Introducing resident cat to a new kitten

[callmedave]

We have had a cat for maybe 9 month now. She's settled well and is not a very affectionate cat, fairly calm, just not one that would ever jump on your lap.
We plan that get a kitten, (also female) are there and do's and dont's people recommend?

Are we best to keep the kitten in a separate room to get used to us and its surroundings before the introduction?
Or in the cat box in the same room?

Or any other suggestions?

[bexVN]

http://www.icatcare.org/advice/how-introduce-kitte...

This maybe a bit lazy on.my part but honestly this website is excellent for anything cat behaviour related!

The above link is directly to their guide on introducing a kitten to a resident cat

[S800VXR]

We recently did exactly this although the kitten was blind. Kept them in different parts of the house as both indoor cats. Let the older cat see the kitten under supervision for short periods of time and did this over 5 weeks. Seems a long time but they now get on great! Also have 2 litter trays to start with, we still have 2 now but that's because the blind cat can use either since she has grown up with both although they primarily use the upstairs one 90% of the time.

We also had to integrate 2 dogs, one being a British Bully bolshie bh and whilst she loves cats she hates rodents and a Sphynx kitten looks awfully like a nasty rodent for the first 4 weeks we had her!!

They all love each other now but we did put allot of effort into the integration as work at the start yields results long term.

Just think weeks rather than days to integrate.

[callmedave]

Hi,

We bought our new kitten called 'ghost' home





and at first our resident cat 'spooky' was not happy she would hiss, growl and swipe at spooky


We seperated the cats, the kitten in our room with food and litter etc, spooky has the rest of the house, we slowly introduced ghosts scent to spooky, using the cat toys, clothes etc. and after a few days spooky calmed down and started to accept the new cat, now we have two cats who are friends and play together great



This has turned out brilliantly and the cats are getting along great, sharing food & playing together a lot!

[Patch1875]

Beautiful kitten, great that they are getting on. We did the same getting Hamish when Max was 9 months. Took only a few days now they are inseparable.

Love this picture of them after a few days.



Now, Hamish is 8 months.

[bexVN]

Aww, brilliant .
Did you look at the link at all out of interest.

[callmedave]

bexVN said:

Aww, brilliant .
Did you look at the link at all out of interest.

Yeah, forgot to thank you for that. Some handy tips.