old cat hates new cat HELP!!

pepper

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Hi all you cat experts out there! I'm new to this forum and I have a problem.

I have a 9 year old female brown tabby named Pepper who has been an "only kitty" her whole life. She is very affectionate, active and outgoing. My mother moved in with me in June and brought Sasha - a 6 year old white angora female. Both are spayed. Sasha is very affectionate and layed back in classic angora style. She was a pound kitty and is well socialized with other dogs and cats. She's not the problem,Pepper is. Needless to say, Pepper absolutely hates Sasha and has been upset ever since they moved in. She can't walk past Sasha with out hissing and attacking. Althought the "attacks" are loud and disturbing to the humans around them, it doesn't faze Sasha and she doesn't even seem to mind the attacks but I would like them to get along. She hasn't sustained any injurys as Pepper's attacks seem to be more vocal than violent. After all these months I would of thought that Pepper would have "gotten over it" but it doesn't seem to be getting any better. Does anyone have any thoughts to how I can better socialize Pepper to Sasha? They don't share food dishes or litter boxes and sleep in seperate rooms of the house.
Help!!
 

momofmany

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There are a lot of tips in the Behavior forum on how to acclimate 2 cats. What works for some folks won't work for others. Suggest you go to that forum and do a search on "introductions". You will see a number of threads with well rounded advice. Some common themes you will see are:

- patience, patience, patience
- cats are scent oriented, so rubbing vanilla extract on their chins and base of their tail will make them smell similar and therefore more accepted by each other
- gradual introductions through open gates in doorways (may not work since they have been together 5 months now)

Search around and you will find ideas to try on your cats. Good luck and keep us posted on how they are doing!!
 

lotsocats

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I moved your thread to the Behavior Forum, where the behavior experts are more likely to see the thread.

It might be a good idea to separate the cats for a couple of weeks and then do a slow re-introduction. This often works in situations like this.

If you decide to do the separation, please click here to read a thread on how to re-introduce the cats in a way to reduce the likelihood of aggression.

Good luck!
 
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pepper

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Thank you for the suggestions. I'm going to try the vanilla thing tonight when I get home. If that doesn't work I'll try the Comfort Zone spray. An interesting note was that when Sasha was sick a month or so ago (she's fine now) Peppers attacks actually lessened. Normally you would think because she was sick she would get attacked even more but Pepper actually seemed more tolerant for some reason. Maybe scent does have alot to do with it. I will put vanilla on both cats. Thanks!
 
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