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Help! Need advice on cat introduction



 
 
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  #21  
Old November 19th 03, 01:44 AM
Danathar
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Ok...Here they are!! and a 3 quicktime movies I took with my
camera...about 4meg a piece. I got permission to post them on my
computer at work which has a web server on it. I'm allowed to keep
them up for a week or so...

The first link is to the photos...

http://192.12.209.125/cats/index.htm

Since I know nothing about cat breeds, if anybody knows what breed
Marigold is I'd really like to know. People have said she looks like
she is a mixture of something because she has lots of hair in her
ears. Whiskers is pretty typical. But what breed to they call cats
like her?

This video is when she first came out....The lighting on all of these
are'nt very good due to the fact it was night. The second video is her
on the second third night.

http://192.12.209.125/cats/marigold1.MOV

http://192.12.209.125/cats/cats2.MOV

This last video shows where whiskers is in relationship to watching
Marigold

http://192.12.209.125/cats/cats1.MOV

Enjoy!

-Doug



kaeli wrote in message . ..
In article ,
enlightened us with...
Too bad this group
does'nt accept binarys, I could post pictures! But then again maybee
that would'nt be such a good idea. I'm sure every cat owner in the
group would post pictures!

-Doug


We'd love to see pics!
Get a free Yahoo site or something and post links.

  #22  
Old November 19th 03, 01:44 AM
Danathar
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Ok...Here they are!! and a 3 quicktime movies I took with my
camera...about 4meg a piece. I got permission to post them on my
computer at work which has a web server on it. I'm allowed to keep
them up for a week or so...

The first link is to the photos...

http://192.12.209.125/cats/index.htm

Since I know nothing about cat breeds, if anybody knows what breed
Marigold is I'd really like to know. People have said she looks like
she is a mixture of something because she has lots of hair in her
ears. Whiskers is pretty typical. But what breed to they call cats
like her?

This video is when she first came out....The lighting on all of these
are'nt very good due to the fact it was night. The second video is her
on the second third night.

http://192.12.209.125/cats/marigold1.MOV

http://192.12.209.125/cats/cats2.MOV

This last video shows where whiskers is in relationship to watching
Marigold

http://192.12.209.125/cats/cats1.MOV

Enjoy!

-Doug



kaeli wrote in message . ..
In article ,
enlightened us with...
Too bad this group
does'nt accept binarys, I could post pictures! But then again maybee
that would'nt be such a good idea. I'm sure every cat owner in the
group would post pictures!

-Doug


We'd love to see pics!
Get a free Yahoo site or something and post links.

  #23  
Old November 19th 03, 03:01 AM
CajunPrincess
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

(Danathar) wrote in message . com...
Thanks in advance to anybody that responds to me!

We already have a 12 year old cat that has been ours for close to 6
years. On friday night we (my roommate and I) got a 2 year old cat
from the local humane society. This cat is VERY nervous and takes time
to warm up to people. I knew this when I got the cat, but I would
still like things to go smoother. The cat has actually been in the
custody of one of the humane workers house since march. She has 3
other cats and I have proof from her experience that the new cat can
coexist with other cats and will warm up to humans after some time.

I brought the new cat in the carrying case into the house and put it
down on the floor to let the 12 year old (whiskers) see/sniff and to
watch her reaction. She (whiskers) growled and hissed at the new cat
(Marigold). Marigold is the type of cat that does not vocalize very
often and when she is afraid tends to hide and "freeze" in one
location, so Marigold didn't hiss or growl back.

So I sighed and figured that things were going to take some time.

I brought her up some stairs to a set of rooms (one of which is mine)
that is connected by an adjacent bathroom. I put the carrying case
down in the adjacent room. I decided to let Marigold get used to me
first before traumatizing her more with Whiskers so I closed the
bedroom doors to both rooms to keep her from the rest of the house
(and whiskers). I opened the carrying case, it took her about 2 hours
to come out. When she did, she immidately found the bed that was in a
corner of the room and wedged herself in the corner underneath the
bed.

