Introducing New Cat And Adjustments

[muddygrl]

Ok , so here's some back story . We adopted two female cats from the cat sanctuary at the local shelter the 29th of July . We have them in our bedroom together because they lived in the free range cat house together . They both had their wellcheckups and are healthy . One is a big black girl named Snowberry . One is a super social calico named Penny . Penny doesn't know a stranger and wants everyone to love her . Snowberry hisses at her to stay out of her space . But other than hissing does nothing to her . Mostly Penny just walks away when she gets hissed at. At the sanctuary I never saw Penny his at anyone or be aggressive and always saw Penny avoid the fussy cats .

Our friend is going away for two months and asked us to keep her cat for her . We agreed . We can only keep him with the girls because we have no other room . He's shy but social as well. He lives with 5 dogs normally . He's super sweet . Penny like usual wants to be friends . He has only hisses at her when she came up behind him when he was eating .

Snowberry seemed fussy and grumpy . She hisses and growled when he even walked near to the food bowl and she wasn't even using it . I set up a dog crate overnight and had her in it so she'd have her own space because she had been unusually fussy . She hasn't hurt anyone . The girls had 2 weeks to adjust on their own before Otis the vacation cat came to stay .

Any suggestions on helping them all adjust and adapt ? Not having them in the same room isn't really an option . I have two crates I can separate cats if need be. Large dog crates with plenty of room for litter and food and bed . Otis was in one all night the first night but I let him out when he was crying often. He was out all day with Penny. Snowberry has been crated all day and is now out but cautious and hissy . Otis is hiding under the bed currently . He came out for petting then got hisses at and went back under for now .

 

[Shane Kent]

Cats should be slowly introduced to a new home as well as slowly introduced to other cats. 2 weeks isn't much time to have them adjust to a new house not to mention bringing another cat home. A month to a month and a half would be a more appropriate time frame for them to adjust to the house. Then several weeks to slowly introduce the new cat. I would guess you are not getting much feedback because most of the people on here recommend taking your time and doing slow introductions. I don't think you should have taken the other cat in because the first two should have had more time to adjust. However, that is irrelevant as you have all three at home now.

There is this article
How To Successfully Introduce Cats: The Ultimate Guide

You could combine the information from that article with searching the forums for people using crates to train or socialize cats. I have no experience in using crates as I used a room to isolate the new comers from the existing cats. I have seen other people on here discuss using crates to train / socialize cats so I am sure you could find some helpful information in some of those forum threads. You will find forum threads for crate socializing in the Caring for Strays and Ferals forum.

I hope all goes well in your endeavor and I wish I could offer you more advice but I don't have experience with crates. You could always post a new thread with the title "Help: Using Crates to Introduce Cats" and use the article I pointed out above in combination with your new thread.

 

[kissthisangel]

Hey,

its a shame you haven't a seperate area to keep Otis, since the girls haven't been with you long adding a third cat into a small area can be problematic, as you have discovered. For now, since you have no other options and no one is getting hurt I think you should carry on with crating Snowberry when you're not around. If she is comfortable in the crate, she might be happy to stay in there when she realises that no one else is going to touch the inside of her crate or any belongings inside, so even when you let her out, leave the door open. Make sure she is allowed outside of the crate when you are home and able to keep an eye on them.

It does sound like both Otis and Penny are taking cues from Snowberry that getting too close is not a good idea. This is a good thing because it's allowing Snowberry to draw boundaries with the other 2 that they DO actually recognise.

A good option is vertical territory, shelves , posts etc so that even though you don't have alot of floor space, the cats have options as to where to go. In this particular situation, I'd be sure not to leave any dead ends just so that none of your cats get cornered. Test the theory with your LEAST comfortable cat, I think this is Snowberry at the moment, and use a toy or treats to get her moving around the space. This should allow them room to explore and space to mark as their own which will really help.

When Otis is gone, you might want to focus on mutual feeding and mutual play to bring the girls closer together. I'm curious as to why you don't have more space in the house but the advice above can be scaled up or down depending on what's available to you.

all the best
~kiss

 

[tarasgirl06]

Ok , so here's some back story . We adopted two female cats from the cat sanctuary at the local shelter the 29th of July . We have them in our bedroom together because they lived in the free range cat house together . They both had their wellcheckups and are healthy . One is a big black girl named Snowberry . One is a super social calico named Penny . Penny doesn't know a stranger and wants everyone to love her . Snowberry hisses at her to stay out of her space . But other than hissing does nothing to her . Mostly Penny just walks away when she gets hissed at. At the sanctuary I never saw Penny his at anyone or be aggressive and always saw Penny avoid the fussy cats .

Our friend is going away for two months and asked us to keep her cat for her . We agreed . We can only keep him with the girls because we have no other room . He's shy but social as well. He lives with 5 dogs normally . He's super sweet . Penny like usual wants to be friends . He has only hisses at her when she came up behind him when he was eating .

Snowberry seemed fussy and grumpy . She hisses and growled when he even walked near to the food bowl and she wasn't even using it . I set up a dog crate overnight and had her in it so she'd have her own space because she had been unusually fussy . She hasn't hurt anyone . The girls had 2 weeks to adjust on their own before Otis the vacation cat came to stay .

Any suggestions on helping them all adjust and adapt ? Not having them in the same room isn't really an option . I have two crates I can separate cats if need be. Large dog crates with plenty of room for litter and food and bed . Otis was in one all night the first night but I let him out when he was crying often. He was out all day with Penny. Snowberry has been crated all day and is now out but cautious and hissy . Otis is hiding under the bed currently . He came out for petting then got hisses at and went back under for now .

Other posters have already given the best advice/suggestions, but another one I would add is that if you haven't already done so, you may want to check out cat behaviorist extraordinaire, Jackson Galaxy, on YouTube, his hit show, "MY CAT FROM HELL" on Animal Planet, and/or his books. He is excellent in these kinds of cases! Pam Johnson-Bennett is another wonderful cat behaviorist whose expertise I have relied upon. Good luck with your endeavors!