Strange Behavior When Introducing A Kitten To A Year Old Cat - Advice Needed

[ryguym]

Hello,

So we have two Ragdolls. One is a year old, and we just adopted a new baby at nine weeks. We are having some trouble socializing the two cats. Our main strategy has been to play with and feed the two cats on either of closed, sliding French doors. Any time the older cat sees the younger in close proximity (through a crack in the door), she hisses and exhibits aggressive behavior. Except this most recent time, the year-old started hissing and growling, then rolled over onto her back with belly up, then started hissing again. She repeated this a few times as if she couldn't make up her mind about what to do until we ended the session. Surprisingly, the baby seems completely unafraid of the year old and just stares at her, even when the year-old is hissing or swatting at the door. Does anyone know what this means? What does the act of rolling over mean, and why would she do this one moment and be hissing the next?

Thanks, I'm a newcomer to this forum and any help or advice would be appreciated.

Ryan

 

[susanm9006]

I would say your older cat is a little torn between the kitten as intruder and kitten as playmate. Rolling on her back is certainly a good move and I don’t worry about a hiss or two, that is to be expected. I would keep setting up the short intros and I think they will be playing soon.

 

[rubysmama]

Hello and welcome to TCS. Congrats on the new kitten. Hopefully in time both cats will be best buds.

Is your year old female spayed? Is the kitten male or female?

 

[ryguym]

The year-old is spayed, and the kitten is female.

Thanks!

 

[rubysmama]

Spayed is good, especially since the kitten is also female, as sometimes people find 2 female cats don't get along. So it's good there won't be hormones involved in the introductions.

At 9 weeks the kitten is still pretty young. These days the "recommendation" is to keep kittens with their mom and siblings until they are 12 weeks old to give them time to learn cat etiquette. This "job" will now fall to either your older cat, or yourself. So if you see your older cat seemingly playing "too rough" it could be her teaching the kitten kitty manners. Generally as long as there is no blood, or fur flying, and if the kitten doesn't seem scared, and keeps going back for more "fun", things are probably ok. Don't leave them alone together, though, until you are sure that the older cat is ok with the kitten.

Here's a couple articles on cat introductions. They may not totally apply to introducing kittens to adult cats, but they might be some helpful tips for you.

Introducing Cats To Cats
How To Fix An Unsuccessful Cat Introduction
How To Successfully Introduce Cats: The Ultimate Guide
The Multi-cat Household

And here's an article on Teach Your Kitten How to Play Nice : The Humane Society of the United States

 

[ryguym]

Thank you for the advice! I'll be sure to check out those articles.