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- Jul 13, 2015
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Hey guys,
My boyfriend and I are trying to properly introduce our cat with my boyfriend's new roommate's cat - but it isn't going super great. I'm scared of these cats developing permanent aggression towards each other, and I know this site always gives great advice, so I wanted to talk about this here. I'm sorry if this turns out kinda long, I'm just trying to completely get across the situation that's happening.
My long term boyfriend and I have a sweet, giant male cat. He's a 2 year old neutered stray that we saved last spring, when he was 1. (it was either us taking him or the shelter - there was no choice in our minds) He's got a really mild temperament, pretty easygoing, vetted and healthy as a horse. When he was hanging around my house before we were able to get him inside, he would come up and window visit with our 3 male cats without any aggression. He lived with a 5 year old tortie female for a few months with only some mild dominance problems - but then the roommate and his cat moved out. My boyfriend and I both decided we didn't want any other cats living with our cat until I moved in with him, since it's not fair on him to have non-permanent feline companions for our guy, and until I graduate with my degree it's only financially responsible for us to have one cat.
Long story short - my long term boyfriend and his roommate needed another roommate, since I won't be moving in with him until I'm done school next year. They couldn't find anybody except for the roommate's friend. Who has a cat. Normally I would not have been okay with this, for the reasons stated above. However, this guy is apparently going to be living with them long term, so when I moved in we'd be able to give our tabby a companion, then move into our own house and our guy wouldn't be grieving and totally alone.
I quizzed this guy and the roommate extensively about his cat's personality and it turns out we were totally misled. The roommate swore she was a small, submissive female who was only a year old, not very vocal, and lived with a tom cat before with no problems. (and apparently up to date on her vaccinations) Since I felt like this personality match could work, I said I was okay with this. Boyfriend and I laid down the law that proper 2 week separation/introduction was going to happen. (at my house, we have 3 male cats 4-16 years old, we were hands-on in their successful introductions and fully believe in the process like so many of you guys do!)
So this cat gets to the house. It turns out she's actually over four years old, really chubby and large, and super vocal. Total queen. Like, our guy is longer, but she's got at least 5 pounds on him. In she goes into his bedroom for isolation/sanctuary time. They briefly saw each other through the door and there wasn't any hissing, but now that it's a few days later, our tabby isn't taking her presence well. Most of the time he ignores her constant meows and doesn't seem stressed, but the minute he sees one chubby paw under the door he's hissing and swatting at it. Or if she's doing some inquiry meows, he reaches under the door and starts hissing.
I'm thinking he's quite scared. He's a timid, sweet guy but still likes to be in charge. At first, his hisses seemed to be scared more than anything. Now, he seems to just want to get that paw completely away from his territory. And we've totally laid the Feliway on this area with no effect. I know it's only been a few days, but I feel like their impressions of each other aren't going great at all. Definitely not an ideal personality match. When he met my three boys and the tortie, he only showed aggression when they'd sass him first. If the hissing gets bad, we will clap or distract him from the door, and then he'll forget about her for a bit and just go about his day like normal. He's slightly more jumpy, but not displaying signs of extreme stress like urination outside the litterbox.
I'm just quite worried. If this aggression is this bad now, and getting worse, how are they ever going to get along face to face? My boyfriend and I are doing all the steps, but we were misled about this roommate too and are scared that we can't trust them to be properly supervised when we aren't there. (like when he helped this guy move, her litterbox was apparently HEAPED with old feces and her fur is kinda matted). If they get into a proper fight, she could do some serious damage to our tabby, and vice versa. We're also worried that she might not be up to date with her vetting either, because we were misled about so many other things about this cat. So if they get into a fight, we're pretty scared about our guy getting hurt.
She's super stressed too. It's only been three days but she's torn up the carpet in the bedroom and has marked on a few of the boxes in this guy's room. Which is also scary since the landlords are super strict about pet damage, it's one thing if a bedroom gets torn up since our guy can't get blamed, but the house?
My boyfriend is prepared to pull rank and ask this guy to leave if it doesn't work out, since our big kitty is king of the land of the house, but in the meantime we are scared about the toll the stress and potential fighting could take on our guy, especially if the roommates don't want to follow proper introduction procedures. Have you guys ever dealt with this? Do you have any advice? I'm honestly at a loss here. I'm having a hard time finding advice about aggression at this early in the introduction game, and I've never dealt with this before. We've even asked the roommate to put a towel under the door when we aren't there so they can't risk clawing each other, but he hasn't done that yet either, kinda giving me bad vibes about the coming weeks.
We both feel super bad about what's happened and definitely won't be this trusting again, realizing we should have met this cat in person before agreeing to this. Thank you for reading if you made it this far!
