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- Mar 9, 2024
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Hello,
In December I took in a pregnant cat from my friend who needed to rehome her. I have a 30 pound mixed breed dog and two resident cats, neutered males age 2 years and 1.5 years.
I had the cat in her own room for the first 8 weeks due to her having kittens soon after I got her. During a couple of instances, the cats caught a glimpse of each other and my 1.5 year old male HATED her on site. At one point she slipped past me when I was opening the door and my resident male saw and rushed towards her to fight and she rushed towards him too but luckily I grabbed ahold of her right in time. She also HATES dogs with a passion. I believe she used to live outside a lot, and probably had to fend off dogs on more than one occasion.
So, when the kittens were around 5 weeks the mama cat started wanting out of the room and I let her come out to start to meet the other cats. They would both hiss at each other, but no serious problems. After the kittens were adopted out at 8 weeks, I started to let the mama cat out in the house for supervised play times, and this is when the problems really began.
The worst of it is her aggression towards my dog. My dog loves cats but this mama cat will sit and not let my dog pass through doors and will attack her if she tries. If the mama cat is on the bed and the dog tries to come up, she’ll attack her. Heck, even if the dog is on the bed first, the cat will jump up next to her and then attack her. Most of these attacks have just been hissing and swatting and not caused damage. But a couple of days ago my dog got the zoomies and ran around and the mama cat full on jumped onto her back attacking her. My poor dog is just absolutely terrified of this cat. The best we can do is if I move my dog to one side of the bed, the mama cat will sleep at the end in peace as long as the dog doesn’t move, but it seems mean to my dog to force her to walk on eggshells constantly.
And then we have the problems with the other cats. With my 1.5 year old male, things are going fairly well. She seems to like him and follows him around and he hisses at her when she gets too close, but that’s the extent of it. So I feel like that’s going the best, even though he had the worst initial reaction to her. But my 2 year old cat is just getting worse in his hatred. At first, he just hissed and mostly avoided her, but now he constantly growls at her and hisses and this causes her to puff up. Every time this happens, I grab her and put her in “timeout” in the other room for a while again. But every time my male sees her, he does it again. She doesn’t initiate being mean to him, but when he growls she growls back.
Since she’s getting along with my younger male, this has even caused some problems between the two males. I think maybe he has started to smell like her? But my older male has hissed at the younger male a few times and got really mad when the younger cat tried to play with him, and usually he loves to play.
Again, they sometimes seem to reach a truce and all four animals will be sleeping on my full size bed. The mama cat has her spot at my feet, and the dog and other two cats will sleep to the side. And sometimes this is ok, they all know about each other presence and seem ok. But then mama cat will get down to get some food or something and my 2 year old male will do his extremely loud growls when she tries to come back up.
Honestly, this situation is just super stressful. After mama cat attacked my dog, I’m really wondering if she wouldn’t be better off in a house without dogs, and I know I’m stressing out my older male cat too. I guess I’m just really wondering if I should keep trying or if she’s likely always going to hate dogs. I’d like to get a puppy sometime soon too and that would have been fine with my other cats and dogs, but now mama cat is complicating everything.
I know sometimes introductions take time, but I wish I knew how much things can possibly improve, because I feel like the longer she’s here, the harder it would be on her and me to rehome her. Then again, I want to give her a chance if there’s a possibility things might get better.
In total, now it has been about 3 months of trying, with 8 weeks of that being with the slow introduction period, and now a month of face to face interactions that aren’t going well. Oh, and also the mama cat had a flank spay done with the kittens were 6 weeks old, at the recommendation of the vet so that she couldn’t go into heat again. So she is also spayed now.
In December I took in a pregnant cat from my friend who needed to rehome her. I have a 30 pound mixed breed dog and two resident cats, neutered males age 2 years and 1.5 years.
