New cat harassing old cat

Hi, I'm after some tips / advice / techniques. We have had a female cat Roxy for 3 years, she moved in with us from a neighbour. She is about 7 years old, very affectionate, responsive and spends most of her time indoors abour 3 feet away from me or my husband! About 6 weeks ago a stray female turned up in our garden and promptly moved in. We have called her Fidget. The vet recons she is about 5 years old, but that is a guess based on the condition of hear back teeth. We don't know if she has been spayed. We are having terrible trouble getting the two girls to bond. Fidget constantly follows Roxy around, often chasing her when she turns away from her. Roxy just runs away, sometimes stopping in another room and then turning and hissing or howling at Fidget and then they are in a stand off. Roxy now spends most of her time hiding away where fidget can't find her, only really coming out for food & toilet. It's very upsetting to see Roxy so intimidated and withdrawn. We have tried Feliway plug in, calming food, tablets & syrup but things are getting no better. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Lynda


Answer by Kate
Hi
well my first piece of advice would be to take her to the vets to make sure she is spayed and if not have this done. having another cat move in is bad enough but one that is not spayed would be very upsetting indeed for your cat.

there is also a process you can take your cats through which helps them to accept each other without the fear of attack. it does take a little time and effort on your part but is worth it in the end. Please this page for more details on this.

https://www.our-happy-cat.com/introducing-cats.html

best wishes Kate

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been there, done that
by: hafcanadian

Buddy, a big, young, neutered male stray with a very human-loving attitude, moved himself into our home in 2002. Our spayed female, Tobi (Tobithina Rae Ashley), that adopted herself into our family as a months-old kitten in 1993 was not happy. Buddy was twice the size of 8 pound Tobi, and loved getting on our laps and snuggling our heads with his, even laying around our necks; this was something Tobi rarely did, though she loved to be picked up and held. The snuggling was obviously a learned trait from whoever raised Buddy, and my wife ate it up. He didn't shed as bad as Tobi, so that made it even more acceptable and endearing. But Tobi's jealousy was obvious, and she didn't know what to make of the situation I guess - we noticed a negative change in her whole attitude. Both cats spent their nights in cat beds in our garage. It wasn't long before we began to notice new smells in there, and discovered one of the cats had sprayed in the back of my pickup truck. Then we saw Buddy spray on yard shrubbery. It got worse when we figured out Tobi was spraying on living room furniture! We'd never seen her spray before on anything anywhere. It was terrible.
Obviously the fight for dominance and territory was on, and little defiant Tobi took the brunt of things, because she got blamed for the in-house spraying, and because Bud was bigger, had front claws (Tobi had been front-declawed when young), and beat her up pretty good a time or two. The final straw came when my 82 year-old sister-in-law, Cloe, was visiting for a week, had Bud around her neck while watching TV, and Tobi, not noticing Bud, tried to jump on her lap. My wife and I had gone shopping, and returned to find Cloe in the chair with blood streaming from a nasty cut on her hand, not a good thing given she was on blood-thinning medication! Apparently Tobi's sudden realization, when she hit Cloe's lap, that Bud had already claimed high ground caused her to knee-jerk react, cutting Cloe with a rear claw in her leap to the floor.
With regret, my wife finally gave Bud to her denturist, who had a place in his family for him. Buddy, by the way, looked exactly like the picture of the smiling cat on this webpage. Tobi's demeanor change was immediate; apparently she saw Bud get put in the travel cage and the car, and when Momma came home without him, she put 2 & 2 together. Wow, what a change! Tobi had never been a vocal cat before, but since Bud left all those years ago, she is so "talkative" it's as if she's a whole different cat.
Bringing a second cat into another's long-established Kingdom (or Queendom) can have devastating consequences. In my long experience, sibling felines that have been raised together don't behave the way Tobi and Bud did. Having raised multiple litters of cats over the years, I'd never seen spraying behavior or territorial problems before, so I'm convinced it's best to have siblings if you want more than one cat in your home.

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