Unsure if Family Should Keep New Cat

Hi all!

So about a month ago, my family adopted a new cat. She was rescued from a feral colony, but was fixed without any indication of a clipped ear, so we assume she was abandoned or lost. She’s around four years old. We already have an eight year old cat, but we decided to get another due to recently losing our almost 19 year old dog. Our old cat was clearly feeling lonely, as were we, so we visited a shelter a few times and got to hang out with a few cats before deciding on this new one. She was very friendly to us there, had been at the shelter for a few months, and was unbothered by the other cats there.

Having her at home, however, has been a different story, and we’re unsure how to precede. She has a room to herself that, after a week or two, we put gates up so she could see outside of it. My mom and I try to sit with her, but she seems to despise my mom. We’re not sure if it’s due to my mom spraying her once or twice with water due to bad behavior, but every time she goes to enter the room, the cat hisses at her. My mom tried to rectify this behavior by giving her treats when she enters the room so she knows she means no harm, but the cat still hisses. She will also randomly attack us for no reason we can understand. Sometimes I’ve picked up on her swatting and hissing at me due to wanting attention, but other times, there are no indicators. It’s like a switch goes off, and she’s suddenly very angry. We were also informed by a friend who volunteers at the shelter that this cat was actually always hissing at the volunteers through her door, so we’re wondering if we were misinformed as to her behavior.

Finally, whereas at the shelter we were told she didn’t pay much attention to the other cats, anytime she sees our old one, she hisses at her and tries to attack her. I understand this is normal cat behavior, but our other cat is so docile, she just runs away upset without responding. Our old cat also has become very clingy with us, only eating if we pet her, and even then, she checks that we’re there; she’s also hiding a lot. We think she really just wants a friend, because despite the other cat constantly trying to attack her, she still tries to peek into the room.

To make a long story short, we’re unsure of we should keep her. We’ve been trying to give her time to adjust, and I understand it can take several months, but this doesn’t seem fair to anyone in the situation. My mom and old cat are scared of her, this new one is acting out, and I will be returning to college in August, so it’ll just be them. I feel a lot of guilt about potentially returning her, though. She seems to like me well enough except for the occasional attack, and being an adult black cat means she’s much less likely to be adopted again. I also worry about not giving her enough time, but I feel terrible watching my old cat acting so sad, even worse than she was when we first lost our dog. So, if anyone had any suggestions, that would be greatly appreciated. My questions mainly pertain to:

1. Should we return the new cat or give her more time?
2. If we keep her, how can we improve the relationship between my mom/the new cat and my old cat/the new cat?
3. If we were to return her, we would want to look into adopting another cat at some point after we’ve had some time to consider everything that happened. Would you recommend getting a kitten instead so we can more easily introduce our old cat to a new one? Or would an adult cat be better?

I obviously know only we can truly make the decision that is right for our family, but any advice would be appreciated. The idea of giving her back is devastating, but so is the idea of keeping her and watching my mom and old cat potentially suffer. We're not taking this decision lightly.

Thank you everyone for your help.

submitted by /u/meroceans
[link] [comments]

from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/nddbse/unsure_if_family_should_keep_new_cat/