This is a short
article about how we had success in getting three cats to peacefully
coexist. We hear about this challenge often from our friends and
customers, so we hope this is educational and that it helps lift your
spirits and gives you hope if you're dealing with such a challenge in your
own population.
In addition to this article, you
should also read the article
How To Introduce A New Kitty To Your Household.
Eric Smith
DooDoo Voodoo Founder
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We rescued an ear-tipped female
cat from the woods in front of our home. In fact, we believe that
someone in the local animal-welfare community deemed her friendly enough to
be a housecat, and knew that we'd likely find a place for her in our home,
so they dropped her off at our wooded property. That's just
conjecture, but we feel it's probably true.
Well, she wasn't exactly all
that friendly at first. It took a l-o-t of work to get her to trust
us, and there was a significant bite involved that required some medical
attention (for me, not her), but we finally got to be good buddies. It
took hours of my sitting on the ground and on our brick steps outside in the
cold, as well as many hours of throwing scraps of food on the driveway in an
attempt to lure her into our garage. I was finally successful, though,
and once we had coaxed her into a hallway, she proved to be quite the lover.
She and I had become so bonded
that I really wanted to make her a housecat (versus living in our private
rescue facility with our other cats, virtually all of whom are
special-needs.) Having had three decades of experience at introducing
new cats, we set to work and expected the usual success.
At first, we kept her secluded
in a guest bedroom, then a bathroom, then another bedroom, then my wife's
office, which has glass French doors. The latter allowed our other two
housecats (both special-needs rescues) to see the new kitty, whom we'd named
Tipper (due to her ear-tip). This went pretty well, as all along, we
had been swapping towels and pet beds so they could all get used to each
other's scents.
But when the time came to
finally open the office doors and let the meet each other in person, well,
it was instantly World War III. Both our housecats, Gracie (the
short-haired gray female, who is our alpha cat and has a bit of a
personality) and Wendy (the long-haired Tortie, who has a lover's
personality) went
ballistic. They were very violent with Tipper, and
even displayed displaced aggression toward each other. It was
horrible — for all of us.
We
pulled out all the tricks we'd learned over the years, including feeding
"calming treats" in an effort to mellow out the girls. We even upped
Gracie's dose of Paxil a bit (she's been on an exceptionally small dose for
years), but to no avail. Never ones to give up, though, we kept at it,
doling out kindness in a communal way whenever the opportunity presented
itself. One thing that really seemed to help these three was "brushing
parties," in which we'd brush or comb them all in a group. (We
recommend rotating-tooth combs for long-haired cats, by the way, as they
don't pull the fur as much.) We also slowly began to feed them little
individual plates of wet food in the same room, moving the plates closer
over time 'til they were practically eating off the same plate.
Slowly, there was a tiny bit of
softening on the part of Wendy and Gracie, but not enough to consider the
job finished.
But then we discussed the matter
some more with our vet and she said there had been some good success
reported lately with using Buspar (a human drug) to help timid cats get over
their fear and become more confident. We agreed to give it a try at
the lowest dose possible.
Tipper tolerated Buspar well,
but the lowest dose didn't seem to
be cutting it, so we upped it a bit, sometimes even only on alternating
days. This seemed to help Tipper become more adventurous and
self-assured, but at the higher dose she was also sometimes a bit manic, so
we backed it down.
Now Tipper ventures out of the
kitchen & sunroom area where she used to stay full-time, even going upstairs
and downstairs to different rooms. Sometimes, she'll even sleep or
just lie, relaxed, on one
of the beds upstairs, which is a real joy for us to see. She still
considers the sunroom and kitchen area to be her home-base, which is fine with us as
long as she feels as if the rest of the house is hers, too.
These days, it's very rare for Gracie
to ever lash out at Tipper, though she still does it once in awhile.
When Tipper is full of confidence and doesn't cower for Gracie, things stay
pretty even-keeled. But when Tipper acts afraid, Gracie capitalizes on
the fear, and decides to go after Tipper like prey. We keep encouraging Tipper
to stand up for herself. In fact, I'd love to see her womp on Gracie one time,
just to let Gracie know that her sporadic aggressive behavior is not going
to be tolerated.
Tipper and Wendy get along
pretty well now, even licking each other's heads once in awhile.
They're not buddy-buddy to the degree we'd like them to be, but now they
more than tolerate each other. That's a big change, as Gracie's lousy
attitude had really rubbed off on Wendy; she was to the point of horribly
terrorizing Tipper there for awhile.
The crowning achievements were
when we got the girls to all lie on our guest bed together, then, months
later, when we saw them all spontaneously lying together on a pet bed in the
morning sun in the sunroom off our kitchen.
The house is much more
harmonious now, both for the humans and the animals. Life is good.
We are hopeful that by hearing
this case study, you'll gain confidence and hope with regard to introducing
new cats to your own household of existing cats. Stick with it, never
let 'em see you sweat, keep the brush & comb handy (and perhaps a Zoom
Groom, which they also love)...and one day you, too, will be taking pictures
like these and saying to yourself, "Boy, I remember when those two hated
each other..."
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These photos are © Copyright
2009, 2010 Eric Smith and may not be reproduced
or pasted into websites without the expressed, written permission of the
copyright holder.
Please do not steal them, but do feel free to link to this page if you think it
can help other animals.
Here are photos we shot back
when Tipper was living in our yard and woods, then once we coaxed her
inside. Early-on, during the feed-her-in-the-driveway period, we made
the mistake of trying to nab her and get her into a pet carrier to take her
to the vet. That didn't go well, as I didn't wear the special gloves
we normally use for handling feral cats (which she turned out not to be, but
was THAT day!). I got very badly bitten and had to be on Augmentin for
10 days. My hand swelled up something fierce and there was a time when
it got a little scary, even for an old pro like me, who's been bitten many
times over the years. I ultimately healed, though, and forgave her for
biting me. It was our fault, as we shouldn't have tried the brute
force approach.
Middle pic: makeshift
feral shelter, which only lasted like one day 'cause a wild animal pooped in
it.
In the 4th picture from the left, she's crying for her wet food.
Notice the tail in the air,
which equates with trust. Middle pic is after wet food & calming treat
(big snooze). Far right: going back into the woods for the night
before the time when she was finally able to be coaxed into the garage.
I'd often go out after dark to coax her out of the woods for some treats or
more wet food. I'd stand at the edge of the woods talking to her and
could hear her meow in response from within the woods, then here she'd
come...
Finally in the house, relaxing
on a cat tree, then stared at by Gracie once in the office. I think
one mistake we made was letting Gracie see us bond with Tipper out in front
of our house. We should have blocked her view or put her away, as this
viewing just caused jealousy we then had to overcome.
Two baby gates vertically so the
other (older) cats couldn't jump over & into the office.
Feeding all three girls
together, on opposite sides of the baby gates to help them each associate a
warm fuzzy with the other cats. We thought this was really
helping...'til we took down the baby gates and WWIII started. Even
sweet, old Wendy (the Tortie) turned into a demon. Normally this trick
works.
Various pictures of a much more
confident and relaxed Tipper once things settled down.
The left pic is early-on; the
right one is months later in July '10. Finally. But then
the next day, Gracie had Tipper cornered in a closet, so life's not all
peaches and cream just yet. Still working on it.
