New Cat Is Scared

[aka_Ryan]

Hey everyone, I’m in desperate need of some advise and sorry for the long read. My girlfriend talked me into adopting a 1 and a half year old cat at the end of October. The new female cat, Chimera, is in addition to my 8 year old male, Dragon, and 5 year old female, Persephone. Chimera’s super sweet and playful and things were going well until last week.

We brought Chimera home and went through all the introducing a new cat things. (Set up a room for her, introduced her to the other two slowly and gave the resident cats plenty of reassurance and affection) For about a month she got along swimmingly with Dragon and wanted to play with Persephone. Persephone didn’t want anything to do with it and, aside from a hiss here and there, left Chimera alone.

The Monday before Christmas, though, something changed. Persephone actively chased Chimera and would corner her and hiss and growl. I’d break it up and didn’t pay it much mind, until I noticed Chimera had scratches on her nose. I separated them, but Persephone started to cat fight when they were out together when I was home. (Dragon and Chimera still get along great)

We try to keep them separated and constantly supervise them. We keep one of them, usually Chimera, in a room when no one’s home. I got some Felaway diffusers, and they help, but Persephone still randomly goes after Chimera. Because of all this Chimera is always skittish and afraid.

I don’t know what the next best thing to do is. Should I restart the introduction process? Has anyone else had a similar issue that was resolved? Thanks

 

[neely]

I will try to answer your question to the best of my ability since I had a similar situation with our cat, Neely, accepting an 8 month old kitten, Gizmo. Neely was a torbie, (half tortie/half tabby), and Gizmo was a Persian. Hence Neely had what I aptly refer to as tortitude. She acted similar to Persephone. We put Gizmo in our bedroom with a litter box, bed, toys, food and water bowl when we were not home. When we were home we would supervise the two of them. Gizmo was sweet, affectionate and playful but Neely would have none of it. She made sure to let him know she would not accept him. As it turned out Gizmo had FIP and unfortunately passed away but up until then we were never able to unite the two of them. I was hopeful in time they would have coexisted but we never had the chance to find out.

Do you have any high places, shelves or a cat tree that Persephone can get to? This would be very helpful. I noticed this was your first post. Welcome to TCS! I hope you will read some of the Articles on this subject. Please refer to:
How To Successfully Introduce Cats: The Ultimate Guide
Introducing Cats To Cats

Hope this helps and please feel free to post a pic of your cats in this section: Fur Pictures and Videos Only!

 

[danteshuman]

I think I would try site swapping.... then supervised visits in a month or two. I would also build up your shy cat's confidence with 1 on 1 play. I would also try to catify the place as much as possible ... and try to eliminate dead ends (so your bully cat can't corner her.) It is a slow process but it is doable.