Introducing cat to cat.

[Evilwater]

I'm getting my friends cat for 6 months as her home is being knocked down and she is being re housed in a flat.
I already have a small cat, and offered to have her out door cat.

How on earth do I introduce them??
Help!

Bump

www.icatcare.org:8080/advice/how-guides/how-introduce-new-kitten-your-resident-cat

This should help. It's very kind of you to help your friend like that.

www.icatcare.org:8080/advice/how-guides/how-introduce-new-adult-cat-your-cat

Sorry, this one.

Thanks I'm off to read it now.

Evil we were in a very similar position to you and the best thing we found was to take it slowly. Put new cat in one room to start, preferably one your old cat doesn't go in particularly, then progress to part of house that can be separated. New cat needs to get used to you, your house and a new cat. We were lucky in that our friends stayed with us for a couple of weeks while he got used to us/the house.

Feed them so they can see/smell each other, swap beds/blankets. Lots of Dreamies. Progress to letting them see each other but not get to each other.

We had a couple of small spats at accidental meetings which were my fault (doors not closed properly/feeding on the stairs so one was higher than the other), but not the all out war I was expecting. Don't know if it helped they're both boys-from what I read girls can be more difficult.

It took about 4 weeks and lots of planning, but they now tolerate each other. No cute scenes of them snuggling up together, but they don't fight (which was my biggest fear, as like yours they were both onlies). Now, they'll sleep on the same sofa, and sometimes touch noses as they wander past, and they gang up on my sister's cockerpoo