New on board!

[Mercedes]

I happened to stumble across this board yesterday and think it's wonderful. I am hoping to get some advice. I have a one year old cat who is the love of our life and we want to add another cat to our family as well. We are thinking about geting a ten week old kitten for our cat to be a mother to.....but we are clueless as to how to introduce the two cats together.....do we need to keep the new kitten in our guest room for a couple of weeks until we have them meet?? Any tips would be wonderful!!!
Thanks

[jenluckenbach]

Welcome.

Getting a new cat would be wonderful. Your cat may or may not mother a new baby, but they should bond if given time and proper introduction.

The first thing you should keep in mind is not to rush things.

New baby should come into your home and be placed in a single room away from the resident cat. He should have all his needs in there, litter, food, water....etc. They will sense each other from under the door and by smelling each other on you.

Whe they do meet, always be there to supervise and make sure that the resident cat gets the attention. Do not allow them to be allone together until you are sure they will be no serious fights.

Be ready for hissing and growling, it is NORMAL and expected. Only break up vicious attacks, sparring is to be expected.

Mostly......have fun and post pictures

[sirrahbed]

Welcome Mercedes!!! Others will have some good info on introducing a new kitten - I know folks have put together some very good pages about that very thing plus some personal experience. When I added new cats - I always kept them in a carrier so my other cats could sniff for a day or two and when there was little hissing, left the door open and that was that! Never a problem - but of course you will want the kitten vet checked and all that good stuff
Hope you enjoy PetTalk! So many nice people here and it is pretty addictive too. I can never miss a day without checking in Hate to miss anything.
Again, welcome!!!!

[catmandu]

You should keep the New Arriaval seperate unless they do seem,to hit it off,right away!

[tictic]

Hi and welcome. I'm still new here, and proud Mommy of Pee-chan, Selphie and Ken.

I'm also in the process of introducing a kitten in our home. Patience is the key. Hope to see pictures and stories of your cat.

Good luck with your new addition.

[CatDad]

I just wanted to say welcome to PT.

You have heard it before and this is not the last time, patience is the key. You may get lucky and have the them hit it off right away, but that is not the norm. Jen already gave you the best advice to start off with.

I know that you will like it here, and give us an introduction to your current kitty. Pictures are always appreciated.

[Mercedes]

Thanks for the replys!!
We brought a friend's puppy here a couple of weeks ago and when our cat Maya met the puppy, she hissed a little but otherwise she was soo curious that she always had to be near him. I am not sure if cats and dogs get along better then cats and cats...but I am hoping that she will be just as welcoming to a kitten as she was with the puppy. Of course, once the puppy was gone after being here for a week...Maya was a lot happier and became more cuddly with us. I do have a large empty guest room that I could transform into a kitten apt. for a couple of weeks with food, litter box, and toys. However, my concern with that would
be that I would eventually NOT want the litter box in that room but instead have it in the laundry room with Maya's litter box....will this confuse a kitten and will she pee in the guest room even if there is no litter box.
Again thanks for all the help. I am just really nervous...I don't want to create a stressful ordeal for our Maya.

[jazzcat]

When I brought Jazz home at 14 weeks I had to keep her in my guest room for over three weeks because it turned out she had a URI (kitty cold) and ringworm so I had to keep her quarantined from Ripley. When we did finally start introducing her and letting her out it was no trouble to move her litterbox into the laundry room. Same with Scout when we did that with her after keeping her in the guest room for about a week. I don't think that will be any concern for you as long as you show the kitten where the box is in the laundry room.

I almost forgot. Welcome to PT!! I have three cats and a dog as you can see in my signature below. I look forward to meeting your furbaby. I think you cat will probably be happy to have the company, just take it slow.

[jenluckenbach]

Depending on the size of your home you might want to reconsider having your litter boxes at different places rather than all at one place. Think of your home from a cat sized perspective. it could be a LONG way to go to the other end of the house when you gotta "GO".

Having a litter box in a bedroom, kitchen or wherever is NOT a bad thing. People sometimes have this "stigma" about where the litter MUST be. I have boxes in EVERY single room in my house and they are not an eye-sore, they are part of my home and decore, part of my lifestyle.

But if you actually NEED to move the box, don't do it until she is older and more able to hold "it" in case she forgets that it is no longer there and needs to race to the other one.

[catlover4ever]

Welcome to Pet Talk. You have come to the right place for advice. While I can not add anything else that has already been said for introducing a new kitty into the house I just wanted to welcome you to Pet Talk and say that I look forward to hearing and seeing more on you and your kitty (hopefully kitties ) --- Meg

[Craftlady]

Welcome to PT

[Felicia's Mom]

Welcome, I'm glad you found us.

[RedHedd]

Welcome to PT! Many have already said it, patience is the key. It took my two about three weeks to get to the point where they could be in the same room without hissing. There were no real fur-fights, but I think I got lucky. Mishi lived in my teeny-tiny bathroom for the first few weeks with us and now .... well, Mitzi and Mishi aren't cuddle-bugs, but I do catch them sleeping next to each other a lot more often. The key is getting them used to each other's scent - kitties are scent driven. Good luck and keep us posted on your progress, along with pictures! We LOVE pictures.

Oh, yeah, one more thing .... PT is highly addictive. Consider yourself warned!

[Mercedes]

Thanks for the welcomes!

Redhedd...I looked at all your photos...your cats are beautiful. Is one a tort?? I looked at a tort yesterday....the shelter has 43 kittens....all of them looked very well taken care of. The tort was a bit shy but adorable....just not sure on what kind of personality a tort has if it is any different then a domestic cat. The kitty that my four year old son fell in love with was a long haired grey kitty that had the loudest purr I have ever heard. The shelter is not open again until thursday so I am trying to spend these next few days determining if it will be a good idea to do this. I wouldn't really care if the two cats do not become best buddies....but I would like for them to at least like each other.
I had a cat in college that was a siamese.....my roomate decided to also buy a cat and bring it home.....the two cats hated each other and always batted each other in the head. It got to the point where my cat would hide under the bed and never come out except to use the litterbox and to eat. Now, this cat is at my parents home and still has the nutty behaivor of hiding under the bed. I am wondering if we just did not introduce them together properly and if that is why we had such problems.

[MULTICATMOM]

HI M, YOU'LL BE GLAD YOU FOUND PT!! THE PEOPLE & SUPPORT HERE ARE GREAT WELCOME TO YOU & YOURS!!!!