She kept there for almost 24 hours and did not eat/drink or use the
kitty litter box in the room ( I put the food/water in the middle of
the room..away from the litter box about 10 feet away)

After 24 hours she came out while I was not around and wedged herself
in another corner of the room by a desk (but at least hand
accessible). I put the food and water close to her (within inches) and
started to pet her. She seemed to warm up and began eating (no water
yet). As she ate she became increasingly friendly, and was receptive
to me petting her more but I could see that any sudden movement on my
part or strange noise coming from outside the room would cause her to
freeze for a second before continuing to eat and rubbing up against my
hand.

So It's now monday morning. She was very vocal this morning and
friendly. I had to leave her in the closed rooms while I am at work.
So I am sure the two cats are meowing at each other through the door
while I am gone.

At this point I would really like to get the ball rolling with
introducing the two cats to each other, but the new cat is SO skittish
(nervous) that I am afraid that if I bring whiskers in the room for a
short while, whiskers growling and hissing will just eradicate what
little trust I've developed with Marigold.

Any suggestions as to how to proceed next would be GREATLY
appreciated!

-Doug


Its been nearly a month since we adopted two neutered male cats-one
senior (12 yo) and one adult (3 yo); so here's my advice FWIW. The
younger cat is large (12 lb); the senior cat is a jumbo (about 18
lbs). Our situation is a little different since we were not adding a
cat to a household that already had one, but some aspects of our
experience may be helptful.

At the advice of the vet, we kept them both isolated in seperate
rooms to get them as comfortable as possible with their surroundings,
then started introducing towels which we had rubbed one cat with into
the other cat's room after a couple of days. Then we swapped rooms.
After about four days, we started taking turns letting each cat out to
explore the rest of the house while the other was in their room.
Finally, after a little over a week, we let them out in the house
together under supervision and alternated letting one have the run of
the house overnight while the other stayed in his room. After a few
days of doing this, we got to a point of just setting them up in the
house together 24 hours. Our approach in introducing the cats would
probably need to be modified in a situation like yours. I don't see
the need or desirability for restricting the resident cat to one room
except maybe for short periods of time while the new cat is allowed to
explore.

We had a few bumps in the road but nothing compared to what some
people experience. Basically, after they were both allowed to have
the run of the house the older cat was pretty dominant and would
occasionally go after the younger one. We don't know the background
of the younger one, so we don't know if he was an only cat in his
first home. It settled down to occasional spats where the younger cat
would cower a bit, which seemed to encourage the other a bit. The
dissapointing thing was that the younger cat was, to some extent,
stressed by the situation and you could see him looking over his
shoulder for the older one, who seemed to resent attention being paid
to the younger one. The two tolerated each other most of the time with
spats once every day or so. The younger cat had been very sweet and
loving at the shelter but that part of his personality only showed up
for short periods when he was away from the other cat.

The vet indicated that this was a dominance issue that would probably
work out in time but at her suggestion we tried Feliway-two plug-ins
as well as the spray. This made a fairly dramatic difference. The
younger cat seemed to become *much* more comfortable and stopped being
cowed by the older cat. The younger cat has become much more
affectionate, more like he was at the shelter. This seemed to confuse
the older cat a bit at first-I caught him acting like he was going to
spray a laptop bag in the first few hours after we started the Feliway
(he had never acted like he was going to spray at all before);
however, he seems to have adjusted to the change in "inter-cat"
dynamics and things seem to be rolling along very well now.

It seems from what I've read that using Feliway to calm cats down or
help smooth out dominance issues is kind of a crapshoot-some people
report it working like it did in our case and some people try it with
little or no positive effect. It *is* fairly expensive, and in our
case the vet charges the list price for it. You can find it much
cheaper on the web if you can afford to wait a few days (next time we
get it that's what we will do).

