Older cat hates the new kitten!

We got a Himalayan kitten 3 weeks ago, Smokey. We already have a 2 year Persian old cat, Austin, who has lived with us since he was 9 weeks.

The first day we introducted them, Austin hissed and growled. From that day on, he retreated to an upstairs bedroom and refused to come downstairs, even for food and water. It got to the point where we had to move everything (litter, food, water) upstairs because he would not come down. Smokey tried sniffing him, etc but Austin would growl and hiss and try to swat him.

After about 2 weeks or so, the two have been slowly getting to be around each other for longer periods of time and Austin has finally started to walk around the house like normal. Last week we thought we had a breakthrough, because Austin and Smokey sat next to each other with no hissing or growling and seem to be getting along ok.

Well...yesterday Austin jumped on top of Smokey and pinned him down and was biting him. We quickly separated them and put Smokey in the room w/ his litter, etc and shut the door. Today it happened again when Austin came downstairs this a.m. We think Smokey might have instigated it, because he's started to be more brave and chase Austin around and try to bite his tail, and so on.

Trying to keep them constantly separated is stressful and we have a somewhat small house so keeping them apart is difficult anyway...esp because the baby is small and fast, he's hard to catch sometimes! He now runs up the steps so Austin cant hide from him there! When we go out, we're forced to shut the kitten in his room with his litter and food because we fear that Austin might hurt Smokey.

I've read a few things online but short of medicating them, not finding many answers. I know it's only been 3 weeks, so maybe it will just take longer.

Any advice would be appreciated!

It might just take a little longer. My oldest cat took about a month before he quit hissing at our kitten (now 6 mo.) and they are just now starting to play together (3 mo.s later!)

It's sounds like your kitten just wants to play which is why he is chasing Austin. I'm not sure from your discription if Austin was just playing back or was actually attacking Smokey.

You could try having them in the same room, playing with Smokey and slowly try to pull Austin into the game. (I would also suggest the opposite as it is more alpha-cat oriented, but if Smokey is anything like Toulouse, it doesn't take much to encourage him to play. The point of the exercise is to get Austin interested in playing with Smokey and asking to have him involved.)

It may take longer. For our cats to learn to like each other after the 3 week separation that was used for SLOW introdcution...It took about another 2 weeks.

I was in your same position, most of us have.

It just takes a while..

I suggest getting a Feliway Diffuser. Its what made it so our two kitties would tolerate each other.

It sends out the friendly hormone that cats have, and it supposed to help with urinating outside the box, and cats in mutliple cat homes. I have one, and I love it.

http://www.catfaeries.com/feliway.html

The cheapest I've found it was on www.petguys.com

I just suggest this product alot because, it really worked for me.

Good luck

I have 7 cats right now, but each of these cats was introduced to other cats before them in my household, who have now passed on to the bridge. Not every introduction has been easy. I know that with my crew, they except kittys over adults much easier. I have always noticed with my cats they sound alot worse than their bite. It has taken me up to 4 months to get peace of mind in my house, and sometimes they just tolerate each other in their future relationships. Right now I have great harmony, but in the past I thought it would never end. It does eventually straighten itself out, and most the time they will become best of friends, worst case scenario is that they will have a mutual understanding of each other.

When they do battle it is for pecking order, and dominance. When my cats get a new addition it messes their whole pecking order up, and they squabble between each other. They get over it.........eventually

Silly cats!!

Kim

It took me 2 months to get Diesel to accept Portia.

They had many fights, bites and hissing before they got over it!!

Just keep perservering!

I'm having the same problem, too. I have 2 cats, Buffy (2yo black shorthair) and Willow (4yo blue cream longhair). We found a lost kitten and took her home, with the idea that we'd just keep her until an owner called us, so we didn't do the slow-introduction thing. Well, 2 months later, there's still no owner, so we're suffering a little bit from Buffy, lol. Willow accepted the kitten's presence after a week, finally showed affection after 2 weeks, but Buffy's more stubborn. After a month, Buffy stopped wacking the poor kitten around, after 6 weeks she started walking by the kitten without even growling, and after 2 months, she now only hits the kitten when she's upset about something (all she needs is for Jake, my dog, to walk into the room and she takes it out on the kitty, giving her a wack as she walks by). I'm sure everything will be peaceful after another month, but I'm not sure they'll ever be playing with each other, even though the kitten and Willow have had a few incidents of "playtime" (running around the house playing "tag," Willow usually being in the lead and baby taking up the chase)

Hello. I have a very alpha female in the house. Any new cat we get gets the same treatment. Hiss and spit and smack for weeks! Slowly she will begin to chill. It really just takes time! Time and patience.