New kitten too playful for older cat

[ny4eva]

Hi everyone,

We recently lost one of our two cats, and have since adopted a kitten. The kitten's name is Phillip, and although we absolutely love him, our older cat, Trixie, is having a really hard time with the new situation. Phillip is about 6 months old and Trixie is will be turning 9 years old this spring. They are both indoor cats. 

For an adult cat, Trixie is very playful, and we thought that she would actually enjoy the energy of a kitten. Unfortunately, he is driving her insane. We introduced them slowly, letting them see each other, but keeping them in separate rooms for the first few days. Since the separation ended, there has been a growing pattern of him jumping on her, trying to play, and her either hissing or running under the bed upset. In the rare instances where he isn't trying to play with her, Trixie and Phillip can occupy the same room, and tolerate one another without any issues.  

We were hoping that she would get used to Phillips's playfulness and that they would naturally begin to mutually enjoy the play, but Trixie seems more and more upset by  Phillip's constant pouncing every day. She even growled at him for the first time last night. When she does fight back, they tend to aggressively slap each other in the face. Phillip never seems phased by Trixie's hisses or obvious discomfort, and Trixie almost always ends up in the submissive position at the end and then runs off to hide. 

Neither one of them have shown any significant territorial behavior in regards to their food or litter. I do think that Phillip genuinely wants to play rather than bully , but Trixie is clearly not enjoying a moment of it. She spends a lot of time hiding under the bed, which is not typical behavior for her. She has also been eating less and seems generally skittish around the apartment. 

We have had Phillip for three weeks now. Between my wife and I, one of us is almost always home, so we give Phillip plenty of attention and play time with toys. We live in a one bedroom apartment, so we don't have too many options in terms of more separation experiments.  If anyone has any pointers on how we can  help them to get along better ,we would really appreciate it.  Thanks in advance. 

 

[p3 and the king]

Three weeks is still a relatively short time.... It can take a month or sometimes a couple of months for cats to get to know eachother.  She is processing her friends death and a new kitten at the same time.  Go easy on her.  And don't expect them to love eachother overnight.  It will take time.  Just make sure to monitor them closely and that he doesn't pester her too much.  He is still young and he probably does annoy her.  She'll eventually settle down and accept him.  She may not love him but she'll accept him.  And that may be the best you can hope for. 

See if you can separate them and spend some one on one time with Trixie.  She probably feels like you are trying to replace her.  Kittens are hard acts to follow!!!  So just spend some one on one time with her when he can't interrupt. It will go a long way in helping her accept him faster.  Do you have feliway plug ins or the calming collar?  If not, I would invest in both of them for now.  They don't help every cat but they do help a lot of cats.  Best of luck and don't get too discouraged.  It'll all work out eventually!

 

[rad65]

Usually it is recommended to get one other adult cat or two kittens to be companions for an older resident cat. One kitten is usually too much energy for an older cat to handle, and it leads to lots of stress. I know a few people on this site have gotten one kitten to keep their older cat company after their other older cat died, and the older cat ends up being completely stressed out and turns mean because they just want to rest but are annoyed by a little bundle of fur that won't stop pestering them. Two kittens wear each other out without annoying the older cat, and when everyone is calmed down they all get along better.

 

[mr muffins]

I agree with the above advice, and would say this situation is actually pretty typical. 

We were in a similar situation, where we introduced a male kitten to the older indoor resident female cat. The kitten would often annoy the older cat because he wanted to play 24/7, which led to a bit of stress. Now that the kitten is no longer a kitten, and their energy levels are more matched, they get along a lot better. My experience is that its really uncommon ( I have never seen it ) for an older cat to not get annoyed at the antics and constant harassment from a kitten. 

 

[sugarcatmom]

Here's a very in-depth article describing a great way to acclimatize older cats with a new kitten: http://www.wvcats.com/integrating_kittens_with_cats.htm

 

[mdawn1]

When we introduced Lexi to Max and Gus...Max just acted indifferent to her. Gus was full out aggressive toward her and would bully. After a few weeks, he went through a period of depression, I think...because I assume he finally understood that this new cat wasn't temporary. He stayed upstairs a lot and refused to come down for meal times, etc. I, basically, just left him be and didn't let Lexi intrude on his space. I made sure that I spent extra time with him. Every night, he sleeps with me. As I'm trying to fall asleep I rub his chest as he lays on his back. It's "our" thing. I made a point to do that every night. If Lexi would follow me to bed, I'd put her out of the room. After awhile, he snapped out of it and is now fine. He's accepted her. He doesn't like her at all...but he doesn't actively try to beat her up all the time either. I think a few times, I've even caught them playing.

I'd really just give it some time. Lexi is about a year old so she is quite a bit younger than Gus and Max, who are 8 and 9. She does annoy them but in the end, I think its been good for them to have a young adult around them. They both are a lot more active since she's been here.