New Kitty + Old Kitty
 

I've read a few articles on here about bringing home and introducing a new kitten into a house that already has a cat. I've got my new kitten in the spare bedroom. Yesterday was stressful, as gizmo (my 1 year old) was Not Happy over the intruder. He'd growl and hiss over her smell on me, and the couple times he slipped into the bedroom before I could catch him, he paced around her crate (she's set up in a large dog crate with food, litterbox and toys) growling and hissing. however, this morning, he's been much calmer. No growling when I came out of the room after having played with her. I let him in while she was in the crate, and he just walked around it for a bit watching her sleep. so my question is this: is this real progress, Gizmo accepting the new kitten fairly quickly, or was this just a fluke? I intend to keep her separated until she's been de-wormed and had her first shots, but if this is real progress I'd like to start introducing her to the rest of the apartment as soon as we're done at the vet's.

right now, I have her in her crate but with the bedroom door open, and he's completely ignoring her.

Sounds like things are going pretty well. I brought a kitten into a house with 3 older neutered males and a dog last winter. She spent the first couple of weeks seperated from them and then she started spending short periods of time in the house with everybody. There was a bit of hissing and snarling but not much and they even put up quite well with her going into heat!! I think I took about 2 months total to where she was living in the house 24/7. There's the odd bit of hissing still but that's mostly when she's trying to get the old men to play!! One cat will play and wrestle with her but the other two just hiss and smack her :)

If you take a towel or something you had in the crate with her, and just put it close to where your resident cat spends time, he'll get more used to her smell. Also make sure to have an extra litter box so they each have their own.

I'm hopeful that they'll be close enough in age to be good pals once they're used to each other. Shortly after posting, there was a brief return to the growling, so I closed the door and gave them their spaces back. I've got a large comforter in there with her now, but I'll get a towel or something smaller in with her to get her scent. thanks for the tip!

Hi Jassy. Gizmo is being a bit of a bully, huh? :laughing:
What he is doing is completely normal. He is just posturing. It's what he should be doing. I would be a bit surprised if he [I]didn't[/I] do anything to show his angst. He'll get over it.
He will soon want to play with the baby and you will swear he is killing her if you watch. Dart is doing the same thing with baby Jude here. He puts Jude's whole head in his mouth. Jude lets him know when he gets too rough. Dart lets Jude know too when the shoe is on the other foot.
Just a wee bit of a caution. When you bring the baby back from the vet please do another day or two of intros again. The baby will smell different than before the vet visit and, if she gets shots, she will need the rest away from an exuberant big brother anyway. She's a bit young at six weeks for shots though. Most vets like to wait till they are at least 8 weeks.
Another word of caution for when she gets a little older. She will not have had the "training" she needs on how to play properly being taken away from mom so early. Make sure when you are playing with her you use toys and not your hands or they will look like mince meat. :eek:
Congrats on the new baby!!!

Thank you 14+! I've actually let the two of them have a little face time, since Gizmo had stopped growling and hissing. And he actually groomed her today, I was so shocked since I didn't think he'd warm up to her nearly so quickly. I was just letting them run around the bedroom and they were freaking me out. She is growling and hissing, so I'm thinking she hasn't warmed up to him just yet, and he seemed to be getting irritated with her, and getting rougher and rougher in his play.

Then she started letting me know she's hungry (she's incredibly vocal, holy dog!) so she's back in her room for a snack and hopefully a nap. And he's laying outside her door. But I'm glad to hear that things are going normally, and so far I don't seem to be screwing up too badly. they're going to have to learn to play with each other, I think, since Gizmo was hand-raised and hasn't been around another cat since he was about 8 weeks old. I admit to some nail-biting, thinking about that process.

and btw, any recent pics of Dart? I miss him!

ok, seriously, are you sure this is normal? he had her pinned on her back, and she was growling and hissing and holding all four feet up trying to keep him back, and he just kept darting in and biting her. there's no blood, but it seriously freaked me out.

[QUOTE=jassy3399;1026979]ok, seriously, are you sure this is normal? he had her pinned on her back, and she was growling and hissing and holding all four feet up trying to keep him back, and he just kept darting in and biting her. there's no blood, but it seriously freaked me out.[/QUOTE]

She doesn't sound like [I]she's[/I] ready for a playmate yet. Is he biting her or mouthing? Mouthing looks completely different than biting. You'd see his teeth if he were biting her. Being as she was hand raised as well for the most part she doesn't know how to play with other cats either.
It could be that they were both overstimulated by the time the biting happened if they had been playing together as before. Not a bad idea to separate them after a while of playing. Let them both cool down a bit. No sense in courting trouble. Once she is a little older - three months or so - she will start being able to hold her own against the big brother figure. Even then though I would keep them separate on occasion just for a time away period.

You may have to play a big part in teaching her. Start by letting her play as normal with you but if she gets too rough hiss or move completely away. Mom would do that. Mom would also give a light swat to let the kitten know that behaviour is not acceptable but seeing as our "light swat" would still be stronger than the real moms I wouldn't advocate that.

Dart pics - should have some new ones around somewhere. :D I post pics on the kitties FB page mostly. Just took some new ones of him playing with his little playmate about an hour ago. We'll see what we can do.........