Need some help and advice

Hi all

About 3 months ago I noticed a cat that spent a lot of time in our front garden, but everytime I tried to make contact it fled. It often seemed to sleep in the bushes and I eventually came to the conclusion that it was a stray. I spent a lot of time trying to earn the trust of this cat and eventually I did and from that moment on it would happily come up to me whenever it saw me.

I love cats but I have never adopted a stray so I was unsure about what to do. We have a car port in our front garden and I made a little bed there for it and gave it some food and water everyday. It has happily been living there for about 2 months now. But now I have grown attached to this sweet kitty and want to figure a way to introduce it to the home. I have 2 dogs (Labrador and a Dalmatian) and a female cat of my own. The dogs have often seen it through the windows and walked passed it when I take them for walks, and other that being curious they do not seem to have a problem with the stray cat. My female cat on the other hand has massive problems. She will often hiss at it through the window and if they come into contact I can tell they are edging towards a fight. I have even heard the two of them fighting and yowling at each other during the early hours of the morning. To make matters worse, the stray cat has worked up the courage to come into the house through the cat flap and steal my female cat's food, and I can tell that it is stressing my cat out. So my question is what can or should I do if I want to adopt this cat into my household? I know the first thing I should do is to take the stray to the vet and have it checked, but I am worried that these two cats will just not cohabit or I will lose the trust of my own cat.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, and if I need to clear anything up I will gladly do so.

Regards

Nick

You need to prepare an introduction programme. There are lotsa of treads, here but more at the behavior forum...  As they did were in fight, take it the slow way, no quick solutions here.

So, vet check including deparasiting.  Have the new cat in his own room. Let him be there at least 48 hours so he feels safe AND the smell of the vet goes away..  And begin slowly with the introduction programme, including swapping of the smells.

You can also use a Feliway diffuser where they shall meet.

Introduction with the dogs will probably come easier. Dogs tend to accept the newcomer if Daddy does accept the newcomer.

Have the leash on, order them to lay down, and let the cat come and examine. 

Make sure they know the cats are higher on the pack ladder then the dogs.

Something like that.

Welcome to our Forums!

Good luck!