10 year old male cat terrified of new kitten - any advice?

[rosebud5678]

We have had our new female kitten for just over a month now, and she was super confident from day 1. Our existing cat has always been scared of lots of things, but his reaction has been even more extreme than I was predicting. He basically lives upstairs under a bed, and only comes out at night when he knows the kitten will be shut away. We have tried to introduce them with supervision, to show him that she doesn't pose any kind of threat, but he looks permanently terrified and runs away as soon as he can. Will this situation ever improve? Does anyone have any suggestions of what we can try in the mean time? It is making me quite sad, and taking the enjoyment away from having the new kitten (who is delightful). All advice welcome!

I think it will improve, it is good that he is only hiding, rather than showing signs of attack or aggression, as happens with some cats. I think it will be better in a few weeks.

Have you been scent swapping with them? Our new kitten we have had 8 days and our cat we had is slowly coming round in that shel now go in the same room without running away but is still growling at the kitten who is desperate to be friends.

We were told to scent swap, so we rubbed the kittens blanket on her and put it infront of our cat to let her smell it. We did the same to the kitten.

You could also put the kitten in the cat carrier and bring the big one in the room to let them have a sniff safely with each other and do that each day a couple of times.

Sometimes older cats won't ever get on with a new kitten and will just tolerate them but it can take a few months to even get to that stage.

Plug in a few felloway optimums round the house to. Helps our multi-cat household no end. It takes longer than you think it will I find. The best thing is to let your older cat do what it naturally wants to do in my experience. It took some of our cats nearly a year to get used to our new dog. Your new kitten isn’t harming your older cat. It just doesn’t like it which will settle as the smell and the presence gets familiar. Felloway optimum plug in has a great impact on nervous cats I’ve found. You can also get things you can spread onto their food like nutracalm from your vets. It will take a couple of months rather than a couple of weeks. The most important thing to process is your older cat not feeling trapped and has a place to hide. Great they come out when the kitten is away for the night as they’ll get familiar with their scent first and then I suspect next you’ll catch them watching the kitten. Enjoy your kitten. I’m sure your cat will learn to at least tolerate the kitten’s presence with some time. And neither of them will blame you for it as I don’t think they think humans have that level of impact so don’t blame the humans for other cats appearing!

Thank you everyone - I feel much more reassured. Liking the cat carrier idea!