Hello there,
My boyfriend & I recently moved in to a new place in October, we lived together before but I left my cat Frankie at my moms house, until we could find a new place to introduce our cats on neutral turf. My boyfriends cat Scruffles is 6 and 1/2 but he's tiny weighing only 8.25 lbs(he was the runt of the litter). Frankie is 2 but is much longer and muscular weighing about 13 lbs so naturally he is kind of the bully. We introduced them properly kept the in separate rooms, then over time switched them and let them out in the apartment to get familiar with it. Eventually we started cracking the door to let them see each other. Then we got a couple baby gates so they could really see each other before taking the gates away. They fought a bit at first, but nothing serious no one ever got hurt except for minor scratching here and there, this all took about a month, maybe longer. Now they reside in the same territory and tolerate each other for the most part, but they still sometimes (mostly Frankie) swat at each other. I don't know if they're still determining whose the dominate cat or what. I just want it to stop mostly because Scruffles seems to now be suffering from asthma which I believe is partly due to this new stress in his life and possibly this apartment too. (we've since got an air purifier and switched their litter hoping to relieve his occasional attacks) It's strange though sometimes they do sleep on our bed together like this photo I've attached. I know this may be as good as it gets, just having them tolerate each other I just want the swatting to stop for Scruffles sake. Any advice is much appreciated!
My boyfriend & I recently moved in to a new place in October, we lived together before but I left my cat Frankie at my moms house, until we could find a new place to introduce our cats on neutral turf. My boyfriends cat Scruffles is 6 and 1/2 but he's tiny weighing only 8.25 lbs(he was the runt of the litter). Frankie is 2 but is much longer and muscular weighing about 13 lbs so naturally he is kind of the bully. We introduced them properly kept the in separate rooms, then over time switched them and let them out in the apartment to get familiar with it. Eventually we started cracking the door to let them see each other. Then we got a couple baby gates so they could really see each other before taking the gates away. They fought a bit at first, but nothing serious no one ever got hurt except for minor scratching here and there, this all took about a month, maybe longer. Now they reside in the same territory and tolerate each other for the most part, but they still sometimes (mostly Frankie) swat at each other. I don't know if they're still determining whose the dominate cat or what. I just want it to stop mostly because Scruffles seems to now be suffering from asthma which I believe is partly due to this new stress in his life and possibly this apartment too. (we've since got an air purifier and switched their litter hoping to relieve his occasional attacks) It's strange though sometimes they do sleep on our bed together like this photo I've attached. I know this may be as good as it gets, just having them tolerate each other I just want the swatting to stop for Scruffles sake. Any advice is much appreciated!
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