new kitten causing older cat to spray

michaelsharpe

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Hi everyone,

My house has been having some serious problems with the introduction of a kitten, and we didn't know where to turn, so decided to ask here.

Here is the situation. We have 3 cats currently. One is a new kitten, and the other two are about 5 years old each. The older two were introduced to each other about a year ago.

The cat who is now causing us serious problems is one of these two, Kali-ma, a spayed female. She has always been pretty crazy- when she was adjusting to the house a year ago, she was flipping out at our other cat, Aleister. She goes crazy banshee style. She can be pretty high stress and just doesn't do well with other cats. The two older ones hadmade a reasonable peace before the new kitten came in.

The new kitten Zuzu, was brought in a few months ago. The first month was okay. She didn't like the kitten, but was okay until the kitten started really getting active in the house.

About 3 weeks ago Kali started spraying everything in the house, especially in our room, her main territory. She sprays walls, couches, plants, our bed, my books and computer. We are at our wits end.

We tried locking her and zuzu in a spare room to adjust them to one another. No luck. We have calmed Kali down by locking her with us in our room and giving her lots of love. But this is only a temporary solution. We need a way to adjust her to the kitten, so she at least tolerates zuzu.

We took Kali to the vet. She doesn't have a UTI, and is in good health besides not eating quite as much and not drinking enough water.

Aleister has been fine. In fact he has snuggled zuzu once, plays with him a bit, and lays down the line well. However, when we let Kali outside, Aleister will terrorize her now (she terrorized him for months. )

We have gotten a kennel cage to use to help the process. We also have plans to build a few cat towers as well before winter. Oh, and we have a spare bedroom to use for the process for another 1.5 weeks, if it is needed. We have also used Feliway, and will probably continue to.

Can anyone help? We will do/try anything that might work at this point. We are getting very tired of cleaning pee off of everything.

Thank you so much!
 

mani

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Hi Michael and welcome to TCS


I'm thinking it might be a good idea to go through the introduction process all over again.. did you do that when the kitten arrived?

This is a link that describes it.

If you named Kali after the Hindu goddess, maybe she's just living up to her name.. she's pretty formidable..
 
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michaelsharpe

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Hi  Mani,

Thanks for the warm welcome.  We didn't go through this process, no.  Resetting things and going back to basics is definitely a great idea.  We will get onto this right away, and I will respond here in a few weeks to see how it is going.

So should we limit the newcomer Zuzu to our small room for a few weeks, and give Kali free range of the house again?  Right now Zuzu gets to run around the house a few hours a day.  Kali was isolated to our room or outside, though we have been letting her have the house at night the past few nights (and waking up to spray in various corners, sadly.)  Will Kali keep spraying so long as Zu keeps getting his scent around the house?

Also, are there any strategies for stopping Kali from Spraying during this period, or will she naturally stop as Zu is isolated?

Thank you again!  It is good to know there are people who ca, help with this.
 

mani

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Sorry @michaelSharpe.. Haven't been able to get online for a couple of days..

I think you should keep ZuZu contained in the room.. literally just 'do it by the book', following the stages in the article.  It works surprisingly well.

I have a feeling Kali will stop once ZuZu is isolated.  I would recommend some Feliway spray as well.. cat pheromones that can have a very soothing effect.  It doesn't always work, but if it does it's brilliant.

Keep us posted!
 
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