New Cat? Learn How To Introduce Them | A Veterinarian Explains The Steps!

My situation is a bit more complexed..we separated the cats for like 2 months and one of my family members decided to bring the one cat back before we were ready and the introduction wasn't done properly. The young cat that came back chased the older cat through the house up under some furniture and now its like they forgot the relationship they had just two months ago. Now they can't be in the same room without supervision. I started to do reintroduction process already and i started catifying key areas. I have two cat diffusers but its the wrong ones. I have to wait to get the feliway multicat one. If i get the right one i feel this process will be alot easier. Great video! Any advice? Thanks

Hi Dr, I am really struggling with cats reintroduction. Could you please see what I do wrong or anything else I can do? And I don’t know how long I should completely separate them till next time meet up (last time meet up through mesh screen door didn’t end well).

My two babies who are both 7 years old and they have been together since they were born. They are brothers, both neutered.
They got into a fierce fight on 7th July we have been doing site and scent swapping. We installed the screen door last week and we let the door open a bit and we played and fed treats with them on each side of the door and kept a distance. But it didn’t go well, as soon as Love (black one) laid eyes on Peace and it was just like two seconds, Love suddenly dashed toward the door, hissing and growling. It even made the baby safety locks open! I quickly inserted the pillow and distracted Love.
🥺Backstory: Peace (black&white one) played with a shopping bag and got himself tangled in it and got scared. Love came closer to Peace and all of sudden they got into a fierce fight which never happened before. Love was the one initiating it and now the aggressor tho I think he is also scared.
I understand it’s two steps forward and one step back thing. Me and my husband love our babies so much and ready to face it’s a long time thing. But it hurt me when just think they are both probably not in their best self and not happy….
What I am doing:
✅ Keep one in the bedroom, the other one out in the house; swap 2-3 times a day;
✅ At night, one sleep with us in the bedroom and rotate next night;
✅ They have their own bowls and shared bowls and they can share the litter box (we have two)
❗️However, whoever is being kept in the room is not happy and keeps crying!.
✅ We leave one scratcher in the bedroom which was previously used by the other one.
✅ We feed them at each side of the door and most of the time they can eat normally. However some articles suggest that feeding opposite of the door together will increase stress level so I stopped. Now I basically leave dry kibble outside all the time.
➡️ About the first fight: on 7th July , Peace played with the shopping bag and got himself tangled in it so he got really scared. At this very moment, Love came. Everything happened so fast, they fought fiercely. Love was the attacking one and Peace was more of defending.
➡️ About my babies: they both have great personalitie.
– Love is very sensitive and scared. Small incidents happened ages ago when he came back from vet or glooming he didnt recognise Peace. He would hiss and one paw fight but ran away, nothing serious. Now when he is let out in the house, he seems not very relaxed and energetic comparing to how he was before the fight happened.
– Peace is really peaceful, even the most fierce fight happended and he had cuts on his face and chin, his life goes on. He never fought back. Even today I think he saw Love first and all he wanted was just to go out and his tail is up. Instead when Love saw Peace he dashed towards him, so aggressively…

❗️
1. If there were any changes in the house: my parents stayed with us for about six months now. Both cats love my parents and followed them around the house and showed their belly in front of them. So I don’t think trigger was strangers.
2. However my dad let Love go down to the basement where we never allowed them to go there. My dad said he saw Love hissed at Peace when they were both in the basement. I saw one time out side of the basement door, Love hissed at Peace as like he didn’t want Peace to go down. I don’t know whether exploring a new space triggers territorial issues?
3. Peace likes to eat Love’s hairs and it has been ages like this. But I noticed Love would hiss at him while Peace doing this, this changed after they went down to the basement. I don’t know if these two things are connected.

One other comment, doc, I will look through your channel, but just in case you haven’t, I’ve watched a lot of videos on cat language, and I’m really having a hard time discerning. The language expressed when my cat or the new cat are around the door. I feel like the new cat is super friendly she’s always with her tail heald hi but overtime I’m becoming quite worried, because I think she’s getting depressed being isolated to the bedroom. Before when I would walk into the room, she would start making biscuits on her little top, bed and drooling and meowing and now those things have pretty much become extinct, but when I go into the bedroom, inevitably the resident cats will even if sleeping wake up and start crying and meowing, and having a total meltdown that I have no other option other than to leave her and go tend to him and truth be told I’m more willing to part from him than from her, she was a poor, sweet stray living on the streets of New York, for we think maybe 4 to 5 years all alone. It breaks my heart to think that no colony would accept her.