Maybe some of the above will be of help to you. I would say we
learned to be patient and above all not rush things or get unduly
upset if the cats don't become best buddies immediately. I think this
is often a "three steps forward, one step back" type of process. I
believe that the results are going to vary to an extent from case to
case based upon the personalities and backgrounds of the cats
involved, so what works in one situation is not guaranteed to work in
another.

Anyway, best of luck.
  #24  
Old November 19th 03, 03:01 AM
CajunPrincess
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

(Danathar) wrote in message . com...
Thanks in advance to anybody that responds to me!

We already have a 12 year old cat that has been ours for close to 6
years. On friday night we (my roommate and I) got a 2 year old cat
from the local humane society. This cat is VERY nervous and takes time
to warm up to people. I knew this when I got the cat, but I would
still like things to go smoother. The cat has actually been in the
custody of one of the humane workers house since march. She has 3
other cats and I have proof from her experience that the new cat can
coexist with other cats and will warm up to humans after some time.

I brought the new cat in the carrying case into the house and put it
down on the floor to let the 12 year old (whiskers) see/sniff and to
watch her reaction. She (whiskers) growled and hissed at the new cat
(Marigold). Marigold is the type of cat that does not vocalize very
often and when she is afraid tends to hide and "freeze" in one
location, so Marigold didn't hiss or growl back.

So I sighed and figured that things were going to take some time.

I brought her up some stairs to a set of rooms (one of which is mine)
that is connected by an adjacent bathroom. I put the carrying case
down in the adjacent room. I decided to let Marigold get used to me
first before traumatizing her more with Whiskers so I closed the
bedroom doors to both rooms to keep her from the rest of the house
(and whiskers). I opened the carrying case, it took her about 2 hours
to come out. When she did, she immidately found the bed that was in a
corner of the room and wedged herself in the corner underneath the
bed.

She kept there for almost 24 hours and did not eat/drink or use the
kitty litter box in the room ( I put the food/water in the middle of
the room..away from the litter box about 10 feet away)

After 24 hours she came out while I was not around and wedged herself
in another corner of the room by a desk (but at least hand
accessible). I put the food and water close to her (within inches) and
started to pet her. She seemed to warm up and began eating (no water
yet). As she ate she became increasingly friendly, and was receptive
to me petting her more but I could see that any sudden movement on my
part or strange noise coming from outside the room would cause her to
freeze for a second before continuing to eat and rubbing up against my
hand.

So It's now monday morning. She was very vocal this morning and
friendly. I had to leave her in the closed rooms while I am at work.
So I am sure the two cats are meowing at each other through the door
while I am gone.

At this point I would really like to get the ball rolling with
introducing the two cats to each other, but the new cat is SO skittish
(nervous) that I am afraid that if I bring whiskers in the room for a
short while, whiskers growling and hissing will just eradicate what
little trust I've developed with Marigold.

Any suggestions as to how to proceed next would be GREATLY
appreciated!

-Doug


Its been nearly a month since we adopted two neutered male cats-one
senior (12 yo) and one adult (3 yo); so here's my advice FWIW. The
younger cat is large (12 lb); the senior cat is a jumbo (about 18
lbs). Our situation is a little different since we were not adding a
cat to a household that already had one, but some aspects of our
experience may be helptful.

At the advice of the vet, we kept them both isolated in seperate
rooms to get them as comfortable as possible with their surroundings,
then started introducing towels which we had rubbed one cat with into
the other cat's room after a couple of days. Then we swapped rooms.
After about four days, we started taking turns letting each cat out to
explore the rest of the house while the other was in their room.
Finally, after a little over a week, we let them out in the house
together under supervision and alternated letting one have the run of
the house overnight while the other stayed in his room. After a few
days of doing this, we got to a point of just setting them up in the
house together 24 hours. Our approach in introducing the cats would
probably need to be modified in a situation like yours. I don't see
the need or desirability for restricting the resident cat to one room
except maybe for short periods of time while the new cat is allowed to
explore.

