The sub says post pictures, but I’m hoping discussion is Ok too :)
Situation: Have had a cat (Barney) for about 10 years. We brought a second cat into the house that we rescued off the street (Lou) back in 2019, but Lou was not well, and passed away in 2020. Barney mostly ignored Lou, but would occasionally get kind of close to him. If Lou approached Barney, Barney would just walk away and watch him from a distance.
Had to rescue a pair of young cats (about a year old when we got them fixed in January, the vet said), Nox and Sox. They’ve been in the house since late March or early April.
Barney constantly hisses at them if he sees them, runs far, far away. This attracts the interest of the youngsters, who come running to him to check him out, and this always starts a fight. When the fight begins, Barney runs away as fast as possible, screaming and ejecting as much fur as possible (i didn’t know cats could do that, but apparently they can… )
How do I help them to co-exist in the same house? We kept them apart for almost 3 months, and tried to introduce Barney slowly to them once they were comfortable with the environment, but he wants absolutely nothing to do with them so long as they exist.
I don’t know what to do :(
Sox on the left, Nox on the right. This was taken probably a couple of weeks after they first got into the house, and they had started to adjust to their new routines.
Oh boy, this hits home! I’ve had to deal with this a couple of times, and your story sounds very similar to mine.
We adopted two kittens off the street (bro & sis), then the sis passed away :( When we brought in Neo, another kitten, they were at each other’s throats for months…until they started grooming each other and playing together all the time!
Then my mother-in-law moved abroad for work, and we took in Big Chungus, their family cat (of 12 years or so). That was around 6 years ago. They still act just like your’s do, hissing and slapping and being unpleasant to each other, but they coexist.
Then we brought in Freya, another older cat…a female…that was tough, since the other three were (neutered, but still expressive) males. All of them ended up getting along with each other after a couple of months, except Chungus who had issues with all of them except Neo.
Then Neo passed away :( They all became more chill after that, but Chungus still acts the same way (although, rarely as they might, they do all sleep against each other).
The point you should take from this
wall of textstory is that all cats are different, both individually and interpersonally. For the longest time, it may look like they’ll never get along and, either they don’t, or one day you wake up and they’re curled up together on the sofa, all cute-like! Just make sure to have {no. of cats + 1} litter trays and water in at least two separate areas of the house so that they don’t stress out if they meet there, don’t feed them all in the same place, and give it time!Here they are not trying to kill each other 😝
Wish you and you feline family the best. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
Unfortunately, they aren’t coexisting in the slightest at the moment. :( I don’t know if Nox is actively trying to kill Barney, or if Barney just thinks that, and is defending as if he were… or if Nox and Sox are both trying to aggressively befriend him. They came from a cat hoard, so they had dozens of “friends” that are now gone.
update? all three of them spent almost an entire day in the same room (as far apart from each other as they could be) just staring at each other menacingly.
and then Nox got up and moved, and Barney hissed and ran away.
but it’s progress!
We live in a rural area where sometimes city folk dump pets. So to say we’ve had a lot of cats is a bit of an understatement. The gentle introduction is great, but if that doesn’t work there are a few other possibilities. Getting them fixed will lower, but not eliminate, the desire to fight and be territorial. Catnip might help. Time might do it. A sympathetic vet might get you some kitty Prozac to calm down the aggressive one(s), allowing them to be together without heightened response. A blind play sometimes works, where they’re playing with each other under a door or through a box - ie, not face-to-face.
And after all that, some cats just don’t get along.
Nox doesn’t seem to be the slightest bit interested in or affected by catnip, but Sox is a total kitty pothead if we let her. Barney is somewhere in the middle. I’ve got some “calming treats” but Barney and Nox won’t eat them, and Sox will eat them until she’s passed out for days. lol she’d be a little kitty drug addict if she could get them on her own, lol
All are fixed. I know it’s “only” been a few months, and sometimes it could take a long time, but if they just avoided each other, instead of it nearly always turning into Barney running and hiding in the basement where he can’t be found, for hours on end, just from seeing the others…
Even before they were allowed out into the main part of the house, Barney would come to my office door just to hiss at them, through the door.
I feel so bad that Barney seems to be feeling like he’s lost his entire house except for wherever he hides at. :| :| :|
… also @seahorse … this thread says there’s 6 comments, but i only see 5. it’s been one off ever since the first reply … what’s up with that? any ideas?