[despec]

Hello,

The wife and I are trying to save a male Tortoise cat from an unliveable situation at her suster's house, where four dogs are making his life miserable. Kitz (his name) has a history of getting along with dogs that can get along with him and has lived with other cats.

Our concerns are probably obvious to some here. The two brothers, Rosco and Groucho, have been living with us since kitten-hood and are now almost eight-years-old. We're concerned that the introduction of another male cat (fyi: the brothers and Kitz are altered) to our Rosco and Groucho may cause a violent reaction in them as another cat "invades" their territory. We're concerned that they may "gang" up on the new kit and make his living situation as miserable as it is already (we have a dog, but I don't believe he will cause much of a problem).

What can we do to make the introduction go as smoothly as possible? Of course, we realize there is going to be some initial spats, but I want to prevent "spats" that lead to irreconcilable differences between the cats. Any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

David

 

[marijun]

many experts say to do a "slow introduction" kind of thing, like keeping the new kitty in a room and bringing him out to introduce them over time, but i've never personally tried it.

i recently had a friend move in who has 3 cats. we thought it wasn't going to go over well with any of the 6 cats. it was a 13 hour drive to get his cats here, so the last thing we wanted to do was lock them in another room in a strange place. so we just opened up their carriers and let em roam free with my cats. there was some of hissing and swatting and hiding the first few days, but they've adjusted nicely. its been about 2 weeks now. they've been playing together and everything.

there hasn't really been any spats or attacks. yesterday, chester must have been in a bad mood because he pounced on lint and reeko. but my friend said sometimes he's just like that, so its probably not that big of a deal. i picked chester up to try and soothe him and he bit me :lol: so i gave him some catnip instead. he was happy after that.

 

[drjean]

Your friend was lucky...in most cases it's best to go for the gradual introduction. We have a couple of articles on this in our free article library, http://www.littlebigcat.com/index.php?action=library - especially see "base camp" and "cat-to-cat introductions."

Gender doesn't really make much difference, so don't stress about him being a boy.

Cheers,
Dr. Jean