We had a few bumps in the road but nothing compared to what some
people experience. Basically, after they were both allowed to have
the run of the house the older cat was pretty dominant and would
occasionally go after the younger one. We don't know the background
of the younger one, so we don't know if he was an only cat in his
first home. It settled down to occasional spats where the younger cat
would cower a bit, which seemed to encourage the other a bit. The
dissapointing thing was that the younger cat was, to some extent,
stressed by the situation and you could see him looking over his
shoulder for the older one, who seemed to resent attention being paid
to the younger one. The two tolerated each other most of the time with
spats once every day or so. The younger cat had been very sweet and
loving at the shelter but that part of his personality only showed up
for short periods when he was away from the other cat.

The vet indicated that this was a dominance issue that would probably
work out in time but at her suggestion we tried Feliway-two plug-ins
as well as the spray. This made a fairly dramatic difference. The
younger cat seemed to become *much* more comfortable and stopped being
cowed by the older cat. The younger cat has become much more
affectionate, more like he was at the shelter. This seemed to confuse
the older cat a bit at first-I caught him acting like he was going to
spray a laptop bag in the first few hours after we started the Feliway
(he had never acted like he was going to spray at all before);
however, he seems to have adjusted to the change in "inter-cat"
dynamics and things seem to be rolling along very well now.

It seems from what I've read that using Feliway to calm cats down or
help smooth out dominance issues is kind of a crapshoot-some people
report it working like it did in our case and some people try it with
little or no positive effect. It *is* fairly expensive, and in our
case the vet charges the list price for it. You can find it much
cheaper on the web if you can afford to wait a few days (next time we
get it that's what we will do).

Maybe some of the above will be of help to you. I would say we
learned to be patient and above all not rush things or get unduly
upset if the cats don't become best buddies immediately. I think this
is often a "three steps forward, one step back" type of process. I
believe that the results are going to vary to an extent from case to
case based upon the personalities and backgrounds of the cats
involved, so what works in one situation is not guaranteed to work in
another.

Anyway, best of luck.
  #25  
Old November 19th 03, 03:01 AM
CajunPrincess
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

(Danathar) wrote in message . com...
Thanks in advance to anybody that responds to me!

We already have a 12 year old cat that has been ours for close to 6
years. On friday night we (my roommate and I) got a 2 year old cat
from the local humane society. This cat is VERY nervous and takes time
to warm up to people. I knew this when I got the cat, but I would
still like things to go smoother. The cat has actually been in the
custody of one of the humane workers house since march. She has 3
other cats and I have proof from her experience that the new cat can
coexist with other cats and will warm up to humans after some time.

I brought the new cat in the carrying case into the house and put it
down on the floor to let the 12 year old (whiskers) see/sniff and to
watch her reaction. She (whiskers) growled and hissed at the new cat
(Marigold). Marigold is the type of cat that does not vocalize very
often and when she is afraid tends to hide and "freeze" in one
location, so Marigold didn't hiss or growl back.

So I sighed and figured that things were going to take some time.

I brought her up some stairs to a set of rooms (one of which is mine)
that is connected by an adjacent bathroom. I put the carrying case
down in the adjacent room. I decided to let Marigold get used to me
first before traumatizing her more with Whiskers so I closed the
bedroom doors to both rooms to keep her from the rest of the house
(and whiskers). I opened the carrying case, it took her about 2 hours
to come out. When she did, she immidately found the bed that was in a
corner of the room and wedged herself in the corner underneath the
bed.

She kept there for almost 24 hours and did not eat/drink or use the
kitty litter box in the room ( I put the food/water in the middle of
the room..away from the litter box about 10 feet away)

After 24 hours she came out while I was not around and wedged herself
in another corner of the room by a desk (but at least hand
accessible). I put the food and water close to her (within inches) and
started to pet her. She seemed to warm up and began eating (no water
yet). As she ate she became increasingly friendly, and was receptive
to me petting her more but I could see that any sudden movement on my
part or strange noise coming from outside the room would cause her to
freeze for a second before continuing to eat and rubbing up against my
hand.

