On Saturday we decided to switch the cats. I moved Nakita's food/litter upstairs and Phoenix's food/litter downstairs. Phoenix stays glued to my side so I thought placing Nakita upstairs would give her some downtime if she needed it. Plus, we sleep upstairs so Nakita stays with us for the night while Phoenix is kept in her own room.

Since that time, Nakita has barely come downstairs. She tries to come down 2/3 times a day but as soon as she sees Phoenix she will run back upstairs. This current arrangement does not provide much opportunity for Nakita to interact with Phoenix - and that's what I am concerned about.

Phoenix is quite respectful of Nakita's space. If she sees Nakita, she will first run up to her - she wants to be near Nakita. But Nakita will hiss/growl and Phoenix will walk away. Phoenix has run after Nakita once or twice, but not at all in a threatening manner. She just wants to follow her but Nakita doesn't like it at all and see's it as a threatening action.

One thing that continues to happen is that Nakita will want to come downstairs to go on the window. Nakita jumps up and then Phoenix wants to be with her also. So Phoenix will jump up, Nakita will hiss/growl and Phoenix will sit or lie down next to her. You can see Nakita doesn't want to be that close but Phoenix just wants a feline friend and sort of 'forces' herself on Nakita. Right after this picture was taken, Phoenix layed down and both cats closed their eyes.



Instead, while I'm at home should I close off the upstairs and bring Nakita downstairs so she interacts with Phoenix? Then at night return to our nightly routine? I feel if I don't do this we will have one cat on the upper floor and one cat on the lower floor with no interaction. This will make for a *very* long introduction period.

What would you do? Leave the current arrangement or start bringing Nakita down for day sessions with Phoenix? I'll be returning to work soon so I want to feel comfortable leaving them together but I don't want Nakita to be hiding the whole day upstairs either.