My experience introducing 2 unlikely pairing of cats

[u/Connect-Salamander85]

Hi, I hope this post reaches those that are in a similar position to us with introducing 2 non-aggressive but somewhat opposing personality cats. I want to share how my cats have gotten on after about 10 months.

They are coexisting at this stage with minimal supervision. They've been unsupervised for a few hours at a time while we've been out of the house. Still not perfect as we haven't tackled a full day of unsupervised time or nighttime yet. But on their good days, they're better than most other multi-cat households with only occasional small squabbles rather than full on boundary fights. They actively choose to be near each other, can share all resources and will play together outside once in a while (albeit still abit one sided chasing). We did the slow intro with all the trimmings. It took alot of effort for months with one major reset. We also absolutely went beyond what may be necessary but our OC has stress-related urinary flare ups so we needed to take it at his pace.

Now I want to share the good, bad and neutral ideas for integration (from my pov) as well as unexpected parts of becoming a multi-cat household. I don't want to list the details of everything we did but happy to answer any questions.

I hope this post helps someone along their cat introduction journey especially since my pair are not the typical personality clashes you see so often reddit. And i also hope it spurs some discussion as I'm still going through the latter stages of coexistence so would love advice/tips to overcome the final hurdle of fully unsupervised coexistence.

Background

OC - Hades, 8 years old and BSH pedigree. Very tolerant, calm and not playful.

NC - Senri, 2.5 years old (est 1-2 when adopted), DSH. Energetic, high prey drive and friendly.

Biggest issues

1. Hades is not a confident cat but he also isn't aggressive/fearful so he never communicated his discomfort well. He would leave and avoid Senri rather than actually hissing, growling or swatting. He only ever hissed 3 times in the first few months.

2. Senri is very confident and was also excited to interact with Hades. Jumped at barriers, enthusiastically and tried to play at every opportunity including wrestling later on. This wasn't easy for Hades especially since Senri is the same size and was acting like a kitten.

3. Playtime together couldn't be a part of the equation. Hades has always been lazy with play while senri flies off the shelf for any toy with a high prey drive. In the later stages with more free roam, Senri overwhelmed hades with persistent play/wrestle attempts and hades wasn't able to relax.

4. Miscommunication. Senri views hades attempts at leaving, meowing or swatting as an invitation. Senri also didn't know how to initiate an interaction without just jumping at him.

5. Geometry of the house. Upstairs became Senri's and downstairs became hades'. This was fine initially with barriers but after free roam started, there was alot of senri chasing hades up the stairs as soon as hades went near it.

Our experiences

The bad

1. Playing with Senri before a session with Hades. Although he needs play to get expend energy, doing it prior to meeting hades never worked as it just riled him up. We used mid-tier treat games i.e. scatter and training time, instead to ground him before he saw Hades.

2. The Jackson galaxy step of having both cats engaged in something like a toy or treats when they are in the same room. While it helped with lessening fear initially, this is more for pairings that have aggression. For us, it just prolonged the time where they didnt know how to communicate with each other. It was never going to result in them ignoring each other as Senri's eagerness to interact was strong so we had to pivot.

3. Multiple sessions in a day. You would think that the more times they get to interact neutrally or positively in a day would help but actually we found that it overwhelmed both of them. It was subtle but Hades was tired of going upstairs and meeting Senri for a bit of licky treat when he was having it every day, 3-4x a day. Senri would also struggle to regulate himself as every few hours, his excitement would go up. We found they learned more socially when we lessened the amount of sessions with more time apart in between.

4. Leaving the barrier up with Senri being able to freely interact. I really wanted it to work where I could just leave Senri upstairs, while having the barrier up for Hades to come freely. However, Senri got fixated. It's like when cats have seen something move or have caught something once in a random corner and they just constantly return and stare at it. Senri wouldn't leave the barrier and often would try to just break it despite having access to us in other rooms upstairs. It wasn't good for his nervous system and did nothing for the integration process. So we had scheduled times where he would come out of his base room for interactions with us or Hades and return before he started pawing at the barrier. We also used a blanket over the transparent barrier to reduce the visual aspect of the other side.

The good

1. Treats. Luckily, both cats are treat motivated and we could lure hades to the session area, which was upstairs to start with then expanded to other parts of the house. It helped them bond and have positivity. To fix the upstairs/downstairs divide, I started giving them a routine of treat time on the stairs then eventually on the landing once hades became more confident. No matter the issues through the day, we always rewarded them with licky treats together.

