Hey, I hope everyone is doing well, I'm new to this forum and I'm requesting help that anyone can offer. I really appreciate it.
I'm a 23 yr old college student and I live with my girlfriend and two cats. About 2 1/2 yrs ago my girlfriend had to take in a family cat, Roxie, because her dad was moving to a city. She's an older cat, about 11 years old now and she had some trust issues. Apparently she had some traumatic experiences when she was younger before they got her.
Then about two years ago we adopted a kitten, Ruxpin, we thought to keep her company and because he needed a good home. Unfortunately I didn't do any research on the subject and we did pretty much all the introductions wrong. When we took him home we had him in the carrier for a few minutes and then basically just let him out. Roxie wasn't very happy with the situation and was pretty hostile towards him. After a month or two of them not getting along I started to do some reading but I guess it was too late because all the stuff we tried to do didn't work. It ended up that they can't really be together so we have to seperate them a lot when we're not there, but Roxie has always been an outside cat so she can go out when she needs to and our room has always been her safe haven. So things between them have worked out okay and that isn't the problem, but I just wanted to give some backround information.
Okay on to the issue. We just had two new roommates move in who are twin sisters and they have a cat Michael. We desparately want Ruxpin and Michael to get along so we don't have to worry about keeping 3 cats seperate. I've done a fair amount of reading online and a few different books and we've been trying to follow what they say.
We kept them seperated at first, letting them get used to each other scents. Then we slowly started to feed them on opposite sides of a door, then used just a baby gate, and now they will even eat almost right next to each other. But once they are done they start to stalk each other and I'm not sure what the next step should be. Everything I've read pretty much stops at having them eating next to each other, saying that they should get along after that. I'm not sure if Ruxpin (our cat) is hostile towards him because of how Roxie (our other cat) reacted to him when he was little or what. They mainly just stalk each other and kind of pounce then back off, or stare each other down. There isn't any hissing or growling, although sometimes Ruxpin will make this whiny cry when he is close to Michael right before he is about to pounce. We don't want to leave them alone with each other because we're afraid something might happen.
So basically I am wondering what I should be doing at this point other than feeding them together and trying to get them to play with each other. Also when should I break up their spats? If they aren't hurting each other but are still fighting should I break up the fight? or try and let them work out some sort of heirarchy. I'd really appreciate any advice anyone could give on what else I could try to help them get along with each other. Thanks a lot, and I'm sorry about the really long post.
-Houston
I'm a 23 yr old college student and I live with my girlfriend and two cats. About 2 1/2 yrs ago my girlfriend had to take in a family cat, Roxie, because her dad was moving to a city. She's an older cat, about 11 years old now and she had some trust issues. Apparently she had some traumatic experiences when she was younger before they got her.
Then about two years ago we adopted a kitten, Ruxpin, we thought to keep her company and because he needed a good home. Unfortunately I didn't do any research on the subject and we did pretty much all the introductions wrong. When we took him home we had him in the carrier for a few minutes and then basically just let him out. Roxie wasn't very happy with the situation and was pretty hostile towards him. After a month or two of them not getting along I started to do some reading but I guess it was too late because all the stuff we tried to do didn't work. It ended up that they can't really be together so we have to seperate them a lot when we're not there, but Roxie has always been an outside cat so she can go out when she needs to and our room has always been her safe haven. So things between them have worked out okay and that isn't the problem, but I just wanted to give some backround information.
Okay on to the issue. We just had two new roommates move in who are twin sisters and they have a cat Michael. We desparately want Ruxpin and Michael to get along so we don't have to worry about keeping 3 cats seperate. I've done a fair amount of reading online and a few different books and we've been trying to follow what they say.
We kept them seperated at first, letting them get used to each other scents. Then we slowly started to feed them on opposite sides of a door, then used just a baby gate, and now they will even eat almost right next to each other. But once they are done they start to stalk each other and I'm not sure what the next step should be. Everything I've read pretty much stops at having them eating next to each other, saying that they should get along after that. I'm not sure if Ruxpin (our cat) is hostile towards him because of how Roxie (our other cat) reacted to him when he was little or what. They mainly just stalk each other and kind of pounce then back off, or stare each other down. There isn't any hissing or growling, although sometimes Ruxpin will make this whiny cry when he is close to Michael right before he is about to pounce. We don't want to leave them alone with each other because we're afraid something might happen.
So basically I am wondering what I should be doing at this point other than feeding them together and trying to get them to play with each other. Also when should I break up their spats? If they aren't hurting each other but are still fighting should I break up the fight? or try and let them work out some sort of heirarchy. I'd really appreciate any advice anyone could give on what else I could try to help them get along with each other. Thanks a lot, and I'm sorry about the really long post.
-Houston