Hi Everyone,
First I want o say that I picked Cooper up Yesterday. He is so tiny and cute at 3months. He is so snuggly. He seems to have settled in and is a lot more curious than Charlie was at 6m when we brought him home.
I am feeling so discouraged right now - Charlie is mad. Growling, hissing stalking Cooper mad. He's turned into a monster from this nice calm laid back cat. I set Cooper up in the spare room with his food and litter. When I can't be watching the two of them I put Cooper in there. This morning Cooper was on the bed with me and Charlie jumped up onto a bench that we have at the end of the bed. He then lunged at Cooper - Cooper got so scared he wet the bed. Now I am doing laundry at 8:00am Sunday morning.
I am trying to give both their own time. I got up early and gave Charlie his treats and played with him. He is starting to get mad at me as well. Running away when I try to pet him.
I guess I need some advice and encouragement that this will all work out and that Charlie won't kill Cooper.
Have I been letting them spend too much time together? I feel bad leaving Cooper in the spare room.
Tomorrow I will have to go to work and I think it is probably best to leave Cooper in the spare room for the day.
Thank you for your help.
Well there are quite a few threads concering introducing a kitten to the resident cat - most of them advise a slow introduction - a lot more slowly than you have done now.
Keeping the kitten in the save room, exchanging bedding for them to get the others smell and so on. The way your Charlie reacts I'd say it's best to start over with a very slow introduction, just give it a try with the search, you'll find heaps of helpful information!
Don't be disheartened, Charlie will get used to the new Kitten in time I'm sure, be patient, don't let them feel you're stressed by the situation.
Sorry to hear that your babies are having such a hard time adjusting to each other! I brought a new kitten home last week as well, but luckily my kids adjusted quickly, within a couple of days. Instead of giving both cats my attention equally, I lavished all my attention on Lalo, my first. It worked for me since Zoey was more interested in the older cat than the new human anyway. She was also not allowed in our bedroom the first few days, as I figured that would be the room Lalo would be territorial of most. (I made the husband sleep on the couch to keep an eye on Zoey lol)
Lalo still pouted for a day or so, but when he realized he was still top cat and that the kitten is fun to play with, he stopped pouting. A few nights ago he started grooming her and allowed her to sleep curled up next to him (before that he actually hind leg kicked her off the couch when she tried to get close!), and now he doesn't mind if I pet Zoey, because he realizes she's not replacing him.
But even though Lalo didn't like Zoey being here, he wasn't aggressive like Charlie is to Cooper. So I think in your case keeping Cooper separated is probably a good idea. Here's a link to an article that might help:
http://www.humanesociety.org/animals/cat...w_cat.html
Good luck, and hope they start getting along soon!
I find that it went much better with complete seperation until they were ready to be introduced. I kept Dexter completely quarantined in our master bedroom/bathroom. For the first few days they could only sniff each other through the door. For the first few face to face meetings, Dexter was in a pen in the bathroom. Slowly I would let Katie into the room and they didn't like it, with hissing and spitting on both sides but slowly they wanted to investigate each other.
I find another reason that it worked well was because with Dexter in the bedroom only, I spent tons of one on one time with him and we bonded intensely. Meanwhile, when I wasn't in the room with Dexter I was giving Katie much one on one attention outside the bedroom so that she would know she was still "my" girl.
It over two weeks before the doors were opened and they were allowed to interact and at first it was slow approaching each other with growling. I was very anxious when I allowed them to be together and because I think they were feeding off my anxiety, I finally let them alone and they worked it out within a very short period of time.
I think that you should move them to different areas now and really sloooooooooow the process down.
I am tickled that in such a short period, Dexter and Katie are now always together and they both seek me out all the time for loves and cuddles. Much good luck to you and Cooper and Charlie!
Hi Miss Jad & congrats on the new baby! I can certainly sympathize with you. I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown when we brought our kitten home and I saw the way Menou reacted.
I didn't know he could sound so violent. I'm not sure he would actually have become violent with the kitten b/c we never gave him the chance, but the growls that came out of him scared me. I read that the resident cat isn't upset with the new kitten, but at the strange new smell. Don't know if this is accurate information or not. I certainly would keep baby Cooper safely locked away from Charlie while you are gone, and go slowly with the introductions.
Have you posted any pictures since you have Cooper home? I can't wait to see.
I feel for you...I made the biggest mistake when we brought Leo home...it was late so I slept in the computer room/cats room on the futon with the baby...and closed the door-letting Chloe the older cat have run of the house. The next day Chloe wouldn't go in the computer room at all-I guess b/c the new smells. I hated it, but we put Leo in our bathroom and I would spend so much time in there keeping him company. Chloe was interested a little and smell under the door. Meanwhile I spray Feliway in the computer room and she started to go back in. After two days in the bathroom-we let them meet. My hubby read somewhere about putting baby powder on both cats so they smelled the same-we did-we think it did help. But my beautiful Chloe got so UGLY-spitting, hissing, swatting etc...so as awful as it is, I guess it is natural. By end of day 2 or so-we let Leo out and kept a close eye on them and let them both free for short periods. When we went to work, we let Leo have our room/and bathroom and just closed the door and Chloe had the rest of the house. It didn't take that long-but I can remember crying-thinking what did we do??? Just know-it won't last forever. Good luck-looking forward to an update of a calm home.
Thanks everbody for your comments. Things are starting to settle down. I keep Cooper in the spare room during the day when at work and at night while sleeping. I feel so bad for the little guy being all alone in there. When Cooper is out after work it seems like they are trying to play with each other. Cooper is fearless. He runs at Charlie and wants him to play. I can't tell if Charlie is happy about this and is playing as well. He doesn't seem to growl as much - after a bit you can tell he is getting cranky and so I seperate them both. This morning while I was gettting ready they were both running after eachother. Charlie had Cooper upside down. Cooper doesn't look like he is getting hurt. He looks quite submissive. Charlie looked like he was being a little too agressive so I picked up Cooper.
Hopefully things will get better. Cooper is so wild. Charlie was calm as a kitten and Cooper is just getting into everything. He as already discover the dirt in the house plants. I have never even seen Charlie look at the plants.
I am getting tired of parenting these two. Hopefully everything calms down soon.
Don't worry, things will get easier and you'll look back and think 'what was I worried about'. It sounds like things are going well if they are running around playing. Even when they are playing you may get some noise from one or another, Jackson squeals like a baby for absolutely no reason when he's playing.
While Cooper is instigating the play you know he's not worried or scared. It sounds like Coooper is a bit more lively than Charlie was as a kitten and that in itself can be hard for you to get used to but he will calm down so don't let it stress you out, just sit back and laugh at his exuberant antics
Poor Cooper!
Don't worry, I'm sure they'll be the best of friends.....eventually! Cats are funny creatures, each copes with change in his/her own way.
Once they are getting along and you don't have to keep Cooper confined to the spare room things should get easier. For the time being, if he is spending that much time on his own, those precious hours in the evening when you are home from work, it only makes sense that he is going 100 miles an hour, I'm sure that he has lots of energy to burn then. Spend as much quality time playing with him as you can then and I'm sure he won't look for so much mischief, but I've found that mischief seems to find them anyway.