep them separated if necessary, but it would be much preferable for them to at least learn to tolerate each other.

As for his biting problem, it is definitely not that he does not like to be held. He is very affectionate and jumps on both of our laps constantly when called or when he wants to. He is definitely a cuddly cat. And he does not try to bite me when I pick him up, just my husband. And not each time either. No obvious reason either, my husband is very gentle with our cats. It just does not sound like acceptable behavior to me, I don't know anyone whose cat(s) bite(s) when picked up.

I completely disagree that biting is "what cats do". None of our cats have ever tried to bite us, and none of any of my friend's cats bite, either.

Obviously, since he does not try to bite me when I pick him up, he does not necessarily mind being picked up. And obviously, since cats are quite smart, he should be able to learn this is not acceptable behavior.

Hopefully, someone whose cat has overcome this problem behavior will comment with whatever solution they have found.

Thanks so much for all of the links!!

Kluchetta, that is what we discussed last night, that maybe he was mistreated by a male before. He is very loving toward my husband, but he definitely prefers me. I get most of the kisses and attention.

Re. biting being normal, I guess I should have made a distinction between biting and nipping. The nipping (love bites), we are both used to. Several of ours do that, and have for years.

What I was referring to, and what we have never experienced before, is what I described in the original post, the aggressive "I am gonna bite if you pick me up". That, I don't consider normal because we've had quite a few cats over the past 20 plus years, and have never been subjected to any aggression. Could well be that, like some of you guys mentioned above, he just did not have sufficient training or socialization.

One thing that occurred to me, I don't ever pick him up out of the blue, I talk to him and coo over him prior to picking him up, which hub does not do. So he did that today, and no bitey behavior, so far. Also, he does seem shy of men, we had a male visitor for lunch today, and he went into hiding, while he will stick around when a female visits.

By the way, here's pic of the little stinker so you all know whom we're discussing.