What to do!

So my 2 kittens have been living in the bathroom until they are flea free- which hopefully will be Thursday if things continue to go as they are! Anyway- they've been in the bathroom for about 2.5 weeks now & Maui knows they are there.

He sits by the door a lot and sticks his paws under, I've also left the door cracked so he can see in there (while I'm sitting in the bathroom of course!) He does growl a little bit and he has tried to whap the babies with his paw but I am wondering what his intentions are. Every time he sees them they are just having a rip-roaring good time wrestling and playing, I think he might be jealous and want to play too- so I think maybe when he tries to whap them that's why. There's only a crack about an inch in the door so there really isn't any other way he can 'play' too besides stick his paw in and wave it around blindly

I've also let him in the bathroom with the three of us (first time this weekend, and I had a hold of him)- he did growl a little bit. He didn't try to chase the babies or anything really- just sniffed them. He was pretty interested in their litter box, do I allow him to use it if that's what he wants to do??

The kittens couldn't care less that he's around, especially when they are playing

Any suggestions about how I referee the face-to-face intro's? Is this too soon? Should I just keep letting Maui in the bathroom while I'm there to supervise and see how he reacts each time?

As for swapping blankets & towels or stuff with their smell on it, I haven't done it much because they sit right at the door and can smell each other through it, there's about an inch gap from floor to door. Should I maybe start doing this? Maui generally isn't interested in even smelling my hands once I come out of the bathroom, like "it's nothing new mom, get your hands outta my face!"

Oooh- I forgot to mention... for 7 months Maui is getting to be quite the beefcake, and these babies are about 2.5#'s max... should I be concerned about their size difference??

First up, I'd be careful about bringing your cat too close to the flea-infected babies. Just to be safe, you may want to put a flea collar or do something to protect your cat. This would also make me nervous about bringing the towels/blankets out (out of fear the fleas would get into the carpet), is there another bathroom or a laundry room you could take the towels to? I've actually seen this do wonders for cats getting to know each other.

As far as the growling, I wouldn't be too concerned as our normally very friendly cat hissed (for the first time!) at the foster kittens when he first saw them but soon wanted to play with them. Just make sure you're there to supervise them and break up anything that looks a little too rough.

Maybe if you have a big crate you could put the kittens in that for a couple hours at a time so your cat could see and smell them but can't hurt them. Our fosters didn't really care about our cats until they realized they could play with them, they they all wanted to follow Escher around and climb all over him. It was very cute, but we have a very tolerant cat.

A warning: we also have a not so tolerant cat. She growled and hissed at the kittens and when they were let out of the crate, she ran away and when they followed her, she did swipe at one of them (luckily she's declawed). The kittens were fine and actually hissed back at her (at only 5 weeks old!) and then left her alone.

Right now our flea problem is pretty minor (knock on wood!) Last Tuesday I took them to the vet and she saw flea poo, I started combing them Wednesday and found nothing, found 5 (between 2 cats) on Thursday, and none since. Right now I'm seeing very minimal flea poo- almost nothing. I think I am just scrounging up poo that I had been missing? Or else it's just plain old dirt since it's not even turning red when I put it in the water now. We've also never been bitten by a flea, seen a flea, and the kittens don't scratch very much... So technically the deal I made with myself was 1 week flea free before letting the kittens have the run of the house, but I couldn't wait that long to see how they would do with Maui! Bad me, I know!

I am still waiting until Thursday before I let them out of the bathroom even though I'm sure it doesn't make much difference to have them in there- aside keep them separate from Mauwzers.

I do have a big kitten cage that I can use but I haven't been able to get it 100% dry since I've washed it- it got rained on again today! I also have to re-carpet the little shelves.

Maybe I will just plan on using the cage from Thursday and on after all! I was hoping I wouldn't need to use it but I know it wouldn't hurt.

Thanks!

Oh yeah- did you have any problems due to your 5 week old kittens size? There is just such a huge difference between Maui & them... I think his fat butt could squish them if he wasn't paying attention Although they are VERY fiesty and I'm sure he'd get a bunny kick for it!

I'd plan on using the kitten cage for a little while at least, it will also let your kittens look around the room before thoroughly exploring and also make the room slightly less exciting, so they'll be a little more inclined to keep using the litter box even when they're out of the cage.

Unfortunately, our little 5 week old baby fosters had to be euthanized b/c they tested positive for distemper (after losing 2 that we fought like h*** to keep alive, injecting with fluids and staying up all night with), so they didn't get to play too much with our cats (who are, of course, up-to-date on all vaccinations). But while they did get to play, our fun cat, is very big (long, not fat) and weighs 11.5lbs, and they were fine with him. He didn't actually full out wrestle with them b/c he was still getting used to their smell, but he would bat at them (without bringing out his claws) and kinda roll over to tempt them close to him. But it took him a couple days to get like that. Like I said before, first he hissed, then he got a bit more comfortable and liked to watch them and occasionally smell them (but ran pretty fast if they approached him) before he finally gave in (must have been their cuteness, see my post on Crossing the Bridge to see how adorable they were) and played a bit.

I wouldn't leave them alone together at all til they're definitely bigger (a couple of months at least) and in fact would still not do it for sometime longer unless you're really convinced they're ALL getting along and safe.

Bad news! Maui is getting progressively more aggressive towards Smokey & Skunk. Chad said he brought him in the bathroom with him yesterday morning and he was fine towards the kittens, so I brought him in with me at night and he was being a bad boy! He kept trying to bite their neck and just bite at them in general- but he doesn't act outright mean- I was having a hard time determining what was just curiousity and what was an 'attack'. So I decided it was getting too rough and kicked him out.

Then Chad brought him back in a little bit later and he was a VERY bad boy when both Mommy & Daddy were watching! So no more bathroom time for Maui- he's such a stinker.

I think I'm going to have to start swapping blankets. Being able to smell each other under the door isn't enough. We're also bringing the cage in tonight hopefully to get that all set up for this weekend.

Just a little update!