Hello, I hope it’s ok to not post a picture, I’m quite a mess right now. I lack sleep, and I’m stressed, and just stopping panicking, lying down to write this and sleep.
I just brought home, on somewhat of a whim, the goodest and most communicative little boy cat from the street (he looks around or less than 6 months).
And I already have a lovely, cranky, scaredy cat of a 6 year old lady (sterilised).
I made the assumed mistake of letting them meet face to face as soon as I unlocked the door to the apartment.
Anya (old lady cat) froze, and left, scared, and went to her room with her litterbox, and has stayed there since.
The Boy, I left a bit around the apartment, to make sure he actually wants to stay instead of going back to the street (he loves it), took him outside and back once so he could emergency shit because he didn’t like the sand in the second litterbox I prepared (maybe too little, I’ll get more tomorrow), and now I’ve closed him in the WC, with a good-sized box with his new fluffy blanket, food and water for a day, and the insufficient but untouched litterbox. And he is very happy in his box, in the closed room.
But in between all that, were the incidents:
A couple of times, The Boy went into Anya’s room, found her, sat far away, curled his tail around his feets, and slow-blinked at her. She was not accepting. Deep-mewls, staying as far as possible (cornered), raised hairs on tail, tail circling around her side not touching her body, lowered ears, wide eyes.
He respected the distance.
I put him in the bathroom, closed the door, put her food outside the door to the bathroom. Left him to relax (he is, he is fine). Sat with her in her room for half an hour, so she would relax. She did a bit. Still hasn’t left her room, but came for pets after a while, in her room.
So. Given how unprepared I am for this, and how much I love both kittens, what tips do you have for me? What to be careful of?
The situation is not ideal. Is there any condition, where I should be prepared to send The Boy to be an outside cat, for the better of everyone?
I’m dying of sleepiness, ask anything, and any help is welcome. Thank you so much for even reading all this. Now I’m gonna sleep, and I’ll be back in the morning.
Yeah you really did not introduce them the right way. You should start over and do it properly, but first you should take him to the vet to get checked for contagious diseases that can be fatal to cats as you would not want to spread it to yours. They can also check for a microchip in case he is a lost pet.
After that, you need to set aside a room that is not important or favoured by your cat Anya, and designate that as his room. You should also give Anya a space where he is not allowed to go at all so she feels she has a safe space from the intruder. Here is some instructions how to do this properly, it may take weeks or longer for them both to be comfortable:
https://spca.bc.ca/faqs/how-introduce-new-cat-old-cat/
There are lots of similar instructions available. But you always start with them separate, then bring them something with the scent of the other one like a blanket (not pee or litterbox), then allow brief visual contact with a barrier, allow them to explore eachothers space when the other one is confined somewhere else, and then allow them to meet and interact while supervised, then allow them to interact unsupervised. Each stage can take anywhere from hours to weeks, but you cannot proceed to the next step until they are both completely comfortable. Cats are easily stressed at times and can stop eating or peeing and this can cause serious harm to their health or even be fatal.