cat and kitten not getting on

[conway]

Had a kitten for 2 months and 7 year old cat not coping.
Am very concerned that my cat will run away as she hardly ever comes in now .Only comes in to eat and is then off again. When she is in , she just growls and hisses.
I am away this weekend and have left my 16 year old in charge ,very concerned that my cat we not be there when we return.
sometimes, I wish we hadn't got the kitten. My friend says we should get the kitten re-homed as she is only 4 months old. She was a rescue cat that needed a home.
Any suggestions

I think it's very hard with cats and really just depends on the cat.

We adopted our cat with her brother as kittens. They were inseparable but sadly the brother died when they were two. I was so worried that the remaining cat would be lonely but most of what I read said that many cats actually prefer to live alone. Two days of being a bit out of sorts and then she seemed absolutely fine.

We visit my parents with her a lot and she gets on fairly well with one of their cats but detests the other. She has tolerated the arrival of two children and two terriers over the years but I honestly think a new cat would be a totally different story.

I'm not really helping I know, but I'd maybe persevere for a while yet to see if they can get to a point where she tolerates the new arrival. I'd also maybe be tempted to keep her in for a few days if that wouldn't agree her out too much. We did that with when each of our pups arrived as it meant the cat had to meet them and deal with it rather than constantly just running off. Unfortunately they may never get on but fingers crossed

Stress her, not agree

I posted here a couple of weeks ago about this as my cat was actually quite scared by the new kitten and acting aggressively as a result. I got some very good advice about keeping them separate to start with, feeding them on each side of a door so they got used to each others scent etc etc. I wish I could tell you it was all wonderful and they are now curled up together, but it is better. Big cat now has a lot more confidence and is leaving the safe space of her (my) bedroom a lot more, and although she is still hissing (and occasionally swiping) when kitten bounces up to her, she is doing so slightly less. I've been bribing her with food - they both get wet food twice a day within sight of each other - and her love for that makes her stay near the kitten. So, you could try food bribery to get her to tolerate being near the kitten? I'm still confining the kitten to one room overnight so the big cat (and me) have an uninterrupted sleep - could that work for you?

I had a similar situation with my female cat. Adopted her at the age of two. Decided to get a kitten when she was four. She hated it, just growled and hissed at him. She did tolerate him eventually, they worked out a time share of our bed. She got it all day, then little kitty slept with us at night. But she never stopped growling at him if he got anywhere near.
Sadly, we lost her a few months back, very suddenly.
A couple of weeks ago, I got a little kitten. The two cats are currently rolling around on my bed.

We had to put a lot of effort into introducing our cats. We had had the kittens then decided later to have the mum so we hoped it would be easy but it was not. We nearly gave the mum back but my dm and dsis sorted it out when we were on holiday. So they each had their own spaces and then took it in turns to have the ‘shared space’. For an hour or so they had ‘supervised visits’ in the shared space. This went on for 10 days whilst we were away and when we returned they were all friends and in fact the mum and daughter cats often would sleep curled up together. I think the combination of own spaces plus sharing each other’s scents in the shared area really worked.