I adopted two 11 week old male kittens on Thursday. One poor baby had an umbilical hernia so he is currently at a vet waiting for surgery.
My other kitten Ramesses meanwhile has had more time to get used to the apartment and do some more scent swapping with our resident cat Cleo (a 2-year-old female). All the cats are fixed. We introduced them face-to-face with each other yesterday, and they had a lovely first meeting and were playing with and calling for each other through the door to Ramesses' safe room. I've been working from home, and since he had been crying at the door all morning I decided to let him out for supervised time with Cleo.
It started out fine, with some mutual sniffing and pawing, but Ramesses is definitely a timid cat and Cleo's quick moves tend to frighten him a bit. He's found some hiding places to paw at her through, and generally, things were going well at first. Cleo then started trying to bite his back, tail and ears, which I'm assuming is to assert dominance. Ramesses does not like this, and when she does this he begins hissing and cowering away. When he starts to hiss and growl she backs off and just watches him, but then inevitably tries to do it again. Each time he protests, she does give him some space, even walking away sometimes. This last time she cornered him on a chair so I've put her in the safe room for now to give him time to explore the rest of the apartment.
What I'd like to know, is if in your opinion I should continue to separate them when he gets all growly. She doesn't seem to want to hurt him, but I'm worried the constant biting will freak him out, as he'll hiss at me too if I try to pick him up to get him away from the situation. When we first brought him home he'd hiss at my boyfriend and I any time we approached, but now he only does it if Cleo has agitated him, or if we remove him from somewhere he's not supposed to be.
Should I keep their interactions to a minimum, or let them kind of work their dynamic out at this point? I don't want anyone getting hurt, but whenever I put him in his safe room he wails loudly to be let out. I do also want him and Cleo to get along sooner rather than later, as when I bring the other kitten home from the vet he'll need to be separated from both his brother and Cleo.
Tldr: Cat is trying to bite/paw at new kitten, backs off when kitten hisses and growls but always tries again. Want to know if I should continue separating or let them do their thing.
Thanks so much for your opinions!
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/haflij/potential_issues_integrating_resident_cat_with/
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