A week ago my older cat passed away (he
was the alpha of my two neutered males,
the only two cats).

In the cat world, there is no such thing as an "alpha" cat. A cat in a
two cat household may at some point be considered "dominant," but cat
heirarchy often changes.

I went to the rescue
and adopted a 8 YO female which was
aparently used to other cats and
friendly etc. For the first 2 days they
studiously ignored each other aside from
a few touch-noses but this morning the
new cat attacked Worf and has been
hunting & chasing him around the house
(not just out of the immediate vicinity)
to the point where he cowers in fear and
growls whenever she is in sight. I now
have her shut in a spare room with toys,
bed, litter tray, food etc and Worf has
gone outside & not come back yet

Separating the cat is what should have been done to begin with, and it
was wise for you to put the new cat in a separate room. Allowing
fighting to happen can make introductions *more" difficult, and since
you've had a breakdown in the process of introduction, it would be wise
for you to keep the new cat in the room with NO contact with the other
cat for at least a week or so, let things settle down, then begin a
*very slow* introduction. You can read why this is so important and how
to do one he
http://www.catsinternational.org/art...roduction.html

Worf is a sociable cat and used to
others, there are a number of cats in
the neighbourhood and they all come in
and out of each others houses with no
trouble between them. As he was not the
previous 'alpha' of the house, he is
generally passive in nature and
therefore is not attacking back although
he is physically twice the size.
Would this behaviour be normal with a
new cat asserting herself or does it
look like her nature has been
mis-described as I was also told that
she'd been in the shelter for an
extended period of time without finding
a home which is strange as she is a
pretty little cat.

What you need to keep in mind is that this cat has gone from being
abandoned, to living for a long time in a stressful shelter situation,
to coming into a new home with strange people and a strange cat. This
many changes in such a short time is very stressful for cats, and she's
feeling very vulnerable and defensive. Going on the offensive and
attacking the resident cat is likely to actually be a defensive move
designed to scare him off because she's unsure and scared herself. The
right thing to do for her is to keep her separated in a room of her own
and give her time to make the adjustment to you and get used to her new
surroundings before exposing her to the rest of the house and the
resident cat. No doubt Worf could also use a break from her. ;-)

She's also bitten my
neighbour who came in to see her, and
after a couple of minutes of petting
also tried to claw & bite me.

Some of this could be related to too much, too soon, but you also need
to understand that some cats get easily overstimulated from petting and
the biting is a warning that the cat has had enough and you need to back
off. Cats do give warning signals, and you'll need to learn to recognize
the body language she exhibits that precedes the biting. Signals include
the ears flicking, the tail lashing, or even subtle muscle twitches on
the body. Immediately stopping physical contact when the cat exhibits
any of these warning signals will virtually eliminate incidences of you
getting bitten.

The best approach for integrating this cat successfully into your home
is to give her some time, don't rush and instead take things very
slowly. A good rule of thumb is if you think she's ready for the next
step, wait one more day. HTH.

Megan



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