At a loss

[darksideofbuttonmoon]

Apologies in advance - I think this might be a bit of an epic post!

We re-homed two cats about a month ago. A little 2 year old female and a big five year old female. They hadn't come from the same home but were being housed together at the re-homing centre and the information with them said that they could be re-homed together or separately.

There were a few warning signs that big cat was a bit 'temperamental' but the re-homing people re-assured me that she hadn't being in long and was actually doing really well considering. So I ignored my gut and took them both.

Little cat has settled in really well, and big cat...well that's why I'm posting here! Big cat does not like little cat! We've gone from a bit of hissing to full on fights. We tried to keep them in separate parts of the house but that just seemed to make things worse, with big cat chucking herself at the door trying to get to little cat! At the moment we've got the doors to the outside open most of the time with the nice weather and they're avoiding each other most of the time, but not sure how long this will last.

With us big cat can be very unpredictable. We try to let her take things at her own pace when it comes to stroking and things but I'm finding her very hard to read even though I've had cats all my life. She'll quite happily come up to us, rub and nuzzle us, we'll start to stroke her and she'll purr away, then she'll switch and try to bite and scratch us.

Other times she'll be lying down tail swishing, fair enough I know to stay away. But when she does it on the stairs and I need to get upstairs and can't because she's swiping and going crazy, it's a bit stressful!

She also cannot be handled. The only way we could get her to her vet's appointment last night was to feed her in her basket for a couple of days and again just before her appointment, sneak up and close the door. DP took her to the vets and warned her that big cat didn't like to be handled but even she was taken aback my the amount of aggression that big cat showed. In the end they had to put her in the vet's carrier and inject her through that. She ended up coming home in the vet's carrier because it would have been too difficult to get her back into ours!

The vet suggested that big cat might have some feral in her such was her reaction to being handled. She also asked if we have small children. We don't at the moment...but I am pregnant with our first.

Sooo, after all that, what do we do now?!? Does anyone have any experience of getting a cat this old used to being handled? If she is part feral, what's the best we can hope for? At the moment I just don't feel like we're being fair on big cat, little cat or ourselves.

Thanks for reading and for any advice!

A months not very long, it took ours six months to settle here and stop being mardy and that's just moving house.

Did you do the bedding swap so they get used to each others scent?.

It's really early days, and any self respecting cats going to avoid a baby if it decides babies aren't its thing.

In my experience feral cats are generally not aggressive unless they are afraid, they tend to be very timid and sweet. An aggressive cat is a frightening thing!

If she's not fitting into your home, you should tell the re-homing people and see if they will take her back. I'd be concerned that she will again be unsettled and upset when the baby is born, and some cats (not many, and I've only had one) can be angry and aggressive to new comers of other species.

I think it's fair to you and to the cat to return her if she's not working out. It's also fair to LittleCat (who is fitting in and getting along) to not be attacked and driven off by BigCat!

I agree with monster. Bigcat is obviously not happy and is making smallcat unhappy so it would probably be best to send bigcat back to the rescue.

I think this is the rescue's fault for giving you two cats who don't get along as a pair - I'd assume that if a rescue was rehoming cats as a pair it's because they were from the same home or really hit it off at the rescue. I think what's happened here is that they've teamed up a problem cat with a really sweet one in the hope of getting rid of her.

It sounds like big cat is into the whole 'territory' thing and is behaving in a way that suggests she feels threatened.

I agree that in cat tolerance terms one month is not long. Try and only intervene between the two cats if they are really harming each other. Mine look like they are being rough but ive only once seen an actual scratch on one of them. If they are injuring each other that is not a good sign.

I had a cat like this who changed after I got a kitten for the better thank goodness. I think she thought she was the boss of the house! I never approached her and let her come to me and always wore long sleeved tops due to the crazy biting! But she has got better at telling me as it were how she is feeling and I am better at immediately withdrawing attention the second she misbehaves.

She is still bonkers though but now in a loveable way.