By Susan Williams, Behaviour Manager

If you’ve been thinking about an addition to your feline family, it is extremely important to introduce your new cat to your resident cat (or cats) in the right way. A rushed introduction could lead to a poor relationship between your cats and trigger fearful or aggressive behaviour. With a proper introduction, your cats will have the chance to slowly become accustomed to each other, learn to tolerate each other and maybe even become friends.

Every cat is different so expect the introduction process to take anywhere from a few days to several weeks, depending on how long it takes the cats to adjust. Never push them farther than they’re willing to go; this will just set your progress back and you may even have to start from scratch.

The first key to a successful cat introduction is patience. Understand that it is completely normal for this to take time.

The second key is to expect new behaviour, even if you're following the proper steps. If you experience behaviour from either cat such as hissing, growling or swatting, do not panic, this is perfectly normal. This is how cats react when they see another cat and this behaviour can last up to two weeks. If your cats do not react with hissing or growling, it only means your cats are comparatively more accepting than others.

The third key is to be mindful of a cat’s senses. They have a much stronger sense of smell than humans, and rely on it to let them know what is going on around them. Your home will be covered in the scent of your resident cat. He or she would have ‘claimed’ everything by rubbing up against it and making it smell like them. The new cat will rely heavily on their sense of smell as their first introduction to the resident cat.

Step 1 - Exploring

Confine your resident cat in a spare room and let your new cat explore the main rooms of your home. Be sure to have all other doors closed (i.e. bedroom, bathroom, closet doors) so he or she cannot simply run and hide. This will give your new cat a chance to discover that another cat lives there and also to start placing their own scent around the house. Keep repeating this step several times over the whole introduction process.

Step 2 - The 'Safe Room'

Prepare a room for your new cat, such as a bedroom or spare room where he or she will stay for the first little while. Set it up with a litter box, food, water, a bed and cat toys. In addition, make sure your home now has one litter box per cat, plus one more. For example, if including this new cat, you now have three cats in total, you should have four litter boxes in your home.

Step 3 - Positive Association

Once both of your cats are feeling nice and comfortable start to move both of their food dishes closer to each side of the safe room door. Eventually, they will be eating right next to each other (with a door separating them). This allows them to associate each other with something they love; eating!

Step 4 - Seeing Each Other

For their first face to face meeting, put your new cat down in the middle of a large room, such as the living room. Again, make sure all other doors are closed. You want your cats to be able to move around, but not run away and hide. As a precaution, keep a spray bottle or bowl of water handy for you to use if an actual fight breaks out. Watch the reactions of both cats but try to act as normal as possible. Remember that hissing, growling or even spitting is normal. Only intervene with the water if actual, physical aggression takes place. Do this for about 10 minutes the first time, and gradually increase the session times until the cats are comfortable together.

Through all of these steps, if you notice your resident cat has been extremely reactive to the sight and smell of your new cat and you fear he or she may start a physical fight, it would be best for you to place your new cat in a kennel for their first visual meeting.

Although this is all very time consuming, simply putting two cats together in a room and letting them ‘work things out on their own’ can be extremely destructive. Aside from being completely unfair to your resident cat, a dangerous fight could break out.

When these steps are followed correctly, the cats in question should eventually be able to tolerate each others’ company. From here, they will decide if they want to become more than just distant acquaintances, but remember that cats can live together peacefully even if they don’t like each other.

Click here for the entire 2009 Fall Newsletter.