Our rescue kitty Raven has gotten to the point now where we are slowly introducing him on short supervised stints into the house. He has been outside on the porch for 3 weeks, and seems so incredibly bored, plus he LOVES the other cats. We have left the slider open just enough for kitty noses and they have spent weeks exchanging sniffs through the door. Raven seems really in love with other cats, whenever he sees one his tail goes up in greeting and he lets out a high pitched greeting trill. So super duper excited to meet them and make friends. This has served him well with all of the cats my friend currently owns (3 of her own and one belonging to her roommate), except one, Sonny.
Sonny is a HUGE cat, he was the previous rescue before this one and has been in the household for over a year. He went through the exact same introduction, weeks on the porch able to see the other cats through the glass and sniff them before being introduced. He settled in great, but now he seems to have an issue with Raven. We haven't let it escalate but Sonny is not acting friendly, he hyper focuses on Raven when he is in the house and usually me or my friend are petting him to hold him back while Raven is inside. However tonight he got loose from my friend and charged at Raven, and sweet, unsuspecting Raven immediately went into "greeting" mode with no fear, tail up and happy trills but Sonny looked like he was about to murder him. Sonny is about 20 lbs and Raven is underweight and all lanky bones at 8 lbs. So would have been a bad situation. So both me and my friend ran to catch Sonny which scared Raven who ran back out to the porch and his "safe place".
So my question is, how do we handle this. I trust all the other cats with Raven now, but not Sonny and I am afraid for Raven to learn that lesson. He doesn't get that Sonny isn't friendly and will hurt him, Raven just wants to make friends but for some reason Sonny is not ok with him. Seriously not ok, he reminded me of a pitbull with the crazy intense death stare and the sheer aggression he showed charging at Raven. I usually take the "cats need to sort it out themselves" approach but the size difference between them scares me, I think one squabble to show Raven that he needs to be careful around Sonny could be enough to seriously injure Raven. I am so stumped, Raven needs to learn because until he learns to avoid Sonny and not do his typical sweet walk right at him with a happy trill technique he will be in danger. Sonny is being a bully, and sweet little Raven guy isn't prepared for it since all the other cats responded so well to his easy going, super friendly nature.
Sonny is a HUGE cat, he was the previous rescue before this one and has been in the household for over a year. He went through the exact same introduction, weeks on the porch able to see the other cats through the glass and sniff them before being introduced. He settled in great, but now he seems to have an issue with Raven. We haven't let it escalate but Sonny is not acting friendly, he hyper focuses on Raven when he is in the house and usually me or my friend are petting him to hold him back while Raven is inside. However tonight he got loose from my friend and charged at Raven, and sweet, unsuspecting Raven immediately went into "greeting" mode with no fear, tail up and happy trills but Sonny looked like he was about to murder him. Sonny is about 20 lbs and Raven is underweight and all lanky bones at 8 lbs. So would have been a bad situation. So both me and my friend ran to catch Sonny which scared Raven who ran back out to the porch and his "safe place".
So my question is, how do we handle this. I trust all the other cats with Raven now, but not Sonny and I am afraid for Raven to learn that lesson. He doesn't get that Sonny isn't friendly and will hurt him, Raven just wants to make friends but for some reason Sonny is not ok with him. Seriously not ok, he reminded me of a pitbull with the crazy intense death stare and the sheer aggression he showed charging at Raven. I usually take the "cats need to sort it out themselves" approach but the size difference between them scares me, I think one squabble to show Raven that he needs to be careful around Sonny could be enough to seriously injure Raven. I am so stumped, Raven needs to learn because until he learns to avoid Sonny and not do his typical sweet walk right at him with a happy trill technique he will be in danger. Sonny is being a bully, and sweet little Raven guy isn't prepared for it since all the other cats responded so well to his easy going, super friendly nature.
