Advice introducing a new (shy) cat to the resident cat...

Hello,

I've posted off and on here a couple times and y'all are really great about offering help/assistance. Well, due to some of that assistance, I decided to adopt a 2nd kitty to give Casey my fixed, 9 mo, female, tortise some company. Right now the new kitty is on a one week trial at my apartment, but if it works out, I'll be adopting him on Tuesday.

Here's the pretty lady herself (Casey):



And, here's the new guy, Kelby. He's a 1 yr, fixed male:



I brought Kelby home Tues afternoon and I'm following Hissy's article about introducing them (at least I think it was Hissy's article).

Kelby is staying in my bedroom by day and my bathroom by night. Casey has full run of the apartment (except the bedroom) during the day and stays in the bedroom with me at night.

My only real question is about Kelby. He's very shy and I'm wondering how I'm going to eventually get Kelby and Casey aquainted.

So far, Kelby hides under my bed whenever I go in the bedroom. I can usually coax him out, but sometimes I do have to drag him out. When I do get him out from under the bed, he rubs on me and loves to be pet and he really seems to like me. He does not, however, seem to like to play, but he does seem happy that I got him out from under the bed. It's almost like he wants to come out but just needs a little help because once he's out, he seems happy about it.

I do not know his background, but I do know that he was at the animal sanctuary for as long as I've had Casey and probably longer (I've had Casey for about 4 months). I had asked the ladies at the shelter about him and they didn't think he was neglected or anything.

So, I guess I'm just wondering how I'm going to get Casey and Kelby aquainted when the time comes. I'm not going to be able to play with them on their first meeting if Kelby stays under the bed and I'm not sure how well I'm going to be able to get Kelby comfortable enough in the living room in order to play with them.

Have any of you introduced two cats where one was very shy/timid? How'd you do it and how did it go?

Today I started trying to get Kelby a little more comfortable outside of the bedroom by putting Casey in the bedroom and allowing Kelby to roam from the bathroom through the rest of the apartment. He did pretty good (scared but looked around and meowed a lot) for a while then he hid back in the bathroom. I'm going to keep doing that over the next couple days and I have Tues and Wed off, so I might just bring him out of the bedroom for the entire day those two days.

Do I just need to keep doing that kind of stuff - sorta getting Kelby comfortable with the entire apartment without Casey around, then do the intro's?

Any thoughts or advice would be very much appreciated.

Charles

P.S.
For what it's worth, Kelby has a blanket of sorts that he lays on in the carrier and today I was playing with Casey on it and she didn't seem to mind.

Charles....first..those are some GORGEOUS cats you have. As far as your question about helping your shy guy....the only thing I can think of is perhaps using Feliway to calm the environment. Hopefully, hissy, the new behaviorist or other posters will also have suggestions.

Katie

P.S. Since your new cat is sooo shy..is it possible to ask for an extention of the "trial period"? Our rescue gives 2 weeks...but will extend it if the situation calls for it.

It sounds to me like you are doing a lot of the right things to do! Good Job!!

I wouldn't drag the Kelby out from under the bed, but other than that I think what you are doing is just fine and that you should just be patient. Cats warm up to new environments at their own pace.

In a short while though I would allow them to be together... I wouldn't literally put them together but let them find each other on their own and just watch over them when they meet. I think sometimes cats can find comfort with other cats and since Casey hasn't seemed to be too adverse to the new smell in the house it sounds to me like Kelby might learn to be less nervous from Casey.

Again, it sounds to me like you're doing great! Keep up the good work!

PS Those pictures are adorable! You have two beauties!

It is way to soon to expect a new cat to accept a new environment. Simply leaving the cat alone is the best way for the cat to thaw out and trust you. Please don't drag him out to join the rest of you. If he is unsure of you, then you going into his secure place, peering down and reaching in to drag him someplace he does not wish to be, turns you from friend to predator. Again, simply see to his basic needs, make sure that he is not ill and ignore ignore ignore. He is not there, he is not there, he is not there.

Originally Posted by TNR1

Charles....first..those are some GORGEOUS cats you have. As far as your question about helping your shy guy....the only thing I can think of is perhaps using Feliway to calm the environment. Hopefully, hissy, the new behaviorist or other posters will also have suggestions.

Katie

P.S. Since your new cat is sooo shy..is it possible to ask for an extention of the "trial period"? Our rescue gives 2 weeks...but will extend it if the situation calls for it.

