itter (MacCandace) wrote in message ...
After 4-5 weeks of death battles, they just decided to be friends and
now they love each other dearly.

I don't think sorting out the pecking order is optional for them. They
have to do it.

If that's the case, then I'm spending a lot of time and effort putting off the
inevitable. My resident cats won't fight the newcomer, they'll just hide from
him so I don't know how it will ever get sorted out if you are correct.

Candace

Well, the only certainty is that nothing happens the same in every
single situation. I know it's incredibly hard to detach, but if you've
kept them separated at the beginning and given them a gradual
introduction to each other, and it sounds like you have done all the
textbook things to date, then maybe the denouement is that the
resident cats won't hide forever (once they realize the new cat isn't
going to go away and isn't going to be locked up permanently) and
will, on their own cat timeline, deal with the new cat. All I can say,
is it happened with ours, after a very unpromising beginning, and I've
seen harmony magically restored to a multicat room after it seethed
with tension every day for a week.

I don't blame them for hiding. Who needs conflict, especially if they
can make it so miserable that the new cat goes away or gets confined
for much of the day? There are two of them and only one of him, so in
theory, they should be able to control the day as a team. Maybe your
role, at some point if not right now, is just to make it clear that
nobody's leaving and nobody's getting confined and they're just going
to have to work it out.

I'd surely try that approach for a week or two before making a
decision to return the new cat. Call it the last chance dance.

Good luck....