Hi, so my family just got a new cat and as usual no one listened to me...so it's gone terribly. Let me give you the run down.
My mom and I adopted a cat just this morning after a quite long process and we brought her home to our resident cat. Now we were told to put the new cat into a seperate room to destress as well as getting to know the environment and to introduce her to the resident cat better. The Shelter told was exactly how to go about this and I insisted the whole way that we follow what was told to us even if it sounded like a tedious process - but my mom and her boyfriend acted like they knew better and opened the carrier to let out the new cat.
Funnily enough? All was fine until my mother took the lid off of the carrier at her boyfriend's insistance that the new cat had to get used to things and her hiding away wasn't going to help her. I said that that was a bad idea but my mom did it anyways. And it was okay, until my mom was - I admit nicely trying to put the towel that the new cat had at the shelter on her to comfort her only for the new cat to get scared and run under the couch. Now here comes the problem. Our resident cat began staring/stalking? the new cat under the couch. She would go off to mess with some stuff around the house as usual but she'd always come back to loaf by the couch and stare at her and if my mother or I went to pet her when she was doing this she'd get agressive and hiss/scratch at us. After she scratched at me the second time i left her to it unless I distracted her first from the new cat which then allowed me to pet her and guide her away.
But it's late now and we have to sleep at some point and the concern is them getting into a fight during it. We can't get the new cat to get out from under the couch and my mother does not want to put our resident cat in another room for the night as she feels bad because 'she did nothing wrong we shouldn't have to break her routine.' which I get, I LOVE our cat but I feel like crying and emotions aside we have to do what's best for both of them and as we cannot get the new cat into the isolation room as the shelter called it - that we have to put our resident cat in it so neither one gets hurt during the night.
Now before you ask, yes we have tried picking up the cat or guiding her into the isolation room or...safe room. I prefer safe room, it sounds less - i don't know, cruel? We ran around trying to get her but it only ended up with her meowing and crying out, scratching my mom's boyfriend and her pooping due to being scared. Honestly the whole ordeal nearly made me have a panic attack and only burst into tears because I didn't any her to get hurt so I'd say trying again is out of the question. I can't force her out before she's ready but we CAN touch the resident cat so I thought it was best to put her in the safe room.
In the end I guess I'm asking how in the world do we fix this? My mom now admits that I was right in saying that we need to follow what the shelter said - her boyfriend is the same as he was before with "oh it'll work out. stop crying about it it'll be fine. She'll come out eventually and we'll be best friends" as if it's that easy. I looked up some stuff that talked about 'resetting' the cats' relationship by seperating them for a few days and then doing a reintroduction which is pretty much following the steps we should have the whole time which we can do but we cannot get the new cat from under the couch and my mom is refusing to put our resident cat in the safe room and burst down in tears every time i bring it up. I'm kind of in a hard place because I love our first cat so much but i'd rather put her in the room versus her possibly getting hurt or vice versa from a fight with the new cat. I'm also slightly annoyed at my mom's constant crying because of a situation she put us in despite my constant protest, now I'm left to fix the situation and every solution I come up with doesn't work for her because it slightly inconvenieces our resident cat. They're super close, but at the end of the day no one's willing to get scratched up to get the new cat in the room and she isn't coming up with any solutions herself other than sitting there and sleeping on the couch to listen out for them but she's a rather deep sleeper.
So how can I fix this for all parties involved? I'm out of ideas and patience and just want both these cats to be okay. If we can get the new cat out from under the couch and into the carrier to transport her into the safe room that'd be great but it isn't working.
I'd also like to note that the new cat is a 'fearful cat' as the shelter labeled her.
I already know we messed up big time, please just give me advice to fix this since it seems like I'm the only one who is willing to suck up my tears enough to.
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/mv5ikp/reintroduction_advice/
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