This is much harder than I expected...

[grunau_baby]

Cat-status:

After the death of our Berta the remaining resident cat became fat, lazy, spoiled and looked depressed and all this after only one week of solitude!

We decided that this cannot be the further life of our cat. We went to the shelter and got a new companion. We call her Neko (japanese for cat) - she does not listen to it yet;-) - a cat who seemd to have minor alpha behaviour and being much younger than the resident cat. She´s sweet and kept back enough not to threaten our "highness" too much.

BUT it became hell in here: after it seemed fine on the first day now the resident cat keeps getting very very upset (vomiting out of stress) and keeps attacking and often even "hunting" the newcomer. At least they did not kill each other yet I have hope they will get along, but this will take some time and it´s just sad to see the harsh antagonism here. While at work we will have to separate them at first...

I hope this turns out allright and the newbie can stay for good. We will have to give both animals a few weeks to see if it really works out, I guess. Wish us luck! At least our cat is not depressed anymore. She has bigger problems now

Alex

[harleyman]

awwww .. that is typical...

We have kenneled one before just for protection while they get aquainted..

its hard to watch when they are getting physically in anguish over a newcomer..Give it time..They will learn..I hope ..

But Use a kennel so they can see and cheak each other out..Seperating them into different rooms makes them resentful od each other

Best of luck

[Lionheart]

Mom has a few cats that she has rescued over the years. Always there was a few problems when integrating a new 'rescuey' into the 'herd'. They all get along now. Sometimes there is an argument, but they can live on seperate sides of the house. They get along, bottom line, but do have arguments.



Bill

[GT182]

Alex, I have 2 you can have. One hides all day.... messed up in the noggin, and the other is a big ol loveable lap cat. Bertha the lap cat is a blue-eyed Siamese/Tiger mix. CeeCee is a pretty brown and tan, but just a scaredy cat.

[r678idtyj]

You most likely know that, but don't forget to give *a lot* more attention to "original cat" while this is taking place. The vomiting and hostility sounds like classic jealousy, once you've reassured him that he still has the same standing in the house, things should get better.

[Toastmaker]

This will pass. It is just a function of your older cat's territorial instincts.

[Duckie]

awwww .. that is typical...

We have kenneled one before just for protection while they get aquainted..

its hard to watch when they are getting physically in anguish over a newcomer..Give it time..They will learn..I hope ..

But Use a kennel so they can see and cheak each other out..Seperating them into different rooms makes them resentful od each other

Best of luck

Like harleyman, we also used the kennel approach with our rescued "Sophie". We are fortunate in that our basement is finished and that became Sophie's temporary home while we "introduced" her to the old king, "Kasey", after his sister, "Kelcie" died. Kelcie was 18 when she died, peacefully from old age.

We would bring Sophie up to our den in her kennel for a couple hours every day for a couple of weeks. That's how long it took for Casey to ignore Sophie in her kennel except of the obligatory sniff.

The day finally came when we opened the kennel. Sophie was hesitant at first but Kasey was totally not interested. She finally decided to immerge and THEN Kasey got interested! But after some hissing and spitting Sophie just lay down, bowing to the king, and that was that.

They lived happily together, respecting each other’s space, with only the occasional spat. Casey died a couple years ago at age 23. His last month or so was a struggle for him... (and us). We had him checked by our vet and she told us he was not in pain and that as long he was still able to eat and drink and "other things", there was no need to consider alternatives.

Sophie has adjusted pretty well to being a single cat who has inherited a family all to herself. She is still active and seems happy.

grunau_baby, I hope your situation will eventually work out. I believe it will. Just remember, as cat people, they are not our cats, we are their people! They tend to work things out on their on schedule, not ours!

Hang in there g_baby!

Duckie

[Henry]

i have 4 cats and 3 dogs all in the house
they get used to each other
mind you three of the cats gang up on the other one
every now and again
but the dogs protect her
yup i live in a zoo
the strange thing is if the dogs see a cat outside they go crazy
jumping up at the windows or if its in the back yard
chasing them away.
I never put a cat in a different room and close it off
they will get territorial to that room and
protect it
i do feed the cats in different rooms because they will fight
each other then
H

[grunau_baby]

It´s actually getting better by the hour, but it´s the typical cat-drawbacks that are hard to judge and hard to bear. They start ignoring each other a lot meanwhile sitting even quite close to each other without any threatening, but there´s still harsh rivallry when it comes to feeding. But we will get through this I believe.

Even if they do not love each other at first sight - which I did not expect at all - they will get allong and will define their individual places and status. No kenneling here, since there enough hiding spaces to avoid each other. This seems to work out.

Alex

[HouseHobbit]

Yes this is conpletely normal for cats to Have to get used to each other..
I have had to deal with this also..
Now I have one kat "Katastrophe", but when I have had to save a abandoned cat or two, there always were problems in all of this..
But as said give them time and a chance to get used to each other they will work it out..
Pity some humans can't learn this same lesson..