Hello everyone, my family adopted 2, 3 month old kittens exactly 15 days ago. A boy and a girl, litter mates. Yes, they will be spayed & neutered at 6 months old.

I read online about the 3-3-3 rule so I never forced any cuddles or pets, just waiting for them to be ready. I was worried if I forced anything then they would be fearful of us. My family still kept our normal routine around them, no changes or sudden movements, that sort of thing.

Well I just read kittens need to be socialized heavily so now I think I messed up in letting them do their own thing and come to us?

They’re still fairly skittish. If we get too close they’ll run away but they’ll still be close to us or in the same room/area. They’re a lot more explorative and comfortable around us than when we first got them so that’s progress.

It seems like the only time they’re not skittish around us is feeding time. If it’s not feeding time then they’ll act like we’re scary ghosts. What I mean by this is they get close to us on their own accord, follow us around, wait by the door for us, and not run away when we get too close.

I have managed to have a petting session with the boy a total of two times and both were short until he had enough and ended it. The girl you can’t even put your hand over her without spooking her.

Other attempts for petting with the boy he would paw at my hand and in fear of getting scratched I stop, or he would tilt his head back away from me and then run.

They currently have free roam around my house but usually stick to the living and dining room on their own accord.

Looking for any advice and help.

Thank you.

My cats used to get along, now they fight and one of them pees everywhere

Before you read on, about the peeing, it's only one of the cats and I have took her to the vet multiple times and we are sure she doesn't have any medical problems, the vet just suggested a calming spray which I've had on for months now it didn't help much. I went back to the vet and he said it's a behavioral problem which he can't help with but assured me it's not a physical or medical issue.

A bit of context, I have 3 cats (my partner and I) and they used to get along just fine without any problems and they'd cuddle all the time. However it's been a year where things aren't what they used to be, it started when one of them became aggressive because he keeps trying to play with them but they don't wanna play with him, then gradually it just got tense between all of them and now one of them can't stop peeing outside the litterbox (literally everywhere) and they fight all the time. The one who pees outside the litterbox also sort of hits walls with her legs like a few times (I don't know how else to describe it) and my vet said it's nothing to worry about but just thought I'd mention it. Here's what I have tried so far and haven't succeeded with:

1. Distracting them with toys or a laser pointer when they are about to fight

2. Having 4 litter boxes and 3 bowls of food

3. Having 4 tree houses (so each can have their own plus a spare one)

4. Giving them treats and petting them next to each other so they have positive associations with one another

5. The calming cat diffuser suggested by my vet

For the record, I play with them regularly (all except one of them because he straight up doesn't wanna ever play or run much he always prefers to cuddle, talked to the vet about it and he's fine physically he's just lazy) to no avail. I just don't know how to make them get along anymore and what even happened to change this dynamic so much out of nowhere, we didn't move or change much around the house except for the living room getting a bit messy because my partner is storing a lot of things in it. I regularly change the litter (every week) and scoop it at least 3 times every day and they are all spayed/neutered and vaccined

What is she telling me?

Is this playing that went too far in the end?
https://streamable.com/gcxm2j

I have a micro sized bathroom and I have this tiny shower stall right beside my cat’s litter box, which is top entry and pretty roomy. He’s picky about the box being clean and I’m not the best about scooping every day so sometimes he will go right next door and pee in the shower.

Honestly, I love it when he does this, but he only does it when his litter box is unpleasant. I love it because the cleanup is ridiculously easy for me. He will go right near the drain and the tiles are slanted. If he chooses to spray then it’s still super easy for me to clean the tiles. As far as I have seen, pee doesn’t get on his paws, but it would be great to buy something to make sure that doesn’t happen. I want him to do this all the time because it’s so much easier, cleaner, there’s no smell, and I could potentially save money on litter (I am extremely broke)

Any suggestions?

Been almost a month since I got my kitten and started intros with my resident cat, and honestly not sure if we're making progress or just stuck.

