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Antisocial pussy

dodgem

dodgem

dodgem

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Joined
14 Jan 2004
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1,518
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Wiltshire
Ok ok, so i dragged you in here with the expectation of obnoxious and annoying women, but this is about my cat!

Yesterday i went and picked up a new addition, a little fella named Albert... :D

albert.JPG


He's nice as pie. Playful and cuddly, but the problem is with my other cat, Guinevere. Guinevere (infact a boy cat) is about 9 years old now, and just doesn't seem willing to accept Albert. When she (yes i know it should say "he", but it's stuck now) first saw him her eyes went like saucers and she just stared. Since then, she has been slightly more relaxed, but any time he is near, her tail switches back and forth and she is obviously nervous. If i try and stroke her when he's too close she panics and wriggles away, presumably to be ready for a fight (or flight).

Currently, Albert is asleep on a chair next to me, and Guin is asleep on the desk in front of my keyboard. Last night, Albert slept on our bed (though my gf is away at the mo), and Guin slept on the floor near the bed (she rarely comes on the bed).

So, Albert has only been in the house about 24 hours. How long will it be before Guin accepts him, and what can i do to help? Any suggestions?
 
My wife has two cats. I have one (the venerable Lord Splodge) and for the last 11 years he has had very little to do with my wife's cats and vice versa. He's happ and they're happy (no fights) so I never got too worried about him being a loner.
 
had a similar situation where we had an elder cat and got a kitten. took about 3 months for the elder cat to accept the kitten and she never really did, more tolerated her mostly though they did get on for the best part but there were fights in the early days. they're both dead now :( but one thing i do remember was the elder cat never used to meaow and i mean i must have heard her meaow once in the 12 years we had her up until we got the kitten but the kitten meaowed a lot from the word go and the elder one cottoned on to this as a good way to get food and used to meaow just as much towards the end. was fun times but the kitten got ran over after a year , i remember driving past her on the way to work and having to go back home and get a shovel as i literally had to scrape her off the road so my younger brother or sister didn't see :(
 
When my cat Charlie had been to the vets he picked up a different scent that his sister didn't like, they hissed at each other and gave the occasional paw to the face. Play with them, get them to concentrate on something else and bring them together with a toy (string, ball or even a Friji milkshake lid - cat has hundreds of them around the house LOL) :p
 
our older cat and kitten still have a go at each other every now and then, they been together almost a year. its a lot better than it was.

thundercat the older cat has always been grumpy but they tolerate each other now, they sleep withing a foot of each other on the bed and sniff each other ok but any more and thunder doesnt like it.

i doubt they will ever be best of friends, just learn to live together.
 
cm1179 said:
had a similar situation where we had an elder cat and got a kitten. took about 3 months for the elder cat to accept the kitten and she never really did, more tolerated her mostly though they did get on for the best part but there were fights in the early days. they're both dead now :( but one thing i do remember was the elder cat never used to meaow and i mean i must have heard her meaow once in the 12 years we had her up until we got the kitten but the kitten meaowed a lot from the word go and the elder one cottoned on to this as a good way to get food and used to meaow just as much towards the end. was fun times but the kitten got ran over after a year , i remember driving past her on the way to work and having to go back home and get a shovel as i literally had to scrape her off the road so my younger brother or sister didn't see :(
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Aww, that's sad :(

Guin didn't used to meaow much either actually, but she has become much more vocal in the last 6 months or so, don't know where she picked it up from.. She's really chatty now though - it's nice :) I have heard of the idea of shutting them both in a room - might work with these 2. Only problem is that we are having some major work done on our house (as you can see from the photo, things are a little rough right now) so there is no room where we can safely shut them up together. Actually, aside from the external doors, we only have 2 doors in the house at the mo, one on the bathroom, and one on a spare room which is FULL of stuff from downstairs!
 
Lovely looking kittie by the way... when I had to consider rehoming my cat to my parents who already had a cat, a lot of online content on google suggests they shouldn't be put together immediately, rather the new one 'contained' within a room so the older cat can get used to the scent of a cat present in the house. After a few days eventually leave them to it. Of course, it depends on the layout of your house.