So It's now monday morning. She was very vocal this morning and
friendly. I had to leave her in the closed rooms while I am at work.
So I am sure the two cats are meowing at each other through the door
while I am gone.

At this point I would really like to get the ball rolling with
introducing the two cats to each other, but the new cat is SO skittish
(nervous) that I am afraid that if I bring whiskers in the room for a
short while, whiskers growling and hissing will just eradicate what
little trust I've developed with Marigold.

Any suggestions as to how to proceed next would be GREATLY
appreciated!

-Doug


Its been nearly a month since we adopted two neutered male cats-one
senior (12 yo) and one adult (3 yo); so here's my advice FWIW. The
younger cat is large (12 lb); the senior cat is a jumbo (about 18
lbs). Our situation is a little different since we were not adding a
cat to a household that already had one, but some aspects of our
experience may be helptful.

At the advice of the vet, we kept them both isolated in seperate
rooms to get them as comfortable as possible with their surroundings,
then started introducing towels which we had rubbed one cat with into
the other cat's room after a couple of days. Then we swapped rooms.
After about four days, we started taking turns letting each cat out to
explore the rest of the house while the other was in their room.
Finally, after a little over a week, we let them out in the house
together under supervision and alternated letting one have the run of
the house overnight while the other stayed in his room. After a few
days of doing this, we got to a point of just setting them up in the
house together 24 hours. Our approach in introducing the cats would
probably need to be modified in a situation like yours. I don't see
the need or desirability for restricting the resident cat to one room
except maybe for short periods of time while the new cat is allowed to
explore.

We had a few bumps in the road but nothing compared to what some
people experience. Basically, after they were both allowed to have
the run of the house the older cat was pretty dominant and would
occasionally go after the younger one. We don't know the background
of the younger one, so we don't know if he was an only cat in his
first home. It settled down to occasional spats where the younger cat
would cower a bit, which seemed to encourage the other a bit. The
dissapointing thing was that the younger cat was, to some extent,
stressed by the situation and you could see him looking over his
shoulder for the older one, who seemed to resent attention being paid
to the younger one. The two tolerated each other most of the time with
spats once every day or so. The younger cat had been very sweet and
loving at the shelter but that part of his personality only showed up
for short periods when he was away from the other cat.

The vet indicated that this was a dominance issue that would probably
work out in time but at her suggestion we tried Feliway-two plug-ins
as well as the spray. This made a fairly dramatic difference. The
younger cat seemed to become *much* more comfortable and stopped being
cowed by the older cat. The younger cat has become much more
affectionate, more like he was at the shelter. This seemed to confuse
the older cat a bit at first-I caught him acting like he was going to
spray a laptop bag in the first few hours after we started the Feliway
(he had never acted like he was going to spray at all before);
however, he seems to have adjusted to the change in "inter-cat"
dynamics and things seem to be rolling along very well now.

It seems from what I've read that using Feliway to calm cats down or
help smooth out dominance issues is kind of a crapshoot-some people
report it working like it did in our case and some people try it with
little or no positive effect. It *is* fairly expensive, and in our
case the vet charges the list price for it. You can find it much
cheaper on the web if you can afford to wait a few days (next time we
get it that's what we will do).

Maybe some of the above will be of help to you. I would say we
learned to be patient and above all not rush things or get unduly
upset if the cats don't become best buddies immediately. I think this
is often a "three steps forward, one step back" type of process. I
believe that the results are going to vary to an extent from case to
case based upon the personalities and backgrounds of the cats
involved, so what works in one situation is not guaranteed to work in
another.