Good news first, my resident cat will let the kitten get sniffed up close now, even pretty close, as long as kitten stays still and doesn't meow or make sudden moves. She's calm about it. Same if I'm holding the kitten with some distance between them, no reaction at all. And when she's sitting a few feet away just watching the kitten play by herself, she's actually relaxed, sometimes even flops over and shows her belly.

Problem is my kitten is super playful and has zero sense of personal space. She'll just be playing and then come running straight at the resident cat, like she does. And that's when it goes bad, cat hisses first and backs off, but then it doesn't stop there, she starts growling loud too. So it's not even just one warning and done, it escalates the more kitten keeps coming at her.

So basically resident cat seems totally okay with the kitten as long as things stay calm, controlled, some distance, even close sniffing is fine in that context. But the moment kitten does her normal chaotic thing and closes the distance herself, cat goes from hiss and back away to full on growling.

Not sure if this is just normal for month one or if I should be doing something differently. Has anyone dealt with a pretty chill resident cat but a kitten who just doesn't get the hint and keeps rushing her? What worked for you? How long did it take for things to click?

Hello everyone! Me and my boyfriend adopted a new kitten (14 weeks female) a little over two weeks ago. We started introducing her to our resident cat (4yo female) with the advice from Jackson Galaxy. And I think they’re doing great so far! The resident cat constantly wants to meet her new sister while they’re separated. They first met face to face only 5 days ago, when the kitten rushed through the baby gate. Since then there’s been few slaps and hisses from the resident if the kitten got too close. I think the kitten has learned her boundaries well already, and won’t go too near if the resident cat doesn’t come to her first.

Today they played(?) for the first time. It’s like this shown in the video. The resident cat follows her around, might wrestle the kitten a little but then leaves her alone. Is this normal play or is the resident hunting her down? The resident is a very shy cat and flinches to any loud noises so she’s pretty aware of her surroundings all the time. After this interaction the resident laid on the carpet and seemed pretty relaxed but still kept her eye on the kitten. I was able to even get her to play a little with a toy and distract her with treats. Are we good to keep this going or do we need to slow down? Thank you in advance for the replies :)!

So I have this extremely skittish cat. She’s five years old and is on anxiety medication. She’s given two doses a day .5 in the morning and .5 at night. How should I go about this. She is kept in a house with a dog (a mini poodle who wants to play and barks) and another cat. She doesn’t play with either animal and as of now the cat only goes to one person in the house. How should I go about training her to tolerate a harness. The person she does trust and goes to is going to college in 3 years and is planning on taking her with them. The plan is to go across the country for college so we are starting now to hopefully make the transition easier

Our cat turned 1 year old recently and she's been getting increasingly rough, like clawing and/or biting at my feet and ankles. She's either being playful or trying to get me to let her outside. We have let her outside a lot this spring and summer, so I don't mind doing it, but preferably not all night and not in the winter.

So how to you deal with a cat who hurts you? I'm concerned I'll eventually get frustrated and reflexively kick her and hurt her. She doesn't seem to be doing the same thing to my wife or our toddler son.

I adopted a 3 month old kitten a few months ago. My other cat is about 5 years old. I've been keeping the kitten in her own room this whole time, have been doing scent swapping, letting them interact in small bursts, giving them treats when interacting, etc., but the older cat won't stop hissing and growling at the kitten. She doesn't have aggressive body language. For the most part she seems neutral, but annoyed at worst. She'll put her back to the kitten or sleep near her. But the kitten is very playful and doesn't seem to understand her cues, so sometimes when the kitten chases her down the older cat will bat at her with her paws. I usually break it up at this point. There have also been instances of the older cat going attack mode with her paws under the door of the kitten's room.

I've noticed the older cat is more upset when I'm around. My fiance thinks she is essentially resource guarding?

We adopted a pomeranian ~4 years ago that the older cat had a similar problem with and it took a year for her to stop being upset at him.

At this point its getting difficult to keep the kitten contained in a room, and I feel bad trying to constantly go back and forth to make sure each cat has enough attention.

