- Joined
- Mar 21, 2013
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Quick background: last November, took in a very young mother (Bandit) and her kitten (Venom) who had been living outside. Our other cat (Lion) likes other cats, and was happy to meet them. Bandit, understandably, was not thrilled with him. We did the usual keeping them separate, changing places, feeding on opposite sides of a door, etc. Venom loves Lion, and they get along very well.
We’ve been working on getting Bandit to tolerate Lion, and have made progress. She is easily distracted by food/treats, toys, petting her, etc, and sometimes she will completely ignore him. But every once in awhile she sets her sights on him, and will sneak up, and whack him. He is so gentle, that while he hisses at her, he doesn’t retaliate, and we quickly break it up. We always supervise, but want to give her the opportunity to sniff at him, and walk away, which she sometimes does. This has been going on for 8 months, and we’ve gotten good at redirecting her attention, but it’s getting old, having to keep either her or Lion shut up in a room when we’re not home, or otherwise busy.
I’m off for the summer, and we have a lot of things on our plate, but we will get more sessions in than we had been able to before.
I would love any suggestions to help this situation. It’s not fair to Lion, who has never done anything to her. And otherwise, she is such a sweetie! We had hoped that once she was no longer hungry, and was fed regularly, that the rest would come over time. My husband, who loves all the cats, is starting to suggest that we may need to rehome her. None of us want that. We have Feliway going throughout the house, and lots of playing and pets for all of them, and would love nothing better than to have all 3 of them at least tolerate each other. Advice on where to go from here? Will it get better with just more time? It would be really nice when I go back to work in September, to not have to shut one of them in a room all day long.
We’ve been working on getting Bandit to tolerate Lion, and have made progress. She is easily distracted by food/treats, toys, petting her, etc, and sometimes she will completely ignore him. But every once in awhile she sets her sights on him, and will sneak up, and whack him. He is so gentle, that while he hisses at her, he doesn’t retaliate, and we quickly break it up. We always supervise, but want to give her the opportunity to sniff at him, and walk away, which she sometimes does. This has been going on for 8 months, and we’ve gotten good at redirecting her attention, but it’s getting old, having to keep either her or Lion shut up in a room when we’re not home, or otherwise busy.
I’m off for the summer, and we have a lot of things on our plate, but we will get more sessions in than we had been able to before.
I would love any suggestions to help this situation. It’s not fair to Lion, who has never done anything to her. And otherwise, she is such a sweetie! We had hoped that once she was no longer hungry, and was fed regularly, that the rest would come over time. My husband, who loves all the cats, is starting to suggest that we may need to rehome her. None of us want that. We have Feliway going throughout the house, and lots of playing and pets for all of them, and would love nothing better than to have all 3 of them at least tolerate each other. Advice on where to go from here? Will it get better with just more time? It would be really nice when I go back to work in September, to not have to shut one of them in a room all day long.
