Introductions while grieving the loss of bonded cat

[Biomehanika]

WELP. Trying not to get discouraged but things have been very back and fourth lately. Trending towards worse if anything, honestly. Sometimes they are good, relaxed, hanging out near each other with no issue, taking turns playing with the same toy, and other times they are really on edge. Today Bitsy seemed much more upset with Moose than usual when I let him out of his base camp, hissing and growling at him even when he wasn’t that close. This maybe my fault as I tried the “shirt trick” last night — cleaned the baseboards, pet Bitsy with a worn shirt, then Moose, then rubbed down the baseboards to try to establish a more prominent “family scent”. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that and just ended up destroying more familial scent than adding, I don’t know. She was also extra upset when checking out his “base camp” today.

Where before it seemed as though Moose’s confidence couldn’t be shaken, despite the occasional hissing and growling and huffing from Bitsy, he does recently seem to be more insecure and jumpy around her. He will flinch when she comes too close and has even pre-emptively bonked her when she comes close without hissing or growling. Whenever she tries to sniff him lately he makes a sad squeaky noise and recoils/moves away, sometimes with a defensive paw up. I hate that he seems fearful of her all of the sudden after being so unbothered and persistent in trying to win her affection for so long. I had them both playing with a wand toy the other night and everything seemed to be going well and then he just ran up and bonked her on the head randomly, which pissed her off and caused her to stalk him while growling/hissing.

So… with all this in mind I am trying even harder to help them build positive associations with each other. I stopped feeding them meals together because Moose goes pretty bonkers at feeding time which annoys Bitsy, but I am going to start doing that again with the help of the baby gate (he usually jumps the baby gate immediately when I use it, but he won’t if he has food on the side he’s supposed to be on). I can’t feed them churu type treats constantly so am now using their dry food as treats as well (Bitsy hates most treats but fortunately likes her kibble), and will give them a kibble when they are relaxing near each other without issue or complaints. This is a very new approach so I can’t know if it works yet but it seemed to calm them down after a not so desirable interaction earlier. I am going to try out “cat music” too. Does anyone have any other suggestions? Moose has been out in the rest of the apartment with Bitsy a lot most days, with them only separated for long stretches of time while I sleep or when I’m not home.

Omg. I also just realized I unplugged their feliway friends plug-in yesterday morning because I had to leave the house for longer than usual and am just paranoid about stuff like that sometimes, especially since it’s getting low, and I forgot to put it back in when I got home. Maybe it was helping a lot more than I thought it was???? I’m going to observe them with it left off for another day or two so I can decide if picking up more when we see the vet next week is worth it.

 

[Alldara]

It could definitely be. Or maybe she just needed some time to get used to the t-shirt thing. It could be a lot of things. One day might be a harder day than others. The harder part but the reality is in the trend.

 

[Biomehanika]

Honestly they are such weirdos. They were being so mean to each other last night and this morning/early afternoon, but now for the last six hours they’ve been hanging out two feet away from each other with zero issues.

I am carrying dry food in a bag in my pocket and giving them a piece once in awhile in an attempt to reinforce the good/friendly/chill behaviour. Seems to be helping so far.

Moose might have just been on edge/jumpy recently due to the allergy flare up that seems to have passed now too.

 

[Alldara]

Honestly they are such weirdos. They were being so mean to each other last night and this morning/early afternoon, but now for the last six hours they’ve been hanging out two feet away from each other with zero issues.

I am carrying dry food in a bag in my pocket and giving them a piece once in awhile in an attempt to reinforce the good/friendly/chill behaviour. Seems to be helping so far.

Moose might have just been on edge/jumpy recently due to the allergy flare up that seems to have passed now too.

Ah yeah that's how I bribed Nobel to like the boys lol.

The overall trend seems to learn towards them being able to be together. Even if they come to love one another there will be times where theyll be grumpy with one another.

 

[Biomehanika]

Ah yeah that's how I bribed Nobel to like the boys lol.

The overall trend seems to learn towards them being able to be together. Even if they come to love one another there will be times where theyll be grumpy with one another.

Very true. I am just so used to having two extremely bonded cats that any sign of conflict makes me worried, but looking at the big picture, in the grand scheme of “cat conflicts”, they are doing quite well, and my situation is very very good compared to some peoples, and many people now have bonded cats that started off much worse than these two.

I am going to hyper focus on reinforcing the good/peaceful behaviour. I ASAP want to get them to the point where I am able to sleep with my bedroom door open at night without worrying about them getting into it, poor Bitsy hasn’t slept with me in almost six weeks.

 

[Biomehanika]

Huge progress today. The best day they’ve had together, by far. Lots of nice interactions throughout the day, little to no hissing from Bitsy, and then just about 15 minutes ago Moose hopped off my lap and went and sat on the scratcher lounge with her. The first time they’ve ever sat together. She did not react at all, was totally chill with it, and he was actually the one who left after a few minutes, not her!

I’m so happy, this feels like a pretty big step forward after lots of stagnancy.

 

[Alldara]

Wow!

 

[Biomehanika]

Not much to update regarding how they are getting along, they have their good moments and their not as good moments still but I think overall things are progressing. Moose did sneaky lick Bitsy’s butthole while she was on my lap the other night, so that was funny.

