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Old March 4th, 2013, 09:51 PM
xphoenix xphoenix is offline
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older cat not adjusting to kitten

Hi everyone I'm new.
I had two cats, one male older cat and one female kitten. They lived together for 5 years before the older male died. That female kitten (now 5) has lived her entire life with another cat so far.
When the old guy passed, my female started becoming incredibly needy. Waking me up every night at 1 am and continuing to meow/nudge me/paw at me until I got up for work at 4 am.
I couldn't do this anymore so I got her a kitten thinking she needed a friend. I adopted a little 8 week old female and my older cat does NOT like her.
Makes me sad because we can't all hang out and play and sleep together.. the new kitten also needs a lot of attention and I feel like I'm cutting my older female out sometimes...
is there any advice out there? I'm feeling sad and discouraged that they aren't best friends. I was reading about swapping their bedding which I will try.. and I read someone suggested putting the kitten in a room or cage to sleep at night, but what do you do if the kitten cries and meows while segregated? It's heartbreaking.
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Old March 5th, 2013, 08:34 AM
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sugarcatmom sugarcatmom is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by xphoenix View Post
I adopted a little 8 week old female and my older cat does NOT like her.
Not that unusual.... many adult cats don't like kittens. How did you introduce them? How does you older kitty behave towards the kitten?

http://www.wvcats.com/integrating_kittens_with_cats.htm
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Old March 5th, 2013, 10:56 PM
xphoenix xphoenix is offline
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Unhappy

Well I set the kitten up in the bathroom because she was very uneasy about the change at first. my older cat saw her in the carrier when I first brought her in but then had little to no contact with her for a couple days.
Now my older cat will just stare and watch her and when the kitten tries to get close my older cat will hiss and recently started swatting and charging.
My dream is they will become best friends but I guess I will have to get used to the idea that maybe they will just tolerate each other.
this might sound weird, but I also feel like my older cat feels betrayed or something. She used to sleep with me and now its like she has just laid claim to the living room. I sort of feel like a bad pet owner. Like maybe she feels replaced or my affections are now being spent on another cat. makes me sad
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Old March 5th, 2013, 10:58 PM
xphoenix xphoenix is offline
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you say many adult cats don't like kittens.. is there hope my adult cat might enjoy the kitten more once she is older? I was also getting flack from people saying it was a bad idea to get another female.. is there any validity to that?
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Old March 6th, 2013, 01:10 PM
Jim Hall Jim Hall is offline
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well make sure you give the older one plenty of attention
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Old March 6th, 2013, 01:49 PM
pattymac pattymac is offline
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when I brought Noella in to my place with 3 older cats it went pretty well. I her separated for about a week until she settled and went to the vet. Now we didn't have much in the line of problems as far as getting along went. Probably cause Noella is the only girlie. She was a little pain in the butt cause pretty much as soon as I brought her in the house, she went into heat!! Maybe that helped, I don't really know. The first few days, she could come in for a little while then she'd go back in the porch to give everyone a break. That's pretty much what I did each time I brought in another cat. Worked very well, even with introducing adult males. Nino was my biggest challenge so we had to put up with the arguments, lots of noise and smacking but never any blood drawn. You could try some pheromone spray Feliway or something like that, you can also get collars that have calming herbs and pheromones in them. I used the collars for Nino and they worked really well.
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Old March 7th, 2013, 08:41 AM
xphoenix xphoenix is offline
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thanks for all the advice everyone.. I guess I'll just have to wait it out.. I try to give my older cat attention but she makes it difficult because the kitten is always underfoot. *sigh*
hopefully they'll get along soon.. maybe I should get a bigger place..
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