My boyfriend and I are trying to properly introduce our cat with my boyfriend's new roommate's cat - but it isn't going super great. I'm scared of these cats developing permanent aggression towards each other, and I know this site always gives great advice, so I wanted to talk about this here. I'm sorry if this turns out kinda long, I'm just trying to completely get across the situation that's happening.
My long term boyfriend and I have a sweet, giant male cat. He's a 2 year old neutered stray that we saved last spring, when he was 1. (it was either us taking him or the shelter - there was no choice in our minds) He's got a really mild temperament, pretty easygoing, vetted and healthy as a horse. When he was hanging around my house before we were able to get him inside, he would come up and window visit with our 3 male cats without any aggression. He lived with a 5 year old tortie female for a few months with only some mild dominance problems - but then the roommate and his cat moved out. My boyfriend and I both decided we didn't want any other cats living with our cat until I moved in with him, since it's not fair on him to have non-permanent feline companions for our guy, and until I graduate with my degree it's only financially responsible for us to have one cat.
Long story short - my long term boyfriend and his roommate needed another roommate, since I won't be moving in with him until I'm done school next year. They couldn't find anybody except for the roommate's friend. Who has a cat. Normally I would not have been okay with this, for the reasons stated above. However, this guy is apparently going to be living with them long term, so when I moved in we'd be able to give our tabby a companion, then move into our own house and our guy wouldn't be grieving and totally alone.
I quizzed this guy and the roommate extensively about his cat's personality and it turns out we were totally misled. The roommate swore she was a small, submissive female who was only a year old, not very vocal, and lived with a tom cat before with no problems. (and apparently up to date on her vaccinations) Since I felt like this personality match could work, I said I was okay with this. Boyfriend and I laid down the law that proper 2 week separation/introduction was going to happen. (at my house, we have 3 male cats 4-16 years old, we were hands-on in their successful introductions and fully believe in the process like so many of you guys do!)
So this cat gets to the house. It turns out she's actually over four years old, really chubby and large, and super vocal. Total queen. Like, our guy is longer, but she's got at least 5 pounds on him. In she goes into his bedroom for isolation/sanctuary time. They briefly saw each other through the door and there wasn't any hissing, but now that it's a few days later, our tabby isn't taking her presence well. Most of the time he ignores her constant meows and doesn't seem stressed, but the minute he sees one chubby paw under the door he's hissing and swatting at it. Or if she's doing some inquiry meows, he reaches under the door and starts hissing.
I'm thinking he's quite scared. He's a timid, sweet guy but still likes to be in charge. At first, his hisses seemed to be scared more than anything. Now, he seems to just want to get that paw completely away from his territory. And we've totally laid the Feliway on this area with no effect. I know it's only been a few days, but I feel like their impressions of each other aren't going great at all. Definitely not an ideal personality match. When he met my three boys and the tortie, he only showed aggression when they'd sass him first. If the hissing gets bad, we will clap or distract him from the door, and then he'll forget about her for a bit and just go about his day like normal. He's slightly more jumpy, but not displaying signs of extreme stress like urination outside the litterbox.
I'm just quite worried. If this aggression is this bad now, and getting worse, how are they ever going to get along face to face? My boyfriend and I are doing all the steps, but we were misled about this roommate too and are scared that we can't trust them to be properly supervised when we aren't there. (like when he helped this guy move, her litterbox was apparently HEAPED with old feces and her fur is kinda matted). If they get into a proper fight, she could do some serious damage to our tabby, and vice versa. We're also worried that she might not be up to date with her vetting either, because we were misled about so many other things about this cat. So if they get into a fight, we're pretty scared about our guy getting hurt.
She's super stressed too. It's only been three days but she's torn up the carpet in the bedroom and has marked on a few of the boxes in this guy's room. Which is also scary since the landlords are super strict about pet damage, it's one thing if a bedroom gets torn up since our guy can't get blamed, but the house?
My boyfriend is prepared to pull rank and ask this guy to leave if it doesn't work out, since our big kitty is king of the land of the house, but in the meantime we are scared about the toll the stress and potential fighting could take on our guy, especially if the roommates don't want to follow proper introduction procedures. Have you guys ever dealt with this? Do you have any advice? I'm honestly at a loss here. I'm having a hard time finding advice about aggression at this early in the introduction game, and I've never dealt with this before. We've even asked the roommate to put a towel under the door when we aren't there so they can't risk clawing each other, but he hasn't done that yet either, kinda giving me bad vibes about the coming weeks.
We both feel super bad about what's happened and definitely won't be this trusting again, realizing we should have met this cat in person before agreeing to this. Thank you for reading if you made it this far!
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Cat to cat introductions take time (and I do MEAN time - introductions typically take months, not weeks, and have been known to take a year or more in particularly difficult cases), and it's natural for there to be some level of stress in the early stages.
