Table of Content
After a week, Dr. Bales recommends putting a baby gate at the door to your kitten’s room and, while you supervise, allowing the cats to meet through the gate. If there are no signs of aggression, allow them to interact for 15 minutes while monitoring for signs of stress or aggression. If all goes well, increase the number of supervised visits until your cats are relaxed, happy and ready to be proper housemates. Reinstall the baby gate and work through the steps again. The cats should not be directly interacting at this stage.
Otherwise, just remain calm and give your pet time to explore and adjust. Be sure you know where your cat or kitten is at before putting the footrest back down. Newly adopted cats can sometimes bring home fleas, ticks and other infections if they had been in a shelter situation. It’s very important to give your new cat some personal space and not force yourself upon it, or be too quick to introduce it to your other animals.
Welcoming Your New Family Member
Consult your veterinarian or an animal behaviorist about the cat match that’s right for your household. Pellicano suggests reassuring your long-time cats by playing with them and giving them positive reinforcement with the new toys and tasty, vet-approved food. With a toy in each hand , engage the cats in interactive play using a separate toy for each cat. Ideal toys are a fishing rod toy which has a rod with a long string and feathers attached or a cat laser light. Always stop the play on a good note and reward the cats with a treat.
If you are thinking of adding a kitten to the family, follow these expert tips for introducing a kitten to a senior cat to ensure the comfort of your resident feline. Welcoming a cat or kitten into your home is like bringing home a curious toddler. Animals can easily transmit parasites or diseases to one another. To prevent this from happening as much as possible, make sure your resident pets are up to date on their vaccinations before introducing a new cat or kitten to your home. You may want to talk with your shelter or breeder and select the same type of food and litter your cat or kitten is already used to, at least for the first few weeks.
Getting your cat settled into their new home
Still, cats can enhance almost anyone’s life, and you can definitely enhance the lives of the cats that you adopt. Take your new cat to your veterinarian within the first week after adoption for a routine check-up. Your vet can help you determine what flea and tick medication will work best for your cat, as well as giving your cat any needed and essential vaccinations. Regardless of its age, a cat may exhibit some destructive behavior in a new environment. So, before you bring your new friend home, be sure that you have a safe environment that is free from any potential dangers. It’s also important that there be enough high resting spaces for the cats .
Realize that either of these scenarios might happen. Your goal in facilitating introductions is to set the stage for the cats to peacefully share their living quarters, but understand you simply cannot “make” them like each other. When you bring your new cat home, confine him to one room with his own litterbox, bed, food, and water for a week, or at least until he has been examined by your vet.
How To Help a Cat Adjust To a New Home
And he’s extremely vocal, which is unusual for a true feral. These days, he’s loving, playful, getting better around new people all the time, and in the best health he can be, all things considered. Once he got used to the house, he pretty much curled up by the heating vent in my office and slept all day. He preferred to go outdoors rather than use a litter box, but as soon as he was done, he’d be back at the door. While dogs and cats have often been portrayed as enemies, it is usually a great deal easier to introduce a new cat to a dog than to another cat.
You can also learn more about adopting a cat or kitten—from the adoption process to basic kitten care–by checking out Bringing Home a New Kitten. And keep in mind that the recommendations given above work for most cats, but not for every cat. If your cat is showing signs of stress and is not improving, please contact your veterinarian or a behaviorist.
What to Expect at Your Kitten's 6-Month Health Check
These developments raised the alarm for my deaf years and I was introduced to various dietetic aspects of these adorable pets. Adult cats will usually accept a new kitten much more easily than they will accept a new adult cat. Cats are territorial, and your cat may resent an adult feline intruder.
Many dogs will live happily with their own cats while chasing strange felines out of the garden, so you will need to take care until the cat is seen as one of the household. Likewise if your new cat or kitten has previously lived with a dog then it will be much less likely to be frightened for long and will become confident around the dog more quickly. A kitten is less of a threat to a resident cat than an adult cat because it is still sexually immature. It can also be better to g,et a kitten of the opposite sex to the resident cat to minimize competition. Neutering helps to remove most of such problems, but may not eliminate them altogether. If you are getting an adult cat again it can be better to bring in one of the opposite sex.
If your resident feline is a senior cat, the process could be even more delicate—an older, established cat may be unnerved by a bouncy new roommate. Cats bury their waste by nature, so training your cat to use its litter box will be easy. It might take some time for your new companion to get comfortable in its new surroundings. This may take days, weeks or even months depending on the cat, and this can be especially true if you already have other animals already living in your home.
Some cats will be completely comfortable right off the bat, acting as if they own the place the minute they step in the door. Others will be nervous and may go into hiding for a while. Just give them plenty of time to get acclimated and start exploring at their own pace. If you’re unsure if you should take the cat in, you can discuss it with your vet, who can offer medical insights and experience to help determine the best course of action.
No comments:
Post a Comment