Mary Allen
In the first part of the article you learned that cats typically approach unfamiliar cats with suspicion, that bad experiences with each other should be avoided if one wants to promote friendship between the cats. You also received advice on how to choose a suitable partner cat.
Now here are some practical tips for merging.
The Welcome Room
Prepare a welcome room for the newcomer. It contains cozy retreats, water and food, litter boxes, and scratching facilities.
Here the new cat can recover from the excitement of the trip and get to know you a little better.
Please choose a welcome room that is not so important for your existing cat / s.
The door of the welcome room remains closed until the new cat looks really relaxed and cozy. Only then can the first meeting between your cats take place, provided that your existing cat also seems relaxed with the new one behind the door.
Secure Encounter
It is best to prepare a backup for the first meeting between the cats. Install a (self-made) lattice door or a cat net in the door frame. The cats can see their way through this barrier, but nothing can go wrong. In the worst case, one of the cats will dash to the barrier or one will flee, but there can be no pursuit and no fight. This is to ensure that your cats don’t have a dramatically bad experience with each other. That’s half the battle on the road to friendship!
Initially, create secure encounters that are limited in time to a few minutes. Each cat is supported by a person assigned to it, who offers it treats and spreads a calm atmosphere. There are also delicacies when people hissed, growled, or looked scared or angry. The aim of the treats at this point is to improve the mood and thus make friendly communication more likely. The message should be: “When you see this cat, great things happen to you!”
Give the cats the opportunity to see each other at a distance of several meters, especially when they first meet. It can be five to six meters if that is feasible. More would be even better!
The first meeting without a separating security barrier only takes place when several meetings at the barrier have been relaxed and friendly. It is important that you can see that the cats really come into contact with each other at the barrier. If they don’t look at each other at all or go out of sight, that’s not a good sign, even if it seems peaceful. If the cats avoid really coming into contact with each other even after several days with numerous contact options, then please get support through behavioral counseling.
First Direct Encounter
Try to give the cats plenty of space for their first encounter without a protective barrier. A large living room with open room doors throughout the apartment offers more retreat and escape options than a closed small room. And these options can give a feeling of security and thus contribute to relaxation.
- Open the door wide between the cats so that they don’t meet at the door slot. Take a deep breath and, together with a helping person, spread a relaxed, good mood.
Improve the mood again with treats, calming words, or, in the case of young cats, quiet games. - Do not lure the cats to each other, but help them to find a sufficiently large comfortable distance from each other when things are briefly a little tense. If they feel like it, they can approach each other again on their own.
- End the encounter while everything is reasonably relaxed. Then give the cats a break – it was very exciting and stressful for them – before you arrange the next face-to-face encounter a few hours later or the next day.
- Repeat these encounters until the cats are calm and curious and friendly with each other several times. Then they are ready to stay together for longer periods of time in your presence and get to know each other better.
Integration into a Multi-Cat Household
If you would like to integrate a cat into an existing multi-cat household or add several new cats to an existing one, please carry out the above-described encounter steps individually with two cats at a time. Although this is time-consuming, it protects you against two major risks that can make a reunion very difficult: If a single cat meets two or more cats that are already familiar with each other, the risk of uncertainty and thus overreaction is quite high. Another risk is redirected aggression, in which instead of the creepy newcomer the actually loved or accepted fellow cat is attacked.
Get Help Early!
When designing a reunion, you are laying the foundations for a future relationship. It is therefore worthwhile to proceed as carefully and carefully as possible. A professional cat behavior consultant can give you valuable advice as early as the planning stage, especially if you don’t really know how your cat might react to another cat. She can help you choose a good welcome room and design a workable barrier. Above all, she can give you specific instructions on how to use treats and the like to really effectively improve the mood. There are a few details to consider that are beyond the scope of this article.
Please get support if you want to introduce more than two cats to each other. The more cats involved, the more complex the design becomes.
And please hire a behavioral counselor at the latest if the reunification does not go as easily as you expected and one of the cats shows great fear or there are hunts and attacks. Your cats don’t have to fight anything now! You have to stop viewing yourself as enemies as soon as possible if there is to be any chance of friendship.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to say in general terms which measures are helpful for such situations. It depends on what is behind the cats’ behavior:
- Is it territorial aggression?
- Does frustration play a role?
- Does the hunting behavior change or does a cat behave aggressively defensively?
- Is the frightened cat rightly afraid because it is threatened?
- How strong are the arousal levels of the cats involved?
- What would you need to be approachable and open?
You should know: you cannot make every merger a success. Therefore, you should always have a good plan B ready in case you have to give up the reunion. But there are merging procedures for difficult socializations that can produce great results with enough time and reward opportunities. To do this, however, they have to be used in good time.
Outlook
What is helpful for one union can doom another to fail. Remember that the merging steps must always match the individuals, their previous experiences, their current feelings, and your personal circumstances.
It really pays to invest your time and expertise in bringing cats together.
Are four, six, or eight weeks of gentle reunification really too long when you’re rewarded with five, ten, or fifteen years of feline friendship?
At the same time, you are investing in the quality of life of your cats, both during socialization and later in life together.