Trouble Introducing a new cat to the house

Hi! I'm hoping some of you can offer a little advice about our new addition Izzie.

We have always had 3 cats, and after losing one of ours earlier this year, we decided to adopt another little bundle of fluff. We successfully adopted one last year who integrated into the home after only a few days ( I realise now how lucky we were!)

So we have had Izzie for a week now - I should explain her back story. She was found last December, thought to be a kitten as she was so small, but actually turned out to be pregnant with 5 kittens. She was kept in an individual carers back garden in a pen and was there until last week when we collected her. All her kittens were adopted, the last leaving a few days before she did. She was spayed 2 weeks ago. The vet reckons she is 18 months to a year old.

Anyway, when we brought her home, we put her in her safe room on her own with toys etc - but on day 1 she escaped when we went to go in the room and a chase/fight ensued and she drew blood from one of our resident cats. We now have a barrier in front of the door to prevent this as we go in and out! Anyway she has settled down into the safe room and will happily play and have fussed. We have done scent swapping with all the cats (toys and using the same brush on all of them) and this all goes down fine. If she hears one of the cats outside the door when we are in with her, she gets all excited and runs to the door. We have them eating opposite sides of a closed door and that's fine too. Our resident cats are intrigued by the new person behind the door and we have no hissing from the.

So you would think given all the above we are making fine progress, but...if she sees them through a crack in the door, she hisses and spits and puffs up - our resident cats walk away from it and a fine after a little reassurance from one of us. One Izzie has hissed etc and the door has been shut, she does calm down quickly.

I'll sure where to go next with integrating her into the house. I feel so guilty leaving her shut in her safe room all day whilst we are work, but know we gave to but we can happily leave them all together. We spend as much time in with her during the evenings, but I still feel terribly guilty.(Not helped by the fact that she has worked out how to open the door handle of the room she is in so we have had to almost barricade her in!)

She us such a sweet little lady and I just want her to be a part of our family. I know it's only been a week, but that week has felt like a lifetime!

Does anyone have any suggestions on what to do next?

Hi @gems2181

You have discovered the next step to the introduction, letting them see each other.  The ASPCA article tha I'm linking you to below has a very important step, step 2 which is to allow them to see each other.  This is going to be hard on Lizzie, and possibly difficult for you but it is an important step.  Either using a child gate of an expandable screen (found at  hardware stores and home depot) the idea is that you open the door and instal the gate or screen - when you feel she is ready for this.

It will likely stress her our, but hopefully in time she will get used to the site of your other cats, and in time after that you can progress to the first supervised one on one intro, cat to cat.

She sounds like she wants to make friends, but she hasn't associated the sight of the resident cat with the smells and across the door interactions.  Hopefully she will quickly learn to do this.

Here is a great article on cat to cat introductions.  http://www.thecatsite.com/a/introducing-cats-to-cats  Some cats all get along great from the start and others are a bit more difficult.  My advice is to take it slow.  Let your cats be the guide.  When hissing quickly turns to growling, yowling, chasing, fur flying and blood, things need to slow down.  It is not uncommon to have to regroup and start all over.  Last year I brought a stray turned feral into the house.  I had one resident cat living inside.  We did intros very very slowly, but at the end I rushed the steps and ended up having to restart and move slowly.  There are lots and lots of tips from allowing them to see and sniff each other with the aid of a large dog crate to putting a cheap wooden screen door up.  Start the steps slowly and see what happens.

Feliway diffusers are also really helpful. 

Welcome to the forums!!

the only thing I would add to what's already been said is that you may want to slow things down and start from square one again.I know you are like ONE WEEK??? It is taking FOREVERSSSSS, but in truth, for a cat, 5 seconds have passed. Some cats can take months to adjust to one another, but with time, patience, and actually taking sufficient time with each step and NOT trying to rush thing, peaceful coexistence can very very nearly always be reached. Do not feel bad about keeping her in the saferoom but instead take all the time that is needed with each step, and the cats will accept one another and grow to live in harmony, even if they are never best friends.

Thank you for all your advice. We will be taking it slowly and one step at a time. We let her out today while the other 2 were outside - she saw one through a window and didn't even flinch! Massive progress we think now we just need to make sure we build on that gradually