Adopted September 2010

10/28/10:

We absolutely adore him! 

9/21/10:

We continue to adore our little kitten. He was Seacrest while with you but is now Huckleberry (as in Huckleberry Finn) with us (due to his incredibly adventurous spirit). He is absolutely fantastic and we are so happy to have him.

Our challenge however is that Yuki still doesn’t like him much. He doesn’t mind her and will either ignore her and play by himself or keep his distance a little warily as he sits on our laps purring. She, however, despite his friendly purr, continues to glare at him, growl, hiss and if he runs and also sometimes when he is not looking, she will run up on him and swat him down (claws out) or keep him trapped in a corner under a piece of furniture. Do you have any recommendations for us?

We keep them separate during the day in different rooms and have exchanged blankets they like to lounge/sleep on so that they have one another’s scent at hand. When we are home at night, we bring her into his room and try to keep him at her height with both of them on the floor, or with him above her on a chair (rather than having her above him). Often she will just stare, but then we never know when she suddenly decides to rush him. His response is to lie on his back - paws up, or run behind or under a piece of furniture, away from her.

We don’t know whether to scold her, just move her away/toss her out of the room for awhile, force ourselves to watch her lord over him until he chooses to fight back (which we haven’t chosen to do for fear of injury to him), or what the best approach might be. Thank you very much for any insight you might have. We really would like for these two to be friends and think they would both have fun playing together with the many mice, balls, strings, toys attached to wands, laser pointer dots, and other toys we have lying about. Thank you! 

Shelter suggestions:

It sounds like Yuki is exhibiting totally normal "top cat" behavior; the best thing to do would be to NOT keep trying to put Huckleberry above her, but to just let her show him that she is the top cat. His rolling over behavior is perfect, as it shows her he is willing to allow her to be in charge. Yuki running up and swatting him is OK; you only really need to be concerned and intervene if there is a serious attack involving biting, in which case the best thing to do is STARTLE the cats by clapping loudly or stomping or tossing a pillow at them; then when they are separate, just put them in different rooms until they are both calm. You can also use the startle or distraction technique whenever you feel Yuki is being a bit too intimidating - just distract her with a kitty toy or a treat to break off the fixation on Huckleberry (I find tossing a wadded ball of paper can often do the trick).

It takes time for 2 kitties to work out their internal hierarchy - I added a second cat to my home 5 months ago, and the 2 of them STILL have occasional hiss/growl/yowl/chase fights, but 99% of the time they get along fine, and have even started grooming each other and sleeping next to each other. (And they are both adult rescues, which makes the adjustment even harder).

Possibly the best thing you could do to help them past their adjustment period, now that they are fully aware of each other (ha), would be to leave the house for 8-10 hours, with both of them allowed free access to the whole home. That gives them a large swatch of time during which they will not be picking up on any latent anxiety either of you are feeling about their interactions, and they can work things out with each other.

Also, be sure you make Yuki feel special; she needs to know that SHE is the top cat in your hearts, and that Huckleberry is really just a gift you got for her. Whenever you see her behaving calmly around Huckleberry, give her a bit of her favorite kitty treat and some extra attention to let her know she's a great girl. Feel free to completely ignore Huckleberry when they are both in the same room together, and give her all your attention. She will feel less hostility if she doesn't think he is trying to take over "her" stuff (ie, YOU). Big hugs to Huckleberry, and extra hugs for Yuki; she will get there!