A new [cat] approaches. Command?

cj iwakura

Since my cat Artemis(who I'm sure many of you know) was reportedly beside himself with loneliness while I was in Tokyo, I decided to get him some company.



Meet Sammie, aka Luna(name subject to change).




I expected Artemis to be the problem. He's four, she's 1 1/2. After the initial hissing, he's actually just walking around and chilling.

Luna, not so much.



She's mostly hiding in corners, hasn't eaten yet, though I'm pretty sure she knows where the food and water is. Should I bring some to her, leave her to her own devices?

And most importantly, will they be okay while I'm at work tomorrow, or should I separate them? There's been no violence yet, just a lot of fussiness.

mts

if no violence at first most likely they are fine. my guess is she needs some space. what i would say is keep them separate for when you are at work then reintroduce.

just give her a liter box food and water obviously

cj iwakura

Couple recent developments. She's been pretty aggressive over the past hour, taking random swipes when I try to pet her. She's a stray that was taken in, could that complicate things any?

Also, apparently she has a prescription for Enrofloxacin that I have to give her. Not sure what for, they didn't tell me much about it.

MaggieTheCat

Typically when you introduce a new animal into a household that already has animals, the best approach is to isolate the newcomer in their own room for a couple of days. This gives both the newcomer and existing pets a chance to acclimate to the change slowly. You can give the newcomer their own set of toys, blankets/towels, etc. and after a day or two, trade them out with items that the existing animals have been using. This will let them get used to each others' scents. They can also smell each other through the crack under the door without actually being able to get to each other (so, no potential for fights) and both animals will have spaces to retreat to if they want. After a few days you can bring the existing animal into the newcomer's room for a little while and introduce them for short periods of time (supervised), and after a day or two of that, you can let the newcomer into the main part of the house for short periods of time (again, supervised.) This is a process that is generally best done slowly and gradually, over the course of a week or more, so that all of the animals have a chance to get used to the changes.

baudattitude

My wife and I feed a lot of stray cats, and most of them want absolutely nothing to do with us beyond putting down the food and disappearing. There are a couple we've seen for several years and who have advanced to the taking laps and being petted stage and who are for all intents and purposes completely domesticated and loving animals.

And even they will occasionally take a meaningful swipe at us if we forget how to approach them. One in particular we think was abused because there is a particular angle above her head where she Does Not Like a hand being and she will turn into a little hissing monster if you enter that airspace.

So yeah, strays can be very complicated animals but also getting them to trust you can be super rewarding.

cj iwakura

She seemed really sweet and affectionate at the pet store, so I'm hoping this is just an adjustment phase, and not a sign of a feral temperament.

Grunt's Ghosts

My cat Gremlin was an old cat when my sister brought Boots into our home. Boots was a sick little kitten that was barely old enough to eat even soft food and Gremlin hated him. He would hiss and once batted Boots across the kitchen when Boots wanted to play. We kept Boots in my sister's room for a few weeks, letting him out only when my sister was around but Gremlin didn't get used to Boots for a few weeks. It took some time but finally they were able to be in the same room unsupervised although Gremlin never did let Boots go within reaching distance of him.

mts

cj iwakura wrote: »

Couple recent developments. She's been pretty aggressive over the past hour, taking random swipes when I try to pet her. She's a stray that was taken in, could that complicate things any?

Also, apparently she has a prescription for Enrofloxacin that I have to give her. Not sure what for, they didn't tell me much about it.

uti maybe which if she is feeling crummy would make her irritable

MaggieTheCat

cj iwakura wrote: »

She seemed really sweet and affectionate at the pet store, so I'm hoping this is just an adjustment phase, and not a sign of a feral temperament.

She probably will be a very sweet companion for you and your current cat but it will take time and patience for her and your current cat to adjust to each other. It sounds like you don't know her whole backstory, so she could have had a home and been dumped -- or had no home at all -- and now she has been placed in a shelter or pet store which was a new and strange and scary environment for her, and now she is in another new and strange and scary environment again (your house.) Since animals don't understand us, we can't simply tell them, "it's okay, we're going to love you and take care of you" so it takes time for them to realize that on their own, and in the meantime they will be scared and possibly temperamental. Don't force anything on her. Offer her food and water but she may not eat immediately. This isn't too big of a concern unless it goes on for more than a day or two. Cats can be really, really stubborn and can go for fairly long periods of time without food.

