Moving with cats

elevature

My girlfriend and I are planning on moving in together in January. We each have a cat. Hers is a male, just over two years old, mine is a male, about a year and a half. They've never met, but have smelled each other on our clothes. Neither has even seen another cat since their littermates.

We're moving to a new place, since neither of our apartments is big enough for everyone. The people currently living in this place have three cats of their own, but they're friends of ours and our cats are familiar with those scents too.

What is the least stressful way to do this for the cats? New house, new cat, new smells. Is there a way to introduce them to each other/the environment that won't result in panic/bloodshed?

mts

thunderdome is the way

Skeith

Stick one in one room, and the other in a different room. Get them used to that (maybe 2 or 3 days), then switch the rooms. You'll want them as familiar with the other cat's scent as possible before throwing them into the bathroom and letting them sort the rest out.

Julius

Skeith wrote: »

Stick one in one room, and the other in a different room. Get them used to that (maybe 2 or 3 days), then switch the rooms. You'll want them as familiar with the other cat's scent as possible before throwing them into the bathroom and letting them sort the rest out.

Yup. Depending on the cat you can let them out earlier/introduce them to eachother's scent. The cats being relatively equal in age and not that old probably lets them adopt easier, but you never know.

Also, the first few meeting between the cats you gotta be there to make sure they play nice.

azith28

Also, take a small blanket and put it in each cats bed. Let them get scent on it, and then swap every few days for a few weeks before the move.

Lanchester

Skeith wrote: »

Stick one in one room, and the other in a different room. Get them used to that (maybe 2 or 3 days), then switch the rooms. You'll want them as familiar with the other cat's scent as possible before throwing them into the bathroom and letting them sort the rest out.

Absolutely this, plus 1 thing.

When it's feeding time, put them in a hallway at opposite ends with food, and a barrier in the middle. Make sure the barrier is see through so they can see each other while they eat. As the days go by, bring their two bowls closer and closer to the barrier.

Pantshandshake

Also keep in mind, they may never all get along. Ever. So don't get your hopes up that some day soon you can lay on a couch under a cover made from living cats.

Double also, and I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet, but people are going to start asking you for pictures of the cats. And Ceres... Well, she'll come to your house to get the pictures in person. Forcefully.

elevature

This is good advice, thanks. The apartment has two floors, so we can probably sequester one on each floor for a while. The place will be empty for a month before we move in, too, so we can figure out how to get stuff/cats in without doing it all in a rush on one day.

Pictures, spoiler'd for huge:

I don't have a great picture of her cat, but here's Woody:



And mine, Miles:

mts

seriously though, arm yourself with some towels and water bottles and introduce them through their travel crates then open them up and let them go. as long as they do not actually try to actively kill each other you are fine and can probably just keep an eye on them. if they try to murder each other, then go to the seperate area approach. it will save you time if it works.

you would be surprised how much cats can like company especially young cats.

The Crowing One

We just did this in my household. Same basic situation: both my girlfriend and I have cats and we had to introduce them.

So far, we're at four months, and while they aren't best friends they understand the fact that we're all a "pack" now. I think we had an easier time than many people, but we followed the basic formula of beginning by keeping them separate. My cat had been in the apartment for about five months before her kitty came to live with us, and as such we gave her about a week alone in her own room. She quickly became acclimated to that one room, and so we began to switch things up by swapping them (one got run of the house, one got the closed-door den for awhile, etc.). After a few weeks we were easily giving them both the run of the house, though they were still pretty nervous about each other.

At this point they mostly leave each other alone, but can easily share the same space without too much fighting. If they're both getting attention, they even can lay down less than a foot from each other without incident.

Our trick was to take it one step at a time and subjectively determine if we thought they could handle a bit more interaction. At a certain point, feeding them treats together (usually a few feet apart) helped greatly to increase their comfort. They still aren't "friends", per se, but we have no second thoughts about leaving them home alone or even that they'll do more than scuffle a bit playfully.

At around the 2 month point we noticed that the swipes and hisses became half-hearted If one bats the other, it's usually softly, and without claws.

However, all cats are different. Play it by ear and make sure you have a spray-bottle and towels, etc.

SwashbucklerXX

In addition... Since they're both young males, they'll probably enjoy play-fighting with each other once they've been successfully introduced. If they're being quiet, it's all good, but if somebody starts yowling (or hissing a lot, obviously), it's time to break it up before somebody gets a claw to the face and you end up with a vet bill and a Cone of Shame.

azith28

I dont think male or female has anything to do with it, I have two female kittens, . I got them at a young age (one was 2 months, the other 3 months), from seperate shelters, they still wrestle often, but never have i heard them hiss or growl while doing it. (Maybe a complaint if one is playing too rough but it doesnt last long).