Terrified new cat…have we made a mistake?

[CatCatastrophe]

We brought home a new rescue cat yesterday to join our existing two cats.

it was a home-to-home rescue so I’d met the cat before in its previous home and had a good chat with its owner so I felt pretty sure we had got the kind of chilled out, confident cat that would settle easily.

We’ve got him home (into a quiet room away from our other cats), he’s gone straight under the sofa, is growling and hissing at us and hasn’t moved an inch (not even come out overnight).

What can we do to help him settle and can anyone reassure me that this will get better?

My rescue cat was the same, sorry to be negative, but hasn't improved much after 8 years.
It depends on the cat's personality and his experiences I think.
He was a homeless street cat for 2 years so it's understandable.
Even now he's always on guard, is aloof and can be reactive and nasty.
Our bond is definitely affected.
I do feel sad for him though

My current cats were absolutely terrified when they first got here, and hid behind cupboards for a couple of months. They had basically been in a single room with their owner all their lives, and were pretty traumatised by the change.
We used to lie on the bed in silence and dark and wait for them to come out and slowly they would talk to us. Now you can't shut them up, and boy cat especially is incredibly demanding for attention. However our previous record for a cat deciding humans were OK was 15 years, so we were happy to be patient

One of mine wouldn’t come out of the carrier for 2 days and then came out and slept in the litter tray which broke my heart. I spent lots of time in the room sat on the floor chatting to him, offering Dreamies.

My husband went in on day 3 and expecting the same, to find a cat that marched across the room, demanded he sit down, climbed on for a cuddle and then gave such strong headbumps he gave DH a nosebleed…. He’s been that way ever since, demanding cuddles and has given both of us several nosebleeds with his very enthusiastic facebumping!

My Lola lived under the sofa for literally 5 years. After another 8 or so, she finally decided to trust us fully and now she's very sweet in her advanced old age. Your cat is doing fine, so don't worry!

We've generally had confident breeder's cats, so not much experience of the more timid, but how about chilling in the room with him, don't interact with him unless he's interested but just sit in a comfy spot, reading a book aloud in a calm voice, so then he can get used to your voice and can approach in his own time if he wants to

If he comes over you could pop a couple of dreamies by him and tell him calmly how clever he is, only if he comes right up to you would I try and give him a light stroke with my hand

Has he got a safe space? If so I'd be inclined for a day or 2 to put his water and food by it so at least if he doesn't feel confident he's still able to have a drink and get some food

He's emerged from under the sofa! We've had purring and head boops today and he's been exploring his room. We had a tiny bit of hissing yesterday but it was pretty half-hearted.

He's still a little wary of noises, particularly household noises outside the room but he seems much much more settled than a couple of days ago.

Aw what a lovely update 🥰

And in another exciting update...our very friendly tom cat has been sitting on the other side of the door to the room with the new cat in and they've both been chirping at each other. 😍

Yey!!! Oh how lovely!

That’s brilliant!

I didn’t see my current foster cat for the first 2 days. Now she sleeps next to me at night with her head on the other pillow & shouts at me if she thinks she’s not getting enough attention.

I second guessed myself terribly after adopting our third cat 10 weeks ago. He's an adorable big softie, but my other two were not happy! The eldest girl already dislikes our second girl, for nearly 2 years now, but they can tolerate each other. Elder was hissing at new boy, younger was growling.

When boy backed off a couple of times, younger girl realised he's not a threat, and she is still Queen Bee, they've made firm friends with each other! They love to chase and wrestle!

Things can change very quickly. It sounds as if everything's going in the right direction @CatCatastrophe!

Our last cat was an only. He hated cats!!

My old kitten came to me aged 5 months old and hid in the box room for ages… my DM and stepdad came round to see him as I was at work all day most days then.

He hid in my box room under a church bench seat for 2 weeks. Was fine in the end.

Brilliant news!😺

Sounds like things are going well. If it helps, we had to rehome our extremely confident, outgoing cat when we had to move at short notice and he disappeared in the new people's (a work colleague so I got regular updates) house. They found him in a gap just big enough for a mouse, not a whopping great adult cat! Eventually he came out of his own accord, after 3 or 4 days but still hid a bit.

Within 2 weeks of moving in, not only was he back to his confident self but he had the entire family trained to tend to his every whim and he ruled their household the rest of his life.

I still miss him now and we rehomed him nearly 30 years ago, he was the most amazing cat ever.