older cat acting funny after adopting kitten

Hello:

We just adopted a kitten last Thursday and one of our other cats is acting funny. He acts like he is depressed and stays in one place and does not come out. Also I am not sure how much he has eaten in the past couple days.

The new kitten is adjusting fine.

Any ideas on how to help Tigger adjust to the newest additon to our family?

Mary

How have you introduced them? Some cats need to be separated out and slowly got used to the idea of companions or new additions. Is the depressed one the alpha cat? Does he feel threatened if you are carrying the kitten around or making a great fuss of it? You need to think about these factors and look on here for the threads on introducing kittens to the household.

Here's a link to an article here on the site about introductions: http://www.thecatsite.com/Cats/Cat_B...cing_Cats.html

At think point I think Tigger needs some extra attention and affection and playtime from you.

Thanks for your replies I am kind of paranoid about how my cats behave. We had to have one put to sleep because of a tumor last Nov and she started acting funny, not eating and not jumping up on furniture so I am kind of hyper about all this.

Okay we messed up and just skipped all these steps. So do we go back and isolate the little guy and then re-introduce him slowly? I think Tigger is the Alpha Cat-his Mom was but we had to have her put to sleep in Nov and then Tigger kind of took over. We have one other cat who usually is the chicken cat and she actually came and sat in the room with the little guy and it didn't seem to bother her.

I am spending more time today with Tigger and let him sleep in the room with me last night. I'll let him sleep with me again tonight. He is acting like he does when strangers come to visit hiding in the back bedroom.

Mary K

Since it's only been a couple days, I think starting from square one would be a good idea.

When I brought Baby Kitty into the house a few years ago he was only a few months old. I already had two older female cats (age 9 and 11 at the time). I could tell immediately the change in our home. One cat would constantly growl at Baby Kitty, the other cat stayed to herself a lot.

The best advice I can give is to give your older kitty a lot of attention. It is so easy for us to develop a sense of resentment when cats don't accept newcomers into the house but with a little bit of time, patience and enough affection to go around sooner or later the situation will work itself out (hopefully!).

Good luck