Can They Ever Be Friends?

[NovaKitty76]

I have a two-year-old spayed female tabby. My husband and I wanted to get another cat. We just got an eight-week-old female black cat yesterday. The two-year-old has been with us for a year. She is very sweet but very skittish.

We are going to have the eight-week-old for a few days before she gets fixed then we hope to finalize the adoption. When she was dropped off I set up a room for the kitten, but the kitten ran off. I was scared but, there was no hissing and no fighting. They seemed fine. They kept sniffing each other for about an hour or two. In fact, they fell asleep on the same couch.(By the way, all of this interaction was extremely supervised)

Then I think the two-year-old tried to play. The kitten hissed and they got a little aggressive. So we put the kitten in the kitten room. The two-year-old howled and meowed at the closed door of the kitten room all night. She does this if we ever close the door to the bedroom but she has never cared about the door to this room being closed. She also makes this howling noise if one of us leaves the house.

We feed them treats this morning by the door. My husband said they were both purring really loudly while eating with each other through the door so he decided to try having them in the same room. It did not work out and for the first time, my two-year-old growled. Both hissed at each other.

We don't have them interacting anymore, we are going to have them eat by the door and I am doing scent swapping with toys and brushes. But I am so scared!

Have I made the worst decision for both of these poor little ones? Well they ever recover and be friends? How do I know when I can move to the next step of using a baby gate to do introductions?

I was told that some cats will live together and never get along no matter what, is that true?

Thank you for reading this and for any help given!

 

[neely]

Welcome to TCS! You came to the right place with your questions about cat/kitten introductions. Besides being patient, here are a few Articles to point you in the right direction: How To Fix An Unsuccessful Cat Introduction
How To Successfully Introduce Cats: The Ultimate Guide
Introducing Cats To Cats

 

[NovaKitty76]

Thank you for the reply! I will look over these!

 

[Timmer]

I think it's very natural that there is some hissing but my gosh, things seem to be going well, in my opinion. Just keep up the supervised visits. If you feed canned food, put the kitten in the room with the food by the door, shut the door and feed your cat on the opposite side of the door. You can also introduce play with a wand toy, sort of fishing it back and forth under the door.
Don't worry about them getting out and seeing each other. It's fine. I've adopted cats twice and basically threw them both together and they hissed for about a day and that was it. I've also done the long introductions and it completely backfired and the two cats didn't get along for eight years. And I'm talking like chasing around the house like I'm going to kill you, drawing blood. I had to keep them separated for eight years. You don't want that -- and I don't see that happening here.
It's gonna work out.

 

[1 bruce 1]

I think it's very natural that there is some hissing but my gosh, things seem to be going well, in my opinion. Just keep up the supervised visits. If you feed canned food, put the kitten in the room with the food by the door, shut the door and feed your cat on the opposite side of the door. You can also introduce play with a wand toy, sort of fishing it back and forth under the door.
Don't worry about them getting out and seeing each other. It's fine. I've adopted cats twice and basically threw them both together and they hissed for about a day and that was it. I've also done the long introductions and it completely backfired and the two cats didn't get along for eight years. And I'm talking like chasing around the house like I'm going to kill you, drawing blood. I had to keep them separated for eight years. You don't want that -- and I don't see that happening here.
It's gonna work out.

This!! =)
Also, it's way easier to introduce a kitten to an adult (IMO) than two adults, so I think the hissing is normal. I don't stress over hissing anymore unless it's preceded by an adult cat posturing with that "vulture look", and angry/annoyed yowling; a cat that isn't afraid to pick a fight isn't some one that needs introduced quickly but IMO most cats need a few days to chill out.
I've done introductions both ways and mostly it's been good either way, but the slow intro is stressful, and if it's an adult cat I know isn't a feline serial killer we do the quick method with kitten in a kitten-proof area when we're not around, only because of size differences and houses can be dangerous to kittens (cords, things falling off shelves, etc.)!

Also thought I'd add, don't be surprised if things seem to regress after baby cat is spayed and back home. For some reason that vet smell sets cats off. My two litter mates that are BFF's will scream and bicker for a week after one of them comes back from the vet, but it's lots of noise and no threat. The yelling stops and everyone is friends again.

=)

 

[NovaKitty76]

Timmer - thank you for your experience and advice! I love the toy wands under the door idea! Definitely going to try this! Thank you for the reassurance as well! Love, love those sweet little eyes of the cutie in your profile pic!

@1bruce1- Alright, having just one it's odd for me to hear hissing, I will keep an eye out for the behaviors you mentioned. This whole intro process is pretty stressful TBH! In a way, I am glad we have to keep the kitten contained. She is only 2 pounds and I can see her hurting herself in a million ways! We are going to get a contained play area for the living room once they have chilled out after she gets home. I had no idea that they did that after vet visits! Crazy! I will keep that in mind and not get frustrated.

 

[Tobermory]

There’s also the jealousy factor. I find that when I bring a new kitty into the household, I tend to give it more attention because I want it to be happy and adjust to its new surroundings. Resident kitty gets its feelings hurt and takes it out on new kitty. I actually have this situation going on right now. New kitty, Mocha, isn’t a kitten but a three-year-old rescue who is very sweet and very subordinate to resident kitty, Lily. To express her displeasure with the intruder and with me, Lily started going outside of the litter box. Oh joy. So in addition to using the Feliway diffusers, I also try not to fuss over Mocha when Lily is watching (and boy does she watch), and I’ve been going out of my way to give Lily lots of attention. Lily still doesn’t like Mocha, but she’s using the litter box again and growls only occasionally when Mocha tries to be friendly. Mocha is very quick to back off when Lily gives her the evil eye.

 

[1 bruce 1]

NovaKitty, do you have a baby proof area? I've found a mesh ex-pen style pen works great to allow room for food, water, and a litter box and bed and keeps them contained without creating a straight jacket.
Is Nova the name of one of your cats?
Tobermorey, jealousy happens a lot. The last kitten we brought in was a real slap in the face to the girls, but they adjusted. The kitten is grown and she and one female in particular spend a lot of time stalking and slapping, but I catch them voluntarily snuggling together and giving baths to one another, etc., with the prune face in full swing ("I like this cuddling thing. I like this mutual bath thing. But I will pretend I don't enjoy it at all"), etc...

ETA: All of these girls (and our boys, too!) are non-declawed and the slapping is a perfect show of claw inhibition. They slap one another, make annoyed "MEEP" noises but have never left a hair out of place. If they wanted to hurt one another, it could easily be done. They remind me of elementary-aged kids on a play ground =D

 

[NovaKitty76]

Tobermory I will keep the jealousy thing in mind. Honestly, the resident cat doesn't really care much for attention. She just doesn't like it when we aren't all in the same room together. Thanks for sharing your experience! Luckily resident cat hasn't been acting any different other than actually caring about the kitten room when she didn't before. She eats, plays, and goes in the litter box. So, this gives me hope that she is taking it alright.

1 bruce 1 I am ordering one from Amazon now! This will really give me some piece of mind. Nova isn't the name of one of the cat...I just liked the word. The resident cat is named Princess. Because she is spoiled. Thank you for sharing! We did have a little bit of slapping when they interacted. I just got so nervous because the kitten is so small! I was afraid the resident cat would hurt her. But I think like you said if the resident cat wanted to she would have hurt her already.