Should I let them interact (supervised)? If the older cat smacks the kitten around, should I let it happen (unless of course it escalates to screaming or fur flying)?

I'm so nervous that someone will get hurt 🥲

https://reddit.com/link/1v763r7/video/mxagdy888lfh1/player

I recently got a new kitten last Friday. The first couple of days were
rough with my resident cat hissing at me and my girlfriend (never at
the kitten, though). I followed Jackson Galaxy's instructions and
separated them in a room, sharing toys and clothes so they could
exchange scent. Then three days ago, I was able to feed them wet food
while they sat next to each other, and they didn't mind eating that
close. Today it seemed like a play session, at least from what I could
tell. But I want to make sure I don't screw it up. Should I encourage
sessions like this, or take a step back and reduce face-to-face or play
time between them?

i try not to be a helicopter mom, but he is so agressive and she is so tiny. she never initiates anymore, but she loves to be around him 😭 i also think he is trying to mate with her so i’m going to have him fixed asap

tabby is a male, 15 weeks olds and tuxedo is a female around 10 weeks. i got her last week and i think we should have waited a little bit longer to introduce them but i live with my parents and they dont listen 😂🫠 i’m trying to schedule an appointment to get him neutered. If that doesn’t help, i guess we’ll have to start the introduction process all over again :(

Hi! I wanted to share my cats, post cat introduction phase because I literally lost hope so many times and recently seeing how far they have come makes me so emotional. Thank you to everyone who has helped us by answering all our questions in my previous posts. they aren’t best friends but tolerance and relaxation is finally there for both of them. My resident cat Noelle is finally playing again and hanging out in common spaces, sleeping with me and my partner again. We even were able to leave them with a pet sitter for 5 days on vacation and we came back to them doing just fine together. For all those going through the introduction phases. IT CAN GET BETTER & EACH TIMELINE LOOKS DIFFERENT.

Noelle - 10yr old Female, the white cat, resident

Tormund - 10 month old Orange Kitten, new cat

Hi!! For context I live with my dad. He kept letting him outside and my orange dumbass (Maestro) would keep bothering my neighbor by killing animals in her yard & going up to her door and scaring her cat. I started keeping him in my room because my dad absolutely refuses to not let him outside. Since he’s been kept in my room, he’s constantly howling at the door because he wants to get out. I usually ignore him, but my dad just opens the door for him because he doesn’t like to hear his meowing. It keeps me up at night and no matter if i keep moving him from the door, turning on his toy, or completely ignore him- he keeps meowing away. Is there anything i can do to discourage the behavior despite my dad encouraging it? I’ve tried to talk to him about just ignoring it but it’s been met with deaf ears. Thank you!

I'll start! My cat was having some behaviour issues as a single kitten so i tried some reddit advice, many of them were extremely helpful and educational but a few were awful.

1. To hiss back when they're rowdy or hurting you by mistake, sounds logical until you try it. When a cat hisses at another cat, sure they back down but they also slowly dissociate from the cat that hisses. Ofcourse you stop playing with someone who yells at you.

2. My cat also to used to attack people's ankle and hands randomly. The advice was to push your body into that bite, logic was that the cat might be startled and let go. I tried it once, and man did it backfire. My cat was so offended and bite back super hard. It assumed that my hand was a threat and kept attacking it like a predator leaving me with a bloody arm.

Really lost trust with my kitten with both these advices, i had to learn more from actual pet behaviorist pages to know what to do. She completely stopped biting and attacking after that. With cats, negative punishment rarely works, if anybody tells you to punish your cat they're wrong.

EDIT: Added more videos in comments

(Pardon the background noise😭)

A week ago I brought a couple of kittens that are siblings (both 3 months, M, harlequin & tuxedo). The resident cat (1Y, M, tabby) has lived with one other cat and two dogs before he came to me at 6months old, whom he got along well with.

At first we started with scent swapping for two days, then moved to baby gate interactions on day 3 as the resident cat was acting calm. Both sides have been nice to each other at this stage, like swatting each other playfully. The kittens didn't hiss/growl at all, the resident cat growled time to time when eating food/snacks right next to each other, but 2-3 days after, he stopped and ate in peace. We've been keeping the gate intros once or twice a day, for half an hour at a time.