This part is more “Cat Health” vs behaviour, but they both saw the new vet on Monday. It was quite stressful for them as the roundtrip (including vet visit) was almost four hours so they will both be getting gabapentin beforehand in the future. I hate that it’s such a long trip but with everything that happened with the previous vet I have no other option as I don’t trust her at all anymore and will never take an animal back there. The experience with the new vet really put into perspective just how bad my old vet was. She spent an entire hour with me and both cats going over ever little concern I have, listened, didn’t dismiss any of them, and was so thorough in her examination. My old vet would have had us in and out of there in 15-20 minutes. Moose has had this weird thing with his upper eyelids since he had a URI when he was younger (long before I adopted him) that everyone up until now has thought wasn’t a concern, but she’s passed along photos to a specialist to get a proper second opinion and has now asked me to take even more. I don’t think it’s actually going to be a big concern but the fact that she wanted to do that just shows me she’s legit. She had blood work (I requested this when making the appointment) and a urinalysis (her suggestion) done for Bitsy since she’s older so I’m very happy she is big on preventative stuff. My old vet never wanted to do things like this when there wasn’t an active issue going on. Anyways, Bitsy’s labs came back today and there were no big concerns with her bloodwork, but her urinalysis is showing all the classic signs of a UTI bacteria wise and stuff so she will be starting antibiotics tonight that I was able to get from my local pharmacy. Depending how that goes I might be making a new thread in the health section… she hadn’t been showing any UTI symptoms but just started acting a bit off this morning so I’m very thankful she suggested the urinalysis since we seem to have caught it early. A culture is currently being done as well. Because of all this though I will be keeping them separated more since I don’t want to stress her out and want her to get as much rest as she needs. She will also need a dental/some extractions done in the next couple months as the vet suspects she has some resorptive lesions and she just needs a thorough cleaning.

 

[Biomehanika]

Slow and steady over here as usual.

During the day especially they seem to get along for the most part. I’d say they are at a “roommates who have some disagreements but still generally like each other” level right now. Bitsy is usually totally fine with Moose when he is relaxed and not right up in her face, she just really doesn’t like when he gets super hyper and tries to initiate play with her in a very forward manner (running/jumping up to her and bopping her on the head usually lol) this often results in a short non-serious swatting match and some hisses form Bitsy, nothing insane, but I know she doesn’t appreciate it… She will at times seem to “play chase” him if he initiates in a nicer way, so she doesn’t HATE play, but he wants to play allll the time and she doesn’t. He also follows her around quite a bit which annoys her sometimes, but a lot of the time she follows him around too…. Sooo lol. At ten months old he’s also just a very high energy little cat, and his zoomies and play sessions are accompanied by constant trilling, which can also annoy Bitsy. At this point I think it’s a personality/age thing, and I will likely try to find him a proper playmate in the coming months as he is desperate to play and has so much energy and she’s not really having it. I think if he had a buddy closer to his age to keep him busy they’d both be happier. Moose also LOVES other cats and really wants to cuddle with Bitsy, but she’s not interested in that (yet).

HOWEVER…
Moose now has free roam of the apartment most nights (AKA he no longer sleeps in with me with the bedroom door shut). So now Bitsy can come into my bedroom as she pleases at night like the old days. It’s only been a couple days of this so far, so I realize it’s an adjustment period, but Bitsy seems to be guarding me while I sleep lol? She does not want Moose on the bed with us and will chase him away when he tries to come up. It also doesn’t help that Moose is extra hyper at night but she is definitely actively guarding me and trying to keep Moose away and have me for herself. This isn’t something she ever does in the rest of the apartment, she’s fine with him sitting with me on the couch for example, it’s only at night when I’m in my bed! She will fall asleep with me/on me too, I usually wake up with her right there, but while I’m falling asleep and in the bed specifically she’s definitely on guard. She will go back and fourth from chasing Moose off to cuddling/sleeping with me throughout the night and morning. I unintentionally woke up many times last night so I really got the full experience. Hoping this is just because she hasn’t got to sleep with me in a couple months and that it passes soon, even though it is quite flattering, because I’d love them to be able to share my bed so I can cuddle both of them at night 🥲

 

[Biomehanika]

I woke up to a little knick on Bitsy’s upper lip. Almost certainly from Moose during the night, probably one of their shortlived swatting spats that result from him wanting to initiate play and her not wanting it, or possibly a total accident if he tried to jump onto the bed where she was curled up. Or maybe Moose really p’ed Bitsy off trying to get a spot on the bed (yes, she’s still guarding me lol) and she pursued him and this was “self defence”, as Moose typically won’t pursue her once she tells him to back off. Everytime I woke up during the night she was asleep with me, so I don’t know. Should I be concerned? It’s small and mostly just fur missing but there’s a tiiiiny bit of broken skin. Hopefully he didn’t intend to hurt her, they’ve been doing pretty good lately.

 

[Biomehanika]

I guess I shouldn’t be assuming Moose is the culprit, he’s a sweet boy and it’s possible she scratched herself itching, just seems like an odd place for that to happen

 

[Biomehanika]

These freakin’ cats…

I have been thinking a lot lately about how I really need to get Moose a younger friend soon (probably late April at the earliest once Bitsy’s healed up from her Dental), how I’m not sure if things are going to progress any further between them, and how him constantly annoying her by wanting to play (and her reacting with hisses or them going into a swatting match) is probably going to stale the small bit of relationship they do have over time, and cause her some stress if it goes on like this forever, plus him as well because he does get nervous about how she will react sometimes.

AND THEN HE COMES TO CUDDLE ME AND SHE GOES AND DOES THIS.


This is a first ever to my knowledge. It was so sweet. Short but sweet. So she does actually like him when he’s not being a hyper little madman. I am so happy. I will still get him a little friend in the coming months I think, but this is big and I hope to see more moments like this from them soon 🥹

 

[Biomehanika]

Bitsy will still growl and hiss at Moose when he’s being too hyper and chasing her/trying to play fight with her sometimes, but they are actually proper buddies now. They are being especially sweet tonight. They’ve stolen my big comfy chair and have been sleeping together for over a half hour now. Moose gave Bitsy a nice grooming. They’ve both adjusted positions multiple times but neither has gotten up and left. So much cute. I can’t.