heya fellow cat havers!
things are going pretty well, but I just wanted to hear from folks who are familiar with my situation :~)
I have gotten a kitten who’s 5 months old, and have been slowly introducing him to my soon-to-be-sweet-17-year-old cat. my old man is the sweetest, loveliest and clingiest boy in the world with humans, but he’s taking his time warming up to the kitten.
they live separately - kitten lives in the spare room - and they also have been feeding through a window into the spare room with full visual contact and no negative reactions (the architecture of this house is bizarre; there’s a window in the living room looking into the spare room lol. see the image for their feeding set-up).
they’re at a point where they can exist in the same room together for a limited time, provided the old man is distracted by treats and the kitten doesn’t touch him. however, as soon as the kitten approaches him too playfully, the old guy swats and hisses at him (with no claws out but… it’s not ideal). if the kitten dares gets in the way of him and treats, he also hisses and swats.
who else has dealt with introducing an old kitty to a kitten? how long did it take ya? are they besties now? it’s only been a week and a half so I’m well aware that it will take some time.
A decade ago I introduced a ~1yo (Siegfrieda) to a 7yo (Kika). It took us around two weeks to do it.
Nowadays it’s clear Kika doesn’t want to interact with Frieda at all; the later tried it a lot of times, but the former hissed and swatted at the air, as if saying “leave me alone!”. (Eventually Frieda gave up). But Kika never went out of her way to interact with Frieda, for good or bad*; so they tolerate each other really well. And as long as Frieda is quiet/busy Kika sees no problem eating, sleeping, or getting petted near her.
*with one major exception: if Frieda knows my mum is nearby but outside the house, she starts meowing really loud, as if calling my mum back. Like, REALLY loud. Once she was doing this little scandal and Kika was sleeping; Kika stood up, went to Frieda, swatted at her twice, and went back to sleep. As if saying “GODDAMMIT SHUT THE FUCK UP!”. In Kika’s defence I was getting annoyed, too.
On the other hand, when my sister adopted a new kitten (some months ago), two days later and one of the older cats was already licking him. As if the kitten was always part of the family. Nowadays they’re really close, with the new kitten playing with the old’s cat tail and ears, and both sleeping together.
So I think it depends a lot, specially on the personality of the old cat. Odds are they’ll live with each other peacefully, but don’t expect them to become besties.
that’s a great anecdote. I would love them to be best friends, but I will tolerate peaceful co-existence. right now the kitten seems hellbent on irritating the old man lol. I’m sure he’ll learn with time anyway.
foortunately the extremely loud cat is my old man, and the kitten seems to have made peace with his yowling.