In the end my mate kept my cat - which was win win. He loved her, she loved the house.

edit - on a side note as I didn't see your reply before I posted... if you are having major work done (also looks in the picture to be very dusty from the work) why did you choose now to get a cat and not to wait? Simple curiosity to be honest.
 
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dodgem said:
How long will it be before Guin accepts him, and what can i do to help? Any suggestions?
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How long is a piece of string?

It all depends on the cats, it might take a few days, few weeks, few months... or they might never get on and stay away from each other (like my two old cats).

To help them, feed them with their bowls next to each other, if it's Guinevere who's stressed out then stroke him and talk in a soothing voice when Albert is near him.

You could try getting a cloth and wiping Albert over with it (to get his scent on it) then rub Guinevere with the same cloth so he gets used to the smell. Do it vice-versa too so that some of Guin's smell is on Albert as well, and he may be more likely to accept him.

If it goes on longer than a few weeks I'd try a Feliway diffuser - it has pheromones in which supposedly makes cats calmer (though I've never used one).
 
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vicisthebest said:
If it goes on longer than a few weeks I'd try a Feliway diffuser - it has pheromones in which supposedly makes cats calmer (though I've never used one).
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That's a good suggestion - in fact, so was the cloth idea. I was going to buy a feliway to help my cat cope with my moving away for a while. I obviously thought too highly of myself as she couldn't care less :(
 
Ty :) he does look lovely i think - very soft fur!

As for the house, well, the work was meant to be finished some time ago, but these things never seem to go according to plan, especially when i'm doing a lot of the work myself. One of my friends came round and said her cat had had kittens, did we know anyone who wanted one? So we said we did, but had to wait a bit, and get to a point where the house was a bit cleaner. It is now much cleaner than it was! And there shouldn't be too much dust produced from this point on (which my other half is over the moon about!)

What looks like a thick layer of dust on the floor isn't actually dust. It's a screed that was laid 4 days ago, and where i have walked on it in flipflops or bare feet (and this is my theory btw) the oils from the rubber or from my feet have slightly coated the surface and made it harder for the water in the screed to evaporate from those areas - the lighter areas are drier.

Some electrics, plumbing, plastering, and then a whole ****load of decorating to be done, and we will finally get our downstairs back!! :D :D :D

I think i'll try bringing them together with toys - Guin is pretty hard to distract though - a very determined and individual cat!
 
Aye, as said it was mere curiosity. If I was in the same boat I'd no doubt do the same. He is stunning. I try not to enter cat threads because I miss mine and know when I'm back that I'll continue to want to find her a buddy!
 
I'm glad this is a cat thread, virtually every time I go on the internet I mistakenly see filth while searching for live cat chat rooms.
 
vicisthebest said:
How long is a piece of string?

It all depends on the cats, it might take a few days, few weeks, few months... or they might never get on and stay away from each other (like my two old cats).

To help them, feed them with their bowls next to each other, if it's Guinevere who's stressed out then stroke him and talk in a soothing voice when Albert is near him.

You could try getting a cloth and wiping Albert over with it (to get his scent on it) then rub Guinevere with the same cloth so he gets used to the smell. Do it vice-versa too so that some of Guin's smell is on Albert as well, and he may be more likely to accept him.

If it goes on longer than a few weeks I'd try a Feliway diffuser - it has pheromones in which supposedly makes cats calmer (though I've never used one).
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Wow, some excellent suggestions there! :)

I had their bowls way apart for the first day/evening so that Guin wouldn't feel too threatened, but i moved them next to each other this morning (mainly because Albert seems more interested in Guin's food than his own! Thought he might feel 'more grown up' if he eats near her).

Albert just woke up and got on the desk - made a small whine and woke Guin, who went stiff, and despite my stroking and talking to her has just bolted out the room. It's like Guin is scared of Albert tbh! Weird...

I'll definately try the cloth idea, and the diffuser sounds like a good plan - Guin needs to relax around him i think!
 
We adopted a fairly young cat (about 2 years old), at first she would get attacked by our two other cats. However the eldest did start accepting her after a few months and they could happily sit next to one another. The issue was with the younger one (about 6), she never ever accepted her. Up until the day she got ran over there was always fights should they come in contact.

It depends on how territorial they are I suppose.
 
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