Our new addition!

[Melon2312]

We picked up our new rescue cat Ella yesterday! She’s 2 years old but tiny as she had kittens when she was very young which caused her growth to be stunted 😢.

She’s a super friendly girl and has settled in with ease, but she’s confined to the spare room at the moment as we have to slowly introduce her to our other cat Jasmine, who is 12. So far Jasmine has hissed and growled a little through the door when she realised someone was in there, but I gave her plenty of affection and treats and she’s not done it again since. Will probably let them see each other through a mesh stair gate tomorrow, fingers crossed all goes well but I’ll keep you posted as I know some of you were interested in the knowing how it went.

Pics of Ella (ginger) and Jasmine (brown)

Typical, just when I thought we were getting somewhere, this morning I let Ella out for a bit as she’d been scratching at the door to be let out since 5am bless her, but jasmine was quite aggressive and went for her a couple of times. I was able to separate them before it turned into a full on fight but so gutted as I really thought she was getting used to her. Any reassurance that it will still be ok appreciated please! 🙏

You're going way, way, way too fast.

Jasmine has shown so many signs of being unhappy yet instead of listening to her, you seem to be doing the total opposite

You need to go right back to the beginning and don't even let them catch sight of each other yet. They both need to decompress and be introduced properly. The more you rush this, the more likely it is to fail.

I’m honestly trying my best, just really struggling with how to keep them both happy, I feel so bad for Ella. And if I just keep her in her room then surely Jasmine will just think that’s where she’s going to stay, and will still react in the same way whenever I do eventually let her out again?

I really do want to get this right believe me, but it’s not easy.

By separating them again, you give them both a chance to decompress and get used to each other without any risk of confrontation.

You need to get to the stage where you can reliably feed both of them on opposite sides of a closed door without any aggression or fear from Jasmine before you let them see each other.

The more you rush, the more risk there is that they will fight and I hate to say it, but once cats start to fight properly, it can be almost impossible to get them to a point where they will accept each other again.

@Melon2312 you got your cat the day before I got mine. I'm having similar issues. Have you got Feliway friends plug in? I had Feliway optimum, but swapped to the Friends one. And it's really helped. It really hard to be patient, and I also have a lot of gilt about my resident cat. But this was them this morning.

I have totally gone toofast. But Pads was having none of being shut in the spare room.

@Toddlerteaplease i have the feliway optimum, might have to give the friends one a try then.

ella is exactly the same about being shut in, she keeps slipping past me when I go in to see her, she’s got so much energy she needs to burn off! But I’m going to follow @fieldsofbutterflies advice and go back a step, as really don’t want this to fail.

@Melon2312 is it possible to shut Jasmine elsewhere to give Ella a bit more freedom?

@fieldsofbutterflies yes I have done that once or twice already, do you think that’s a good idea then? If jasmine is happily sleeping on the sofa then she shouldn’t object too much to me closing the doors for a bit.

As long as they can't see each other I can't see it being an issue - it'll give Ella a chance to explore and Jasmine can hopefully get used to her scent a bit too.

@fieldsofbutterflies when you say to get them eating either side of the door, does that mean their main food or does treats count? Only jasmine normally eats downstairs and is very much a grazer, so I imagine she’d be quite confused if I suddenly move her food bowl?

Your cats are gorgeous.

We took a different approach. The age difference between our 2 cats is much less and I have heard it is more difficult to integrate an older cat with a younger one. However we didn't seperate them at all from day 1.

We had a cat that was 2, and then rescued a 5 month old kitten. We just put them straight into the same room as soon as we brought the kitten home. Resident cat wasn't happy at first, he hissed, sulked, hid away and hated me for a while.

After a couple of weeks though they were play fighting and the older cat had started to tolerate the kitten. It only took about a month for them to be fully comfortable with each other ,now they are always play fighting and will sit together with no issues.

Looking for some morale support please! I’ve kept the two cats separate since Tuesday now, and have been giving them treats either side of a door every evening. Jasmine is still hissing and growling at the door when she hears Ella on the other side. I’m going to keep going but how long do I give it? If there’s been no change in another week, then what?

It can take several months for some cats unfortunately, and as you've already had a scrap, it could even take longer than that.

My attempts are also not going well. Penelope is on Gabapentin to chill her out.

@Toddlerteaplease oh dear, have you still got them both in the same space or have you separated them?

@fieldsofbutterflies is if fair to keep Ella cooped up for that long? I don’t know what to do for the best 😫I am letting her have a run around at least once a day while jasmine is shut in another room, and obviously try and spend as much time with her as possible but I still feel so guilty.

Separate ahain. Penelope has the rub of the house. And Paddington is confined to the lounge. My house is tiny, so it's tricky. His crying to be let out is heart rending

@Toddlerteaplease its so hard isn’t it, Ella scratches at the door.

I knew it wouldn’t be easy but didn’t expect it to be this hard.

Me neither, and there is a real possibility that Penelope just won't cope with him. She can't stay on gabapentin for good.

Jackson Galaxy on You Tube gives some great advice about introducing cats. We followed his advice but, even so, older cat did not appreciate the new addition at all! But they have got through it. They are not great friends a year later but they mutually tolerate each other and even occasionally sleep on the bed together. So it has worked out OK.

You just need oodles of patience, to be prepared to start all over again, and to take things very slowly.

I kept Cat Three seperate for three months, and there was still hissing and growling. The advice I got here was to let them get on with it, and they worked it out quite quickly. Cat Two was still swiping him if he got too close for a month after that, but they’re all good now. He’s been with us for two years now.
Jasmine’s just pissed off there’s another cat in her territory. She’ll settle.
Take turns closing one in a room and having the other roam. Put Jasmine’s treats further away from the door, and move them closer slowly.
Get a baby gate so you can divide the house into Jasmine/Ella territory and swap them over every week for a month.
It’s stressful. We have cats so they can be happy and it’s awful when they’re not.
Be patient, enjoy Ella and try not to worry.

@learieonthewildmoor we have a baby gate but that only works under supervision as Ella can quite easily leap over it! My dad bless his has offered to make a temporary mesh door frame type thing so they can see each other but not get at each other, without us having to supervise. So might give that a go in another week or so.

it’s definitely tempting to try the let them just get on with it technique. But it seems to go against most of the advice?

I’m just worried about how I’ll know if it’s ever going to work or not. Like would Ella be better off going back to the rescue so she can have another chance without a grumpy resident cat? I don’t want to give up on her but at the same time don’t want to make jasmine unhappy indefinitely either 😢

The mesh door will be perfect. I only let my three be together after three months of scent swapping, room swapping, feeding at either side of the door, and separating the house.
You have to do what feels right. If you feel it’s too much stress for Jasmine, Ella will find a home really quickly because she’s adorable.
I felt I couldn’t give up Cat Three. He was six when we found him, and shelters are full of older cats here. He would have been so scared and unhappy, I worried no-one would discover what an absolute sweetheart he is, so I persevered. Cat Two has really only accepted him this year, and he’s been with us two years.

Bit worries about Ella today, I was out at work all day and when I came home she didn’t seem her usual self. Still purring as usual but normally she’d be trying to slip out the door as soon as I open it and she didn’t, and she didn’t seem very interested in playing which she normally is.

Not sure if I should be worried or not? She did have her vaccination on Monday so don’t know if it could be side effect from that, although she was fine yesterday. Still eating as normal.

any advice please?

Can you put Jasmine in one room for a longer period of time (perhaps when she'd normally sleep) and let Ella have free roam for a decent period of time?

I hate to say it but it could be that she's a bit depressed being shut up on her own all day.