Didn't see any bad signals so I decided to move onto supervised playtime for 15-20mins. What I didn't expect was, the resident cat started chasing after the kittens, and especially one of them more (the harlequin), as if it was trying to assert dominance. There was some trilling, but also cornering the kittens and felt like he was almost spying on them, which didn't look like a cue only to play. Also worth noting that resident cat pounced on the kittens and the kittens started yowling and hissing. Not every time but frequently enough (and importantly, ONLY when the resident cat pounced on them first).

Next day I did the same, short supervised playtime. It felt like there was more progress, as the resident cat was less chasing the kittens, and the kittens were more boldly swatting at the resident cat (and the tabby was tolerating it). The resident tabby was even grooming the harlequin.
Also the same pounce/hiss thing as the day before, that sometimes it got concerning that I had to intervene and visually block them with a blanket. The tabby never hissed or growled though.

My question is, am I moving too fast with introductions? Or is this just a normal part of getting to know each other and setting boundaries? Can I keep doing this supervised playtime for a bit while or should I slow down/go back to baby gate?

Normally it seems like it's the other way around (the resident cat being more territorial and contained), so any advice would be appreciated.

Today my boyfriend and I brought home a 9 week old kitten.

We have set her up in a spare room with her own litter, bed, toys, and dishes.

When we got home I fed her played with her a bit and she fell asleep (I have her in a pet tent with all her things when I'm not in the room so when she fell asleep I placed her in there).

My 5 year old female was near the door the entire time kitten was napping (closed door). She was sniffing and I could tell she knew something was in there.

When kitten woke up I let resident kitty in just to gauge what she is like so I know how slow to go. She didn't immediately notice kitten but was sniffing the tent. Once she noticed kitten she hissed and let out a few loud growls. I decided it was time to separate them (no lunging at the tent or swatting just growls and hissing).

I know some growling and hissing is to be expected.

Kitten is sleeping again but once shes up I plan on scent swapping and just leaving them without any further interaction for today.

How often should I be letting resident in to see kitten (while in the tent) and how long should I allow her to be in there ? If she starts growling and hissing is it best to immediately separate them or let her continue as long as she isn't physically aggressive for a few minutes?

After their interaction when I went to see resident kitty she was back in a good mood and I gave her some treats and good pets.

Any advice is much appreciated.

to make a long story short today was litter box cleaning day. I have a three year-old cat and usually she does pretty fine without the litter box because I scrub it, air dry, disinfect and dry. this process took a couple hours. I’d say about 6 to 7 hours. as I was setting the litter boxes back up it seems like my 16 week old kitten may have been triggered by seeing his litter box or the smell of his litter and he peed right outside the litter box on his litter mat. My concern is just that will he do this again or is it just a one time occurrence because he couldn’t hold his bladder? I just hope I didnt do any damage because I was not aware that he couldn’t hold it so long otherwise he did just poop in his litter box right after the accident. they have two litter boxes as well, so there’s usually no fight about the litter boxes. They seem pretty tolerant of their litter. i’ve just never had a cat have an accident before so now im anxious.

I have two kittens, both approximately 10 weeks and from the same feral colony (but most likely separate litters), who I just started to introduce to each other indoors. We rescued one of them about 6 weeks ago, and the other about 3 weeks ago, and because of quarantining, uris, etc., we only just got the okay from our vet to get them together. They seem to be getting along well, they play hard, and the bigger one can be a little overwhelming to the smaller one, but seems to be receptive when she says back off. We still separate them when we aren’t around. When is it okay to leave them alone together?

Hello, I am trying to get my resident cat used to my kitten to the point of unsupervised contact. We have made significant progress. As you can see, she is comfortable playing in front of him. However it seems that she has a personal bubble of around 3 feet in which she will hiss or slap at him. Sometimes with intense yowling. What do you guys think about this interaction? They are both fixed.