another new multi cat household needing help!

Hello,

Iam new to this site and hoping for some help. My husband and I are taking a "roomate" into our home at the end of the month. She has two male cats,one a maine coon, the other a manx. We have one female tabby and one black male. All are neutered. We decided to move the cats in last night to ensure this is going to work out before we move all of our new housemates furniture in ,etc. It did not go well. The manx was wary and kept to itself but the Maine Coon showed a very cocky attitude to its new surroundings and quite an interest in our female. At first it appeared to not even notice our small male but then it began chasing it, quite aggressively,until we were able to intervene. My husband has a nasty bite today and our timid male has been hiding in the closet for about 12 hours. He has never hissed before but when coaxed him out of the closet he hissed and spit at our other cat who he has lived with for 2 years! He appears very traumatized. The maine Coon seems unaffected by all of it and continues to approach our female(who rebuffs him by swiping, growling and hissing) and seems to be looking for our Male. I am stressing about this greatly and slept barely a wink last night. Any advice
anybody can offer would be much appreciated. Thank you !

I hate to say this....but this is the exact opposite of how introductions should be done. Please see the other post about multicat households for how to safely introduce cats.

You are lucky that your roommate won't be moving in for a while....so first off...have her take her cats back home and leave them there until she moves in!

In the meantime...you now have the problem that the aggressive cat has learned he can beat up the other cat. You can help him unlearn this behavior, but its gonna be tough. (This is why you should introduce cats slooooowly and carefully rather than just putting them together.)

If you do not help the cat unlearn the aggression, he will do it forever and the victim will be a victim for the next 15-20 years!!! So, you absolutely must do this even though it will be a big pain in the rear!

So....when your roommate moves in, lock the cats in separate rooms and keep them separated for a minimum of two weeks. Do not let the aggressor anywhere near the victim, not even under the door. You want the aggressor and the victim to be able to completely forget about eachother. This will take about 2 weeks.

After 2 weeks of complete separation, start exchanging scents....rub one with a towel and then rub the other with that same towel and vice versa. Let one start roaming the house while the other stays locked up. And then switch. Do this for about 1 week.

Then...start doing the introductions described in the other post. If this still doesn't work, write back for more ideas.

I can't stress how important it is to intervene now. Aggression is VERY difficult to break, so you want to stop it immediately so that you don't end up having to find a new home for one of the cats.

Good luck!

Thank you for your advice. WE will try what you suggested and hope that it works. If it does not, our room mate has said she will find somewhere else to live! I also called our vet today and their advice was similar to yours. Thanks again!

Rochelle