Hello Kitty – Let Me Introduce Your New Friends
Posted: Monday, January 16, 2012
by The Old Gray Mare
www.DressYourHorse.com
It can sometimes be easier to bring a cat or kitten home to a house that does not have pets. Your scenario is different - Your house already has a dog and another cat.
Perhaps Kitty, your newest household member, is not used to being around other pets. Likewise your family’s pets will also feel strange and stressed by the newest member. The most important thing to remember is to make the introductions between all of the animals a calm and pleasant experience.
Once she knows her new environment, even if only one room in the house, and she is quiet and relaxed with you, begin the introductions to the family pets.
Permit the animals to smell each other, but make the initial introduction from behind closed doors. The cats may hiss and growl even though they cannot see each other yet. Now get the scent of each cat on separate towels and allow each cat the other’s scented towel. Also give a scented towel to the dog but have both cat scents on it if at all possible.
The scent adjustment provides an opportunity for each pet to acclimate to the new smell without actually encountering each other. After all, they may be territorial and anxious.
If you believe the animals are ready to accept a face-to-face encounter, allow them to meet Kitty in her room. Never leave the animals without supervision, not even for a moment. Study each animal’s body language and attitude. Reward and treat them when they act friendly to each other. Speak gently, softly and make a show of petting them. It is best practice to have the dog on a leash during any pet introductions, particularly if the dog is large or possessive. Prohibit any aggressive behavior and barking, especially from the dog. Do not tolerate growling. Keep the first face-to-face introduction relatively short if one of the animals is excessively aggressive or afraid. Repeat several hours later.
If this initial introduction is just not going well, try not to show your anxiety to the animals. They may have to be separated as soon as you can grab them. To prevent getting bit or scratched, if they want to fight, throw a large, heavy blanket over the worst offender and scoop him up. The blanket will dampen their unruliness and you’ll be able to grab one of them.
Do not reward the one you grabbed and do not scold him either. Just plop him outside the door. Go back to the two remaining animals. What are they doing? Are they hiding? Are they howling, giving each other the evil eye, or are they beginning to smell each other? Possibly each has gone to a different part of the room.
Tomorrow is a new day – try them again. What you are striving for is tolerance between them. Always remain patient and calm. Proceed slowly and steadily and daily. While they may never become the best of friends, familiarization will bring about tolerance. They need to get used to each other at their own pace.
From here it may go quickly or they will always be somewhat aloof to each other. They will certainly let you know when you can permit them to roam freely throughout the house.
Remember, if you remain calm during all introductions, the animals will gain their confidence from you. Plan your strategy ahead of time and you’ll be ready for the various scenarios. Expect the worst behavior and go for the best. Have the blanket ready just in case of bad behavior. It’s almost certain that if the dog is leashed and you approach the face-to-face as the leader, the pets will settle down rather quickly.
So it takes you several days to get the job done. It’ll be worth it for harmony.
The Old Gray Mare writes for www.DressYourHorse.com and her Blog sites.
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)My joy over knowing you and experiencing your talent is a bit hard to express. There is a lot of it. I struggle with my chihuahua and Maltese every day. My wife is discussing a cat. Also can you help me? How do I put images in the articles? You deserve 100 points.Very kind comment. Maybe too kind at that but gratefully accepted just the same. I'm pretty sure your Maltese will be very mellow with a kitty but the Chihuahua will be bossy. I firmly believe in introducing the animals with dogs under control, ie on leash. You'll want to be careful that the cat cannot strike your small dogs with claws and hurt them. They should get used to the scent. I like the idea of sitting with the cat on the bed and having another adult hold the dogs on leash or lap. Let them nose and kiss if they'll do it without scrapping. Restrain them from each other for a few days but get them closer and closer under supervision. Then try leaving one dog free. See how it goes. Let another dog free. separately. And then together. There is a really cool guy, Brian Eckstein, a veterinarian, who has a website with some great intro (at least he used to) with animals. Martha Stewart pets might also have some good tips from her vet. I would just restrict them without supervision for a while and lavishly bestow praise when they are good. Sometimes they hit it off immediately. Other times not so. The smallest dog may have the Napolian complex and want to boss everybody around. Also keep the dogs from getting into the litter box by angling it a little so they cannot get into it but your cat can. Good luck. Should be fun.This is for Christofer.
When you submit an article, you get a lot of options of how to do it. In the window that opens up, there are two rows of icons above where the body of the article goes. In the lower row, third in from the right is an icon that when you hover over it declares "Image." Click on it and go from there. One bit of advice. After you have found the image you want by browsing, click on "Send it to the server" before doing anything else. Hope I remembered this all correctly. :)Thanks Dianne. I forgot this part of Christofer's comment. Dianne covered it but I need to add something. Click on the image icon - if you are getting a pix from your computer, clip "upload" next. That will clear you to browse YOUR computer. Select your picture, double clicking is fine. The next screen is where you say Send to Server. That adds your pix to the pix file list for your personal use. Then you can name it or put the copyright information on it. To have the pix show on the left with words around the rest of the lines, go to the "align" and click left. It's the same for the right. Otherwise, the picture will show exactly where your cursor was placed. You can also select he size of your picture. I use only the first dimension. The larger the number, the lrger the pix. The bottom number will automatically adjust to the upper one. So, hope that helps. Ask us if it's not clear.
Hi Heidi.
I've had some trouble with cats getting along. Oddly enough, they were brother and sister and had been together in our home for a couple of years before having trouble with each other for a while. It took nearly a month of having them live in separate rooms and trying to get them to tolerate each other again before it finally happened.
We'd keep one cat in our bedroom for a couple days and the other in the guest bedroom. That way they both got to spend time with us and be exposed to each other's smell. We did carrier introductions with one cat in a carrier facing the other in a carrier. We tried so darn many things without success. Finally, they just seemed to have worked out what the problem was. Thank God!
I'll keep your recommendations in mind if we ever find ourselves wanting to add another animal to the household.
Hugs,
Dianne
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