When my husband moved out of his mother's house and into his own apartment, he took his cat with him and the cat (usually very friendly and outgoing and cuddly) hid under my husband's bed for a week. My husband had to put food and water and a litter pan in his bedroom for the cat and the cat did come out to eat and do his business but otherwise did not come out from under the bed at all for a week. He's fine now, several years later, but it took a while for the little guy to adjust. Just be patient with them and follow their lead.

Heir

She's in a new environment...she's freaked out.

Hell I had a cat that would go semi-feral everytime we moved to a new apartment. She'd basically hide for a few days, hiss and swipe at me if I approached her...and then after a few days she'd slowly make her way out and adjust to her new surroundings.

Just leave her be, make sure she has her food/water/litter, and let her adjust at her own pace.

dispatch.o

Give her her own food and water bowls, her own litter box and bed, and her own space.

cj iwakura

So far so good. Artemis and her definitely aren't on friendly terms(they're hissing at each other whenever they break into their respective spaces), but she's eating like crazy.

She hasn't touched the litter yet. She approached me and purred, but she seems to react badly to being petted a certain way. Might be a bad thing, or still an adjustment.

I haven't seen any signs of fighting, but I'll definitely keep her in the bathroom tomorrow just in case.

dispatch.o

Need to have a litter pan for each cat +1 initially. After they get along you may be able to reduce the number but you may never have happy cats with just one. Depends on how they socialize.

You had me confused for a minute I didn't process Artemis was male. If they're both fixed being a male and female they may end out getting along very well. I'm not sure why but anecdotal experience says it's easier to get opposites to not hate each other a bit easier.

Artemis just walking around is great, but if Luna's staying on the edges of rooms and not approaching objects to check them out she's still unsure and until she is will to sit in the middle of a room without anxiety be very wary.

Cats do a lot of posturing and one of the ways they show control is restricting other animals from access to things like food, water, litter box. They will just casually walk over next to objects when a new animal is looking around and may even try to claim the new animals stuff.

"Yeah, this is my thing. You got a problem? "

*I say animals because I've seen cats go apeshit on everything from other cats, dogs and people who try and touch something theyve decided is theirs.

cj iwakura

Yeah, I was told opposites are good, which was why I was fine with a female cat. And they're both fixed. She has her own litter now(albeit a makeshift shoebox one), hopefully she actually uses it.

She occasionally ventures out, jumps onto the computer desk and/or dresser, sneaks behind the bed, then retreats back to the bathroom. That seems to be her lair right now.

azith28

Don't bring the food/water to the cat, let him/her get use to where it usually is.

WordLust

I've had to introduce new cats to existing cats on a couple of different occasions. There will almost always be hissing and pissy attitudes in the beginning, and honestly, that could go on for months. It is customary for cats who are strangers in the same house to hiss and claw at each other 3,492 times before they BEGRUDGINGLY agree that they will TOLERATE each other's presence. The intensity of that whole process can vary depending on the natural temperament of both cats (some cats are more high strung than others) and the age of the cats. Older male cats, like older male men, are the most impossible a**holes when it comes to accepting change.

Keeping them apart when you're away and some monitored time together when you're home is good advice. Like getting them over phobia, you gradually expose them more and more to each other. Giving them separate bowls/litterboxes reduces some of the fighting and dominating. (Cats, especially male cats, will always try to establish who is the alpha cat on the block.) But if you just put down two litter boxes or two bowls and expect the cats to understand they each have their own, that's not gonna happen, because alpha cat will 100% for certain poop in both boxes, eat out of both bowls, and tell the other cat to suck it. It's sad when two cats are going through that alpha spat, but it's how they are and there is only so much you can do about it.

I feel like as the human owner between all the hissing and clawing, all you can do is keep them from hurting each other until they get it all out of their system, which could take weeks or months, depending on the cat. (I once brought a new turkish angora into the house, who was immediately down for being friends with the existing scottish fold. The scottish fold on the other hand took MONTHS to stop hissing and clawing.)

cj iwakura

My vet says that medication is an antibiotic, it's possible she was recently spayed. (Haven't had much of any luck getting her to eat it yet, but oh well.)

The adjustment phase seems to be going as well as can be expected. No fighting still, but I find it funny that Artemis(older male) is trying to be the nice one and she's being fussy.