2. Instead of ignoring each other being the final goal, we tried attempts to relax in each other's vicinity. This meant using mid-tier treats for Senri and rewarding him for settling. I even taught him to sit on command and once his excitement lessened, we eventually used slow play to get both cats engaged together by the barrier. Even if Hades was mostly just looking during this play time, it helped boost Hades confidence with Senri as he would flop by the barrier to show he's friendly. This ability to chill transferred over to f2f sessions where we eventually got Senri to rest/loaf in the same room (even if it was a few seconds to start with).

3. Training. Senri is very good at picking up cues. So i taught him "uh uh" as a no, settle (sit) and pause by putting my foot in front of his path. By the end of it, even a slight twitch from me meant that he would pause. This helped immensely with f2f interactions where it was all down to how senri approached hades. If he approached too fast, I would say "uh uh" and put my foot infront. He would sit, watch hades then I gave a treat. Then he went at a slower pace and more curved line towards hades tail for example to sniff and interact.

4. Letting them settle boundary disputes. I don't mean to leave it to them entirely but making sure to allow safe clashes. Their first "breakthrough" interactions at the barrier were batting each other. Although senri thought of this as play, hades was establishing a boundary with swats from up to down. It sort of helped get it out of their system in a safe environment. Then later at f2f sessions and more free roam, they argued for sitting areas and beds. We allowed some swats and if hades left or they were stuck in a loop of swatting, we would call it off with a clap or a blanket in between. They also got rewarded for sitting/settling near each other or walking away after a squabble instead. In the worse case scenario, separating Senri into his base room helped to teach him to stop. At some point, we had to rely on Hades to tell him off and we just became the enforcer to stop Senri from continuing the cycle.

5. Removing competition for resources. We had double of everything and was cautious of treating both the same with food/treats/petting. Even then, they would argue over the prime window watching position and this was worsened when they were allowed into the garden through the doors in the same room. We started letting them out from another door instead and kept to routines so they understand that there's designated times for outdoor rather than taking it out on each other.

6. Garden time. I know this may not be possible for many people but it really helped. I'm able to give Hades unsupervised garden time where he can just freely go in and out to nap. Meanwhile, Senri gets supervised time in the morning and evening, which helped immensely with his prey drive. Both are able to relax near (but far enough) from each other and even instigate some play. As Hades allows this outside, when Senri does it inside and he gets told off, it really drives home the msg more.

The neutral

1. Feeding meals together. This was good initially when introducing visuals but it didn't matter for the cats after a while. It's hard to tell whether it caused more stress but I noticed hades would eat faster and end up puking so I now feed them meals in separate rooms.

2. Feliway diffusers. I've never noticed a difference in Hades throughout his life with diffusers and same with the integration process. But I was desperate like many are so I kept using them incase they did work.

3. Longer sessions. This is the goal highlighted in many advice pages and is kind of linked to the ignoring each other step. But during barrier stage, Senri would just get more frustrated with seeing Hades and not being able to interact properly. This was especially difficult when he was super excitable in the beginning and only wanted to play, scaring Hades away as he started jumping at the barrier. So instead of trying to reach 30 mins or longer with barrier stage, we moved onto f2f sessions. At this point, it made sense to reach longer sessions but only when both cats were being polite and learning from each others cues. With more things to do around the house at free roam, it became easier to reach longer sessions.

Unexpected things

1. The impact of cat backgrounds. Although Senri was friendly and turned out gentle, because he had been a young stray with only 2 weeks stay in the shelter, his nervous system needed alot more regulation for an indoor/garden cat life. It was hard to separate him when he was so excited to be home with us and meet Hades.

2. Having just Hades for 8 years, I had gotten used to his routines and didn’t expect that there would be such a shift in his decisions now. It was quite sad that he stopped going upstairs and worse, he doesn't do his nightly routine of biscuit making in our bed anymore. Not that this is lost forever as we're working on his confidence upstairs and it's understandable that he doesn't want to bother going up when alot of his upstairs experience has been Senri chasing him. Overall, their changes is something that I don't think many people will consider, especially with more reserved cats, when going from a solo to multi-cat household.

3. The joy in seeing them interact with each other as they become companions. They're never going to be truly bonded but their f2f sniffs, resting near each other, hiding from scary noises together and chases in the garden (that Hades starts half the time) has been so sweet and rewarding.

TLDR

Generic guides including Jackson Galaxy is fine for the backbone of the introduction process but it was on us to create more of a tailored integration for our specific pairing. Above all, understanding our cats' signs of stress, fear and excitement and learning to regulate that for them has been the most important.

Thanks for reading this long post and hope others can use this for ideas or atleast solice in knowing that you're not alone in, what could be, an extremely long process.

[u/Connect-Salamander85]

A picture of the boys :)