New cat intro not going well! Help!
Hello everyone,
I am appealing to all of the dual kitty households out there who have had experience with introducing additional kitties in a household. Here's a little backstory: My DH and I recently had to put our Emma to sleep three months ago due to kidney failure. She was a one cat only cat, to my dismay. I've always wanted to have more than one but didn't want to stress out Emma. Fast forward two months later, and we adopt Abby, a four month old kitten. We had also adopted another kitty, Nina, when we adopted Abby. Unfortunately, Nina was sick and passed away after only four days with us.
:(
So five weeks later, we adopt a beautiful dilluted tortie, Suki, to keep Abby company. I've kept them separate, but the first time we tried to introduce Abby to Suki, Abby went and left a big steaming pile of cr@p on the carpet. Now my husband loves cats, but he simply CANNOT tolerate cats who pee and poop on the carpet. Shortly after Nina passed away, he found some poop messes in an upstairs bedroom. He got mad, ripped out the entire carpet and put wood flooring in. Needless to say, Abby pooping on the carpet did not go well. This morning after I went and petted Suki, I caught Abby peeing on the piece of the carpet that she soiled last night. I went home for lunch to check on them and while I was secluded and visiting Suki, she left another stinky pile. (I haven't told my DH this yet)
If this continues, I am afraid that my DH will tell me to get rid of the cats. He enjoys them, but will not tolerate the house becoming a big litter box. While I get upset, it doesn't bother me as much; I just clean up the mess and go on. I just plain love cats and enjoy having them around.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to stop this behaviour as quickly as possible? I do NOT want to take Suki back to the humane society after a week. The two cats are separated during the day, and we let them spend a few minutes together at night and then separate them. If Abby even gets wind that we are in the same room as Suki, she gets jealous. Right now, Abby is 4.5 months, Suki is 3 months. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! I do not want to lose my kitties. They are two of the most adorable kittens; it's simply that the alpha female cannot tolerate the new female. I thought introducing kitties was easier than older cats; most of the cat books suggest getting them a playmate when kittens.
Sorry about the length; thanks for taking the time to read this.
MBones
I had to take Abby to the vet
I checked to see if she had actually used her litter box since I had cleaned it last night, and there was nothing in there. I prompted her to use it, and she had very runny diarrhea, so I immediately called the vet and got her in. She also wasn't eating her dry cat food (the canned food she scarfs down). She has a viral infection and the vet said it's a good thing it was caught early since young kittens are so susceptible to this type of virus.
So she has some medicine for her diarrhea and antibiotics, plus some wormer medicine just in case. She also recieved a sub-q as she was getting hydrated. He said to keep them segregated until Abby is feeling better and we'd touch base on Saturday when I take Suki in for a checkup and shots.
They are both spayed; Abby is 4.5 months, Suki is 3 months. Both were adopted from our area Humane Society. I dearly hope that Abby's actions were caused from her illness; when Nina was alive, Abby was clearly the dominant cat but she did get along with Nina, so I'm not sure if she is a "one person" cat.
Thanks all for your advice. I'll keep you posted as to our progres. Please think happy thoughts for us!