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Thank you Katie! I'm just loving the cats. Casey is by far the prettiest cat I've ever seen, but then again, I'm bias. And Kelby is just neat, he's going to be a real sweetheart once he gets over his shyness - he already is when I get him out from under the bed.

I did get some feliway this morning after seeing some posts about it yesterday and I sprayed it around the apartment. I'm not sure how long it takes to take effect, but I plan to spray it each day and see what it will do.

As far as the extension, I'm pretty sure things will eventually work out fine and, honestly, I'm getting too attached to Kelby to let him go back. Who knows when he'd be adopted (he has been there for a long time already). But, I will ask about that depending on what others say about how they think things will work out.

Charles

Originally Posted by hissy

It is way to soon to expect a new cat to accept a new environment. Simply leaving the cat alone is the best way for the cat to thaw out and trust you. Please don't drag him out to join the rest of you. If he is unsure of you, then you going into his secure place, peering down and reaching in to drag him someplace he does not wish to be, turns you from friend to predator. Again, simply see to his basic needs, make sure that he is not ill and ignore ignore ignore. He is not there, he is not there, he is not there.

Click to expand...

Point taken. It just hard to let him stay alone for hours on end. I don't usually go in the bedroom all day anyways, so I have been going in there so that he knows I'm around and hopefully to give him something/someone to warm up to.

As far as the dragging out comment. I thought about that when I wrote it and thought that's probably not the best thing to be doing. Also, it's probably not the best wording either. Anyways, I'm going to let him decide when to come out from now on. The funny thing is, when he comes out or when I take him out from under the bed, he's calm and rubs against me and loves to be pet.

Charles

Charles, he'll be fine. Get a kitty dancer or a toy on a stick and use that when he is hiding. Don't throw it under the bed, simply make a few passes trailing the toy behind you. If he comes out and pounces on it, don't stop, just keep walking and let him follow you. But if he continues to hide, just let him unless it stretches into weeks and weeks of hiding. They really are social animals and they like having humans around. He just needs to adjust to his new world.

One suggestion that's been put out here many times is to just sit on the floor in the room with him where he's hiding and read out loud to him. It acclimates the cat to your voice, eventually cats cannot help but come to you... They are genetically curious creatures! Though I've never actually read to a cat before, I have spent hours sitting on the floor talking to cats and they do eventually come out on their own.
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I'm going thru this with Emily right now. She was left alone in the bedroom with the door closed for a few days - I would visit a few times a day and talk calmly to her. She got her favorite canned food each evening. After a few days, I opened up the door and supervised the interactions. I moved one of my cats favorite cat condos into the room.

I used a fishing for kitty pole which I knew Emily loved and played with the existing cats with that for a while. Close enough to the bed that she could look out and see them, yet far enough away to not be a threat. Also put some of her other cool toys in the room (she came with a U-haul worth of toys). I made it a happy place for my existing cats, and one by one, they wandered under the bed to meet her. Most did a simple nose sniff then came back out to play. A few went up and licked her head in greeting. 1 hissed. The alpha female walked right up to her, gave her a bat with her right then walked away. Next meeting alpha rolled on her back and tried to play with her.

I have not forced Emily out from under the bed. She comes out on her own now when she wants to and actually interacts better with the other cats than she does people (she had a bad human experience earlier in her life). I have kept the room a happy place - she has her privacy under the bed or dresser to hide in, and the others have lots of toys to play with. She runs out from under the bed each night when I bring her canned food and I love on her for a while.

Hope this helps.

Just an update on this as I'm about to post another question and some might wonder what happened to Kelby.

I brought Kelby back last week. As I mentioned in my posts above, he is/was very, very shy. I had a conversation with the shelter and decided it might be best to bring him back. My resident cat, Casey, seemed quite "agressive" (not in a bad sense) and with Kelby being so scared of everything, we thought it might be best.

So, I headed to another shelter and found a sweet, not so shy, 8 month old boy. Oz:



Well, I brought him home and put him in my bedroom just like what I was doing with Kelby. Well, after a day of that, he would have nothing to do with staying in there. So, my girlfriend and I decided to see what whould happen if we let him explore. Well, sure enough, Oz and Casey met. There was hissing on Casey's part and all, but after a few visits over the course of a couple days, they were getting along. As of today, they are sharing the appartment full-time and even are playing together. So, cross my fingers, everything is going well.

Thanks for all the advice. It really hurt to bring Kelby back as he was such a sweetheart, but it seems like Oz is working out better both for himself and for Casey.

Charles