Advice please

[LoveMySituation]

My son rescued a kitten a few weeks ago, he heard miaowing and it was in his car bonnet. He took it to the vet, and messaged on Facebook. (a similar coloured kitten has turned up a few miles away, so this one's background is a mystery) She eats and is litter trained when found, so guessing she's 9/10 weeks

He wants to keep her. There is already a resident cat though, who's nearly 9 that he's had since she was a kitten. At the moment, they are kept seperate. Kitten has also recently started weeing on the bed. He is often out, so she's often alone in her room although she gets let out for play in the lounge when other cat out or asleep

Is it ok to carefully introduce them? They each know the other is there, bit of hissing when they've inadvertently passed each other, and I think maybe the presence of the other is stressing the kitten, and that's why she's weeing. She has water and wet food, so don't think she has an infection. She likes splashing her water bowl, so I'm thinking Maine Coon?!

She's called Soup (!)

I’d let them have a little peek through the door at each other and scent swap.

Weeing on beds is usually the wrong litter, kittens need kitten litter/infection or stress.

Uti in cats isn’t accompanied by loss of appetite or tiredness they just wee inappropriately and have pain.

You can buy test strips for human on amazon and rub them on the damp spot, that’ll tell you if she needs antibiotics. Our girls uti was her weeing on the bed.

I have a sequence for cat introductions which goes like this:

sound, they can hear but can't see each other, until calm about that
scent, they get to smell where other one has been, repeatedly, until calm about that
sight, they see each other from distance, thru windows, then get carried thru the room where other is ... until calm about that

There will be squabble when they finally get to physical contact point, but that should be perfunctory & quick if they are accepting the sound-scent-sight by then.

Soup is 😍😍😍 I've never 'introduced' cats, they sort that out themselves. Its especially easy when one a kitten. Little cat will want to play. Big cat will either join in or put him in his place depending on the cat. A bit of hissing a growling is normal and might look a bit rough to you, but genuine aggression is rare.

I've always introduced any new additions to our resident cats on day one - I know it's recommended, but I'm not really convinced that days/weeks of scent swapping does anything more than stress the cats, to be he honest.

We've done it multiple times with multiple cats - a mixture of male, female, adult and kitten and we've never once had an issue beyond a few hisses and swipes. They've never fought or shown any behavioural issues. Yes, there's the odd hiss (especially after a vet visit) but never anything more than that.

Our latest kitten was introduced to our resident boys on a Thursday. By the Saturday they were playing together, sharing litter trays and grooming each other. We're now about seven weeks in and they're all absolutely fine. The main challenge is stopping the older ones from eating all the kitten food

Thanks everyone. I was worried as I kept reading online that if one cat had been spayed and other hadn't, they'd never get on, and as she's too young for that, I thought it was best to keep them apart til she was done. She has wood based litter at the moment, I didn't know there was kitten litter.

She's so loving, and holding her with the engine going is just the best thing ever😀

I think the spaying/neutering advice is more for adult cats, but saying that we've had entire cats and neutered cats together (rescues while waiting for surgery) and it's never been a problem.

Thanks cinnamon. We've never had more than one cat at a time before, and it's not been the odd hiss that has been concerning me so much as what the older one might do to a tiny kitten. But I'm glad it should work out. What breed would you think she is?