Hello Dear cat friends, this is my first time posting to the Behavior Forum as I've never encountered any behavior issues with my kitties until now. I adopted a cat about a month ago and already had one resident cat at home. I went thru the entire introduction process by the book, or so I thought. They were separated, did the whole scent thing, put a baby gate up so they could see each other, etc... Things were going so well after about 2 weeks I let the new one out to have the run of the place with my other (I'm in a condo, so not overly large). They were eating together, playing together, all was good. Then one morning last week the new cat attacked the resident cat out of the blue when she wasn't looking. It was awful. I have never broken up a cat fight like that in my life. I was in shock. In my mind I'm thinking what the heck could have changed or happened? From the research I've done many say to start the introduction process over again from scratch. So that is what I'm in the process of doing. But I want to do it right, I'm wondering if I rushed it initially? Did the new cat get comfortable and more confident, therefore more territorial? Right now I have the new cat in a room by herself. The past few days I've left the door cracked an inch so they can see each other. I have a string hanging over the door knobs that they have both been playing nicely with on either side of the door. My question is - how long should I stay at this stage before I go ahead and put a baby gate up so they can fully see each other? Then how long at that stage, etc? And as a misc side note - the new cat's attitude towards me has also changed. Initially she was very nice and loving. Would rub up against me, get on my lap, meow, etc. Since this has happened she doesn't want anything at all to do with me. It's like a switch flipped. I'm just looking for any advice/tips. I've had cats my entire life and never encountered this before so it's all new. Family and friends have not been very supportive, they say maybe she is just mean and I should return her, that some cats are just mean by nature and it's not fair to my current cat. I've only had her 5 weeks at this point and feel like I need to at least see it thru and try to work with her for a while. I would feel awful uprooting the poor thing again since she has been bounced around the past few months. I'm open to any suggestions!
Last edited:
