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.

  • Lvxferre@mander.xyz
    6·
    5 months ago

    When I adopted Siefrieda, the way that I introduced her and Kika (my older cat; she’s now 16, I think she was 10 back then) was like this:

    • let Frieda in the carrier box. In the living room, so Kika could smell it.
    • let cats each in one part of the house, split by simply closing the doors. In my case it was laudry room + patio vs. the rest of the house.
    • switch the cats twice~thrice a day. That lets them get used to each other’s smell, plus it gives them access to both sides of the house. Typically when I went to sleep Kika would have the main part of the house, as unlike Frieda she was already used to her home.
    • put their food on both sides of a glass door. At first they avoided eating at the same time, but when they were OK with it I knew that they didn’t mind too much each other.
    • open a slid on the glass door, not enough for a cat to pass, but enough for a paw. Let them smell each other “on the live”. When Kika was mildly curious with Frieda instead of aggressive, I knew that I could let them in the same room and they wouldn’t fight.

    Nowadays they aren’t best friends, but let’s say that Kika tolerates Siegfrieda like you’d tolerate a really annoying kid. The only main issue is that only one of them refuses to share a litterbox, but I’m fixing this.