aha! Reading Lori's response reminded me of Dylan's first response He was also a maniac and scared me! He growled, hissed, spit and acted like I had never seen him act I honestly thought he had gone nuts. Now, I can't even remember how long it lasted. The babies disappeared into the bathroom...seems like Dylan started by sniffing around and acting interested - we gave him LOTS of lovins. He has smacked them good several times - enough to send Lizzie flying across the kitchen floor for swatting his tail but she got right back up and did it again Robbie was a quicker study - when he is running and sees Dylan, he puts on his brakes mughty quickly and tippytoes in a wide circle around him!! Like I said, Uncle Dylan is a pussycat but he does NOT put up with misbehaving. And, there has never been bloodshed or missing fur. Eliot plays pretty rough and the babies will squeal and he always backs off right away.

Once the actual face to face introductions took place, we just left the kittens out that same day. Since no blood was shed, we felt ok about it and they just gradually learned to get along at their own pace and we never felt the need to separate them again. We tried our best to play only with the bigger cats and only with the babies in secret. The bigger guys mostly ignored the babies until they were in the mood to find their role - Eliot the playful clown and Emily and Dylan the strict nurturers. I really never felt that a baby was in any danger from any of the older cats. Well, that first reaction from Dylan but that was the first night and of course the babies were still caged.