Conquering Kitties

Well this pretty much sums up our intro with our newest kitty.


They both divided the house into 2 territories, and chase and hiss at each other if one of them enters into the others domain, which usually happens when they try to eat each other's food (which is exactly the same BTW).

Did anyone have this kind of issue with your kitties? Why do they invade?

Greetings from the house of chaos haha!  I went through this the entire year of 2016.  Intro'd a 2 year old into our home with a 12 year old territorial beast (BEAST!!) of a cat.  We are all good now! 

I highly recommend following the introduction steps outlined in these articles.  Really, truly--it is work work work--but well worth it, once you understand how cats form relationships. 

You can also read my threads, along with another great intro story by Losna, search for user Losna for her great story! 

Here are my threads with our story:

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/314186/need-advice-is-my-cat-just-evil-embodied-or-am-i-overreacting

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/325599/7-months-in-update-on-introducing-two-cats

Here is a great article that was highly recommended to me, and another one I followed!!:

http://www.thecatsite.com/a/the-ultimate-yet-simplified-guide-to-introducing-cats

http://www.thecatsite.com/a/how-to-successfully-introduce-cats-the-ultimate-guide

Wishing you lots of luck--hang in there, it gets better!

Oh thank you for embedding these links! This will be my morning read. Glad to hear things get better!

Let me know what you think and if you have questions.  I'm not the expert on this, but I can tell you what we went through and how we handled situations.  Good luck!  Just slow and steady, hang in there!

Wow! @hbunny what a saga! I definitely do not have the same challenges you faced, and you getting through so much progress is so reassuring. My ultimate goal is to have both of them in bed with us without the screaming. Poor little Sophie (the newest) so desperately wants attention at night too, but Sadie is fiercely territorial of the bed. So, every once in a while I'll wake up to high pitched yowling. From your thread there were a few things I will be trying: Switching territories, treats when they are together, exchanging scented items in eachother's space. I don't think I need to reintroduce again, but I'm open to a differing opinion. At this point they have progressed (just last night) to sitting near each other for 10 minutes without hissing in Sophie's territory (the couch)

We went through a couple of months where they reached a "toleration" point that we could leave them both out together in the house, but still had to put Shortstack in "his" bedroom every night because Wurp had the bed fully claimed.  We let it go that way for quite a while, with his bedtime about 9:30, allowing Wurp to have his bed (and us) all to himself and in peace. (side note--Stack still wants to go to bed at 9:30 every night!)

After a couple more months of him sharing his space during the daytime/evening hours, we tried again to let them share the bed.  We had a rocky start, but then all settled down.  Now most nights they sleep on the loveseat near each other, and don't even join us in the bedroom.  It's been so cold this past week off and on that they have both come back to sleep at the foot of the bed, and with no issues.  It just takes time.  If you need to separate them at bedtime for the night, don't feel bad about doing so.  Slower is better, and doesn't create angry kitties!  I swear if we allowed something to literally piss Wurp off, he was mad for a week....so we just started trying to go by what HE would allow, and as he adjusted, we adjusted the "together" schedule and times.

This was just last night:

A change occurred overnight over the New Year. They can sleep near each other! And now they play wrestle, which looks like a long hug at first until they start chasing each other. It is a proud feeling! Thanks @hbunny for your tips. I think it helped to give them treats near each other and to have the diffuser. They are side by side right now. One on my lap and the other just below.

This is wonderful! I know your elation! It did seem like it happened overnight to us too, but it really was just the defining moment of all those months of hard work!