Hi everyone, I hope you can give me some encouragement with my current situation.

We adopted a new 5 months old kitten (Boo) yesterday. He is the friendliest, happiest little chap and withint 2 seconds of his box being open he was wandering around our spare bedroom (his safe room) purring away and playing. He has no fear of anything or anyone and is just wonderful. He is already desperate to explore the rest of our home.

Now, we already have a cat, Bella who is a 4 year old girl. She is very friendy and gets on well with neighbours cats (this is what made us decide to adopt a new one). She is naturally very curious as to who is in the spare room, and has been peeping under the door and hissing occasionally when the new boy comes rght up to the gap.

She seems a little bit solemn, but we have made sure toalways pay attention to her, and she played happily yesterday and slept with us last night.

We are planning on taking things very slowly with them both (as much as Boo would love to run around and make friends straight away, Bella's hissing doesn't affect him in the slightest!) as Bella is such a sweetheart and we don't want to change her character.

I was just a little taken a back with the hissing and spitting, and would like to hear if any of you have introdcued new cats. There is so much conflicting advice online!

Are we best to wait until all under door hissing as subsided before letting them see each other through a slighlty open door crack? Or do you think her seeing his face and size could help to calm her, as he is a lot smaller than her.

You nearly always get the hissing when new cats are introduced. At some point you're going to have to 'go for it' as it's unlikely to stop until they've met formally.

It should be fine.

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Our darling Foxy is now at Rainbow Bridge. R.I.P. little one, you'll always be loved.

Thank you Elmstar.

I think maybe Saturday we'll let them look through a crack in the door. I know that he would just run at her and try and play if we just opened the door, which she will probably mis-interpret.

She seems content to sit on his blanket and play with his toys, so his scent doesn't seem to bother her too much.

It's jsut so difficult to judge as they are all so different.

I tried to follow the advice about keeping them apart etc but then it got such hard work that I decided to let the cats sort things out among themselves. That seemed to work better, the hissing and spitting stopped when they were allowed to sort things out between themselves.

Yep. In my experience, just let em get on with it. They'll sort it out in no time.

Ian.

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"Always turn and look when your cat gazes behind you with that intent look in her eyes. Some day there might actually be something there." - T.S. Eliot

Eeee, I think if we haven't had much improvement in a couple of days we will do.

I just don't want to cause any trauma that can't be undone!

Cats are pretty resilient! I'd just make sure they have their own trays, separate feeding areas and sleeping areas to help avoid conflict. Number one cat is bound to feel a bit miffed, so it's best not to make her share when she's not used to it. That can come once they've accepted each other or at least learned to tolerate each other.

Yeah, they have everything of their own right now. To be honest I don't really expect them to share, as Bella is a bit of a madam and she wont go in her tray if there is any of her business in it so I don't want her to have to put up with boy poop! Lol.

It's so hard knowing what's the right thing for them!

I used a large dog crate for a few minutes at a time so that Bellini was safe and the other two could get use to him. Bellini was fine with the two resident cats but they were not okay with him initially.

Bellini did have an issue with Duke our dog but everything soon settled down and after about two weeks they could all be left together unsupervised.

I like to take things slowly and would never leave them to get on with it. Everyone deals with these situtations differently there is no right or wrong way.

Sue

Thanks Sue,

I have been looking at crates for him. I just dont want spend £40 on a crate and only use it for 2 weeks....

I was considering maybe a second hand baby gate (with some extra protection on it) or fireguard so we could have the spare room door open.