You acted with the best of intentions, taking in a homeless cat or perhaps just bringing home a second one because you thought the one you already have would enjoy the company. But the hissing won’t stop. And your first cat is so stressed she has begun urinating outside the litterbox. Or she has begun hiding more and is more irritable. Now what?
Before you get to “now what,” says Stephanie Borns-Weil, DVM, it’s important to think through whether you should be bringing home another cat in the first place. Dr. Borns-Weil, the head of the Tufts Animal Behavior Clinic, points out that if you have a kitten, “it can be really great for that pet to have a kitten friend. In fact,” she says, “if you want to be a two-cat household, you’re best off getting littermates. But for an adult cat, especially a cat used to being alone and who has no history of interaction with other cats, a feline housemate isn’t necessarily in that cat’s best interest. Nor is it probably a good idea for an old cat with reduced mobility and reduced resilience, perhaps because of medical issues.”
What your cat might need instead, the doctor notes, is more interaction with you. That is, maybe more environmental enrichment is necessary, but it needs to come from more play time and training with you rather than from another feline.
“Can you know in advance for each individual cat?” Dr. Borns-Weil asks rhetorically. “Probably not. You can’t really predict who the tolerant cats are going to be. But you can make a good guess. A geriatric cat is very unlikely to appreciate the introduction of a new cat. A cat that’s territorial is also likely to be unhappy.”
If you do decide to introduce a new cat into your home — “it’s a challenging thing,” Dr. Borns-Weil says — there are strategies for giving it the best chance of going successfully.
Slowly, slowly…
A British study found that 50 percent of the time, when one cat is introduced to another, there’s inter-cat aggression. That doesn’t mean they can’t get past their differences, but “you want to arrange things very carefully,” Dr. Borns-Weil says. In addition, she says, manage your expectations. “Set your sights on getting them to tolerate each other and share the same environment. It’s not realistic to assume you’re going to be able to get another cat to be your cat’s friend.” It may happen, and it may not.
There’s no definite timeline to follow. “Your guide with how fast to proceed is going to be the cats themselves,” Dr. Borns-Weil says. I can’t say after three days do this. After three more days do that.”
Still, following these steps in order is critical. “So much of the time, when cats don’t get along it’s because of negative first interactions,” Dr. Borns-Weil says.
1. Separate the two cats by a solid door and introduce them to each other only by scent at first. You can have them sniff each other’s things, but they’ll smell each other whether or not you do that. Make sure the cat in the closed-off room has food, water, toys, and a litter box. Think of it as a highly enriched feline studio apartment with lots of visits from you.
Once both cats are relaxed and comfortable in their own spaces, proceed to opening the door a crack, either with a foot stop or with an eye hook that allows a partial view without the cats being able to get through. Keep a gate or screen up to prevent the cats from slipping out through the opening. When they are in each other’s presence, engage the two of them in enjoyable activities such as eating special treats or canned food.
2. When the cats are relaxed in the presence of each other with the door ajar, gradually open it more and more over subsequent exposure sessions until you can open it all the way. Each time the door is open, have the cats do something they really enjoy. The goal is for them to associate the good things in life with the other cat.
If you move forward from any of these steps to the next and the cats are not doing well, back up to the previous step.
3. Once you get the sense that the two cats can remain entirely calm around each other, remove the baby gate and let the new cat out of the room. Before you do, make sure you have put out an abundance of resources, all strategically placed. That is, not only should you have three litter boxes (the number of cats in the home plus one), but they should be positioned so that each of the cats can get to one or more of them without having to pass another cat.
The two animals should also be able to eat a reasonable distance from each other — perhaps in separate rooms — and have water bowls placed throughout the house. In addition, there should be duplicate toys, scratching posts, and other accouterments. Each has to have its own things.
If fighting or other signs of social stress start up, it’s important to separate the two cats again immediately and then retry introducing them by repeating the drawn out process described above.“One of the biggest barriers to success is people moving too fast with reintroduction,” Dr. Borns-Weil says.
If it’s still not working
A big-guns tool in the arsenal of trying to help two cats live peaceably is to have a consult with a veterinarian who is board-certified in animal behavior. She will be able to offer suggestions for behavior modification and may also prescribe medication. “Drugs don’t take the place of behavior modification, which is the core of treatment,” Dr. Borns-Weil says, “but they can help it along. An aggressor cat may get medication that reduces anxiety,” she says, “perhaps Prozac (fluoxteine.) A victim cat might be prescribed buspirone (Buspar), which can help increase confidence. Sometimes if you reduce the fearfulness of a victim cat and she stands her ground, the aggressor cat
stops aggressing.”
In certain instances, both cats will be prescribed a benzodiazepine such as lorazepam. It will relax a cat of either temperament and seems to increase sociability, the doctor says.
If your home is large enough, you can even have two cats live there forever without ever coming into contact with each other. You just need to rotate them through different spaces so they’re never in the same place at the same time. If you have a third cat who gets along with the other two, “that cat can be Switzerland,” Dr. Borns-Weil says. It can have access to both cats’ areas.
When to give up
Although there are many steps involved in trying to get two cats to be okay around each other, it doesn’t take forever to figure out whether it’s going to work. “After about a month you’ll know,” the doctor says. “In many cases, it doesn’t take nearly that long.”
It can be very hard to rehome a cat to whom you wanted to give a good life. Dr. Borns-Weil gets that. “You feel bad, the shelter is overflowing,” she says. “But you need to know your cat.” You need to take care of the emotional stability and safety of the one you first signed on for.