Hi! I found your channel while searching for some resources after bringing a new cat into the home 3 days ago! I loved your video so I wanted to see if you could possibly help me with some additional advice!

The new cat has been behind closed door and my two resident cats (who have always gotten along with each other) have not seen or interacted with him at all, we even have a draft stopped under the door to block paw access and help. However, they are both definitely aware of the new cats presence. My oldest cat (we've had since she was a kitten) is 7 seems to be very stressed – she's barely eating, she's hiding a lot, and she's also now hissing and growling at my other resident cat): They have been together nonstop for 3.5 years, whe we adopted her as a kitten, and they have always had a positive relationship (cuddling, grooming each other, etc.) So I'm unsure where to begin since I can hardly get her to eat on the other side of the house and since she's now hissing and getting angry at the other resident cat ): She has been introduced to two other cats before, and while I can see where I did some things wrong (mostly moving too quickly), she didn't have this kind of reaction and was often found cuddling and grooming them. Any ideas why she'd suddenly be so angry at her friend she's happily lived with for the past 3 years? or where I can begin working on reducing the stress so I can start making positive associations between her and the newcomer?

Additionally, I am also finding it challenging not only because of the above mentioned things, but this cat also has never enjoyed wet food, has never enjoyed treats, has never enjoyed catnip, and has never really played except for the laser pointer. She's always been a very passive cat (and kitten) and just typically just enjoys existing.

I'm sorry for the long comment! I have been scouring the internet trying to find some information to help with no luck and I hate how stressed she has been ):

Issue here. I had 2 female cats, 1 part Siamese. We brought in a male kitten that ran loose and needed a home. We kept him and we introduced slowly, bottom of door is metal fencing, so they can see and smell each other. The female Siamese stalks him at the door all day, pulls on the fencing, hates him. If the male ever gets out, she chases him and stalks him to the point he never gets away, he backs down and is super sweet orange baby. Each cat now has their own room in the house and I swap them day and night. Siamese female urinates on anything he has touched. Without a pheromone spray and amitriptyline daily, she is a terror to him. Will this ever get better? December 2023, will be 2 yrs we have had our male cat. Should I give treats on either side of the peeking door? Thanks again for the video!

Can you offer any advice for me? We had a 6 week old orphaned kitten literally show up on our door step and have done the best we can to keep him separate from our 13-year-old always single female cat, but our house is very very open. The only closed rooms are my children's that are too young to have a cat in their room full time and a very small bathroom. The older cat has always had her food in our bedroom and has slept in our bedroom, so I didn't want to keep him in there either. We have had him set up in the living room and the older cat stays out of it, but she does have to pass by when going to our bedroom. That is the intersection where the problems occur. At first, it was just the older cat stopping to hiss and growl and all of that. Kitten is now almost 4 months old and is chasing after the older cat any time that he sees her pass by. We remove him whenever we see it happen, but not sure what else to do to keep him contained in his area. We have a kennel for him that he sleeps in every night , but we don't want to lock him in such a small place for any longer than that. So, to be clear, it is the older, original cat that is very stressed. The new kitten is not feel stressed at all and is the instigator. We have placed a calming diffuser at the "intersection" and older cat is wearing calming collar.

I do behavior for a living. When one of your videos came up randomly on Youtube the only reason why I finished it was because my hands were too full to turn it off. I hear horrendous behavior advice all the time. By the time your video finished, I ran over to my computer to subscribe, like, and turn on all notifications. I love everything you do and this is a seriously underrated channel. Thank you for everything!!!

Thank you Dr. Em! Great tutorial. I hope everyone adopting a new cat watches this video.

A year or so back we tried. Moved too fast and a couple attacked the new. We have simply kept them in separate parts of the house, swapping out at breakfast and dinner so all cats get to be everywhere. Do you think it is safe to try again with the super incremental way or did we ruin it? They can smell each other at the door. Sometimes it is ok and others there are hisses. Perhaps treats when the smell but do not hiss?

This is a great tutorial. Thank you for sharing