I had the cat in her own room for the first 8 weeks due to her having kittens soon after I got her. During a couple of instances, the cats caught a glimpse of each other and my 1.5 year old male HATED her on site. At one point she slipped past me when I was opening the door and my resident male saw and rushed towards her to fight and she rushed towards him too but luckily I grabbed ahold of her right in time. She also HATES dogs with a passion. I believe she used to live outside a lot, and probably had to fend off dogs on more than one occasion.
So, when the kittens were around 5 weeks the mama cat started wanting out of the room and I let her come out to start to meet the other cats. They would both hiss at each other, but no serious problems. After the kittens were adopted out at 8 weeks, I started to let the mama cat out in the house for supervised play times, and this is when the problems really began.
The worst of it is her aggression towards my dog. My dog loves cats but this mama cat will sit and not let my dog pass through doors and will attack her if she tries. If the mama cat is on the bed and the dog tries to come up, she’ll attack her. Heck, even if the dog is on the bed first, the cat will jump up next to her and then attack her. Most of these attacks have just been hissing and swatting and not caused damage. But a couple of days ago my dog got the zoomies and ran around and the mama cat full on jumped onto her back attacking her. My poor dog is just absolutely terrified of this cat. The best we can do is if I move my dog to one side of the bed, the mama cat will sleep at the end in peace as long as the dog doesn’t move, but it seems mean to my dog to force her to walk on eggshells constantly.
And then we have the problems with the other cats. With my 1.5 year old male, things are going fairly well. She seems to like him and follows him around and he hisses at her when she gets too close, but that’s the extent of it. So I feel like that’s going the best, even though he had the worst initial reaction to her. But my 2 year old cat is just getting worse in his hatred. At first, he just hissed and mostly avoided her, but now he constantly growls at her and hisses and this causes her to puff up. Every time this happens, I grab her and put her in “timeout” in the other room for a while again. But every time my male sees her, he does it again. She doesn’t initiate being mean to him, but when he growls she growls back.
Since she’s getting along with my younger male, this has even caused some problems between the two males. I think maybe he has started to smell like her? But my older male has hissed at the younger male a few times and got really mad when the younger cat tried to play with him, and usually he loves to play.
Again, they sometimes seem to reach a truce and all four animals will be sleeping on my full size bed. The mama cat has her spot at my feet, and the dog and other two cats will sleep to the side. And sometimes this is ok, they all know about each other presence and seem ok. But then mama cat will get down to get some food or something and my 2 year old male will do his extremely loud growls when she tries to come back up.
Honestly, this situation is just super stressful. After mama cat attacked my dog, I’m really wondering if she wouldn’t be better off in a house without dogs, and I know I’m stressing out my older male cat too. I guess I’m just really wondering if I should keep trying or if she’s likely always going to hate dogs. I’d like to get a puppy sometime soon too and that would have been fine with my other cats and dogs, but now mama cat is complicating everything.
I know sometimes introductions take time, but I wish I knew how much things can possibly improve, because I feel like the longer she’s here, the harder it would be on her and me to rehome her. Then again, I want to give her a chance if there’s a possibility things might get better.
In total, now it has been about 3 months of trying, with 8 weeks of that being with the slow introduction period, and now a month of face to face interactions that aren’t going well. Oh, and also the mama cat had a flank spay done with the kittens were 6 weeks old, at the recommendation of the vet so that she couldn’t go into heat again. So she is also spayed now.
I'm sorry you're having this problem with the new cat. You had the best intentions when you brought her into your home and she had her kittens. I'm especially sorry for the dog and older male cat too. It's good that your dog is amiable but I hope the mama cat's aggression does not affect his docile demeanor. How has the stress been affecting your health? 
And I would hate to see the dog or older male cat having accidents or other negative behaviors. Therefore, you may want to consider talking to an animal behaviorist because right now it seems as though the resident male cat, dog and you are under a lot of pressure. Best of luck and please keep us posted on your progress.
That's a tough situation indeed. Please know that you did an awesome deed in giving that poor kitty refuge in her time of great need.
