getting a new cat.

ok. i have an 8 year old female cat named morgan. she has lived with me in a single cat household for about 5 or 6 years now. before that she lived with all sorts of animals including 7 huskies. now she lives with my boyfriend and i and we also have 2 bearded dragons and a hamster. she does fine with all of these.

we are thinking about adopting a kitten from mspca. i have never known my cat to be overly agressive. she is very docile and she loves everyone. in general, a very happy cat. what i would like to know are the chances of her getting along with another cat eventually. i know the first few months may be a little tough, but i just want to make sure they will eventually get along. and should i adopt a male or female? (my female is fixed btw. i would be planning on fixing whatever gender cat i get as well) but would 2 females get along better than a male and a female?

Male and female will fare a little better than female and female. Though I have 3 females. Meeka likes everyone, Hope likes everyone but is timid of Autumn, Autumn likes Hope only if she's in a good mood. Do a slow proper introduction by keeping the newcomer in a seperate room for as long as is necessary. Let the cats smell the others scent by rubbing themd own with a towel and swapping towels (put outside of the room). Feliway might help them get used to each other. Let them play footsies through the door. After a while then let them introduce (this could be a day to 2 weeks kind of yoru disgression).

I could be rocky at first but sometimes with this sort of introduction things go very smoothly.

well see this is where it gets tough. i live in a one bedroom apartment, and the only room i can shut off besides the tiny bathroom is the bedroom. which is fine during the day when we're up... we could keep the kitten in the bedroom, but at night morgan sleeps with us and there is NO locking her out. because her previous owners used to breed huskies, they locked her in rooms for months at a time and she has a terrible issue with closed doors when she knows someone else is on the other side. i know she would be fine with a kitten locked in the bedroom if tom and i were on the outside of the bedroom. but i also can't close the bedroom door while she is in there, because she'll scratch and scratch until the door is opened, and i do rent... so there can be none of that...

The bathroom will be fine. You wont' be able to do a 2 week introduction like this but a day or 2 even in a small bathroom should help a lot. When a new cat comes home its really stressful so allowing him to get used ot the new smells without a lot of exploring is fine. Also when new cats come home they like to hide under a bed which isn't much space so the cat might actually appreciate a small amount of space like a bathroom to get used to things.

You certainly don't want to shut your current cat out of the bedroom...that invites disaster as your cat will see this newcomer as a source of frustration and schedule interuption. But the bathroom would work well.

I wrote an entire message earlier but it never made it through so I guess I'll be rewriting it lol! I had the same situation you're in when I adopted 2 kittens. I also live in a 1 bedroom apt and had a 1 year old cat. I adopted one kitty and brough her home without realizing that cat's don't get along very well at first, I had grown up with dogs my whole life. The second I let the newcomer out of the box my cat (mommy) began hissing and fur instantly arched up. I didn't know what to do and I had another cat coming the next day! I began reading a little about introducing a new kitty to the home (usually they'll give you a sheet at the shelter) but I'll tell you what worked best for me. At night and when I was away I would put the new kitties in the bathroom with a litter box, food, and water. I will warn you though that they made a mess for the first 2 weeks or so. I would have to clean poo off of the walls and floors every morning before my classes. They both came home with coccidia though so it may be a different situation with you. Then while I was there I would let the kitties out to roam around and adjust to each others smells. Whenever the hissing and growling would get really intense I'd put mommy in the bedroom and then switch them every 15 minutes or so and then let them be together again. This is a very very slow process and you need to be prepared to be stressed out and to invest a good deal of time. After about 3 weeks the hissing and growling stopped but mommy still wanted nothing to do with the babies. I began to leave them alone together when I would leave for short periods of time, 30 mins to an hour. After another week or 2 I was amazed to see them playing and wrestling for the first time together. Mommy was very cautious at first, I think she was afraid I would punish her for wrestling so you have to be sure to not punish your for hissing and growling, it's just in their nature. Now they get along great and it was deffinatly worth it. Good luck!

We found Blaze(female) back in July.She has been an ONLY cat in our home.I saw a post here about a kitten (female) that needed a home.It was love at first site.I was leary of getting another to add to our home, because I didn't want to upset Blaze.
The first day we brought Neela into the house (Nov. 28th) and Blaze saw her,instantly hissed,growled and hair stood up.I placed a towel that Blaze had laid on in the bathroom with Neela.I let her lay on that and the next day, brought it out for Blaze to smell.She was still hissing, but did check it out.
Now after letting them get use to one anothers scents, they are playing.
Whatever you do, give them time to adjust to one anothers scents FIRST!!! I'm not sure what does best female to female or female to male.We have found that our two girls do really well with one another.
Good luck and let us know how things go