Anyway, best of luck.
  #26  
Old November 19th 03, 06:01 AM
Karen
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

in article , Danathar at
wrote on 11/18/03 6:44 PM:

Ok...Here they are!! and a 3 quicktime movies I took with my
camera...about 4meg a piece. I got permission to post them on my
computer at work which has a web server on it. I'm allowed to keep
them up for a week or so...

The first link is to the photos...

http://192.12.209.125/cats/index.htm

Since I know nothing about cat breeds, if anybody knows what breed
Marigold is I'd really like to know. People have said she looks like
she is a mixture of something because she has lots of hair in her
ears. Whiskers is pretty typical. But what breed to they call cats
like her?

This video is when she first came out....The lighting on all of these
are'nt very good due to the fact it was night. The second video is her
on the second third night.

http://192.12.209.125/cats/marigold1.MOV

http://192.12.209.125/cats/cats2.MOV

This last video shows where whiskers is in relationship to watching
Marigold

http://192.12.209.125/cats/cats1.MOV

Enjoy!

-Doug


She sure is sweet!! Very lovey. She is a medium hair domestic. Ginger or
butterscotch colored. It's only been a week. Just keep them like this for
sometime until you feel that they are ready for a next step.

Karen

  #27  
Old November 19th 03, 06:01 AM
Karen
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

in article , Danathar at
wrote on 11/18/03 6:44 PM:

Ok...Here they are!! and a 3 quicktime movies I took with my
camera...about 4meg a piece. I got permission to post them on my
computer at work which has a web server on it. I'm allowed to keep
them up for a week or so...

The first link is to the photos...

http://192.12.209.125/cats/index.htm

Since I know nothing about cat breeds, if anybody knows what breed
Marigold is I'd really like to know. People have said she looks like
she is a mixture of something because she has lots of hair in her
ears. Whiskers is pretty typical. But what breed to they call cats
like her?

This video is when she first came out....The lighting on all of these
are'nt very good due to the fact it was night. The second video is her
on the second third night.

http://192.12.209.125/cats/marigold1.MOV

http://192.12.209.125/cats/cats2.MOV

This last video shows where whiskers is in relationship to watching
Marigold

http://192.12.209.125/cats/cats1.MOV

Enjoy!

-Doug


She sure is sweet!! Very lovey. She is a medium hair domestic. Ginger or
butterscotch colored. It's only been a week. Just keep them like this for
sometime until you feel that they are ready for a next step.

Karen

  #28  
Old November 19th 03, 06:01 AM
Karen
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

in article , Danathar at
wrote on 11/18/03 6:44 PM:

Ok...Here they are!! and a 3 quicktime movies I took with my
camera...about 4meg a piece. I got permission to post them on my
computer at work which has a web server on it. I'm allowed to keep
them up for a week or so...

The first link is to the photos...

http://192.12.209.125/cats/index.htm

Since I know nothing about cat breeds, if anybody knows what breed
Marigold is I'd really like to know. People have said she looks like
she is a mixture of something because she has lots of hair in her
ears. Whiskers is pretty typical. But what breed to they call cats
like her?

This video is when she first came out....The lighting on all of these
are'nt very good due to the fact it was night. The second video is her
on the second third night.

http://192.12.209.125/cats/marigold1.MOV

http://192.12.209.125/cats/cats2.MOV

This last video shows where whiskers is in relationship to watching
Marigold

http://192.12.209.125/cats/cats1.MOV

Enjoy!

-Doug


She sure is sweet!! Very lovey. She is a medium hair domestic. Ginger or
butterscotch colored. It's only been a week. Just keep them like this for
sometime until you feel that they are ready for a next step.

Karen

  #29  
Old November 19th 03, 09:30 AM
Luvskats00
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Oh .. your Whiskers looks like my Sammy..'cept Sammy has a pink/white
nose.....he's the most!
  #30  
Old November 19th 03, 09:30 AM
Luvskats00
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Oh .. your Whiskers looks like my Sammy..'cept Sammy has a pink/white
nose.....he's the most!
 




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