A second cat - help!
Apr. 18th, 2007 11:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceUmm. I wasn't going to post about this till after the fact, whichever way the fact went; but actually I realise I'm no way ready, and I'm no good at improvised solutions; if a thing doesn't work straight off, I tend to abandon it entirely, which is not going to help in this situation.
So: a friend of mine needs to rehome a cat, and I've offered him a trial here, because sometimes I think what Barry most needs is a companion. Sometimes I also think it's the thing he'd like least, but hey. What do I know? I'm a human.
I said we'd try it anyway, take the youngster on approval with rights of return in case it doesn't work. But here's the thing: all the advice I've seen about introducing a new cat to an established cat-house starts with keeping the newbie separated for a period of days, maybe weeks, till everybody gets accustomed to each other's smells and presence. That's simply not an option (apart from the physical difficulties of keeping two cats separated in a small house where Barry can open every door); we don't have that kind of time available, to discover if the two of them will get on or hate each other irreparably. The new kid's coming on Friday, and I guess I have a few days after that to make a firm decision; but 'few' is the operative word.
So: tips, tricks, advices? How can I encourage them to love each other, how can I tell absolute hatred from temporary spatting? Give me of your wisdom, O LJ...
Details: the new kid is a neutered male, a rescue cat, a year old or a little more. A dark grey tabby, I'm told, and his name is Mac. Macavity, I said? Machismo?
Macadamia, apparently. Hmm. Perhaps we'll stick to Mac.
Yikes.
So: a friend of mine needs to rehome a cat, and I've offered him a trial here, because sometimes I think what Barry most needs is a companion. Sometimes I also think it's the thing he'd like least, but hey. What do I know? I'm a human.
I said we'd try it anyway, take the youngster on approval with rights of return in case it doesn't work. But here's the thing: all the advice I've seen about introducing a new cat to an established cat-house starts with keeping the newbie separated for a period of days, maybe weeks, till everybody gets accustomed to each other's smells and presence. That's simply not an option (apart from the physical difficulties of keeping two cats separated in a small house where Barry can open every door); we don't have that kind of time available, to discover if the two of them will get on or hate each other irreparably. The new kid's coming on Friday, and I guess I have a few days after that to make a firm decision; but 'few' is the operative word.
So: tips, tricks, advices? How can I encourage them to love each other, how can I tell absolute hatred from temporary spatting? Give me of your wisdom, O LJ...
Details: the new kid is a neutered male, a rescue cat, a year old or a little more. A dark grey tabby, I'm told, and his name is Mac. Macavity, I said? Machismo?
Macadamia, apparently. Hmm. Perhaps we'll stick to Mac.
Yikes.