old cat MAD cuz of new cat in house.

[bfman]

my friend left her cat for a month and my resident himalayan is really upset.

He's taken forte in one room and if the other cat comes into that room he hisses at it and it leaves.

The visiting cat is cool. Does not hiss or do anything aggressive. He's not too afraid either.

He wanders around etc. but doesn't go close to my cat.

I am still in the "test drive" phase. should I tell my friend to leave the cat elsewhere or they'll be ok?

The caveat being I will have to leave them both alone when I go for work. I don't know if its a good idea or not.

 

[jcat]

A little bit of hissing is normal. Can you lock your friend's cat in the bedroom or somewhere while you're at work, just in case? Then you can see how they do together over the holidays when you're home more, and go from there.

 

[ducman69]

Pretty normal, your cat is just defending her turf.   There are forum stickies about proper introduction for new cats specifically for this reason.  Personally, if I had a cat that was just a temporary visitor, I wouldn't even invest the effort to socialize them to each other and just keep them separated (give the visiting cat the master bedroom/bath for example and your existing cat run of the rest of the house).