Introducing a new cat to your current cats can be quite a difficult endeavor. But with planning and persistence, you can make it work and enlarge your happy cat family.
Cats are very territorial. Many people already know this about their cats due to marking issues and scratching. However, this is especially a problem when it comes to newcomers.
When you first bring a new cat into the home, the current cats can go into a ‘sensory overload’ mode. This is due to the new smells, sights, and sounds of a new cat in their home. This can cause your cat to become angry and activate his ‘fight or flight’ senses. This is one reason why separating cats at the start can help so much. You are at least getting rid of one sense-visual, which will make it slightly easier to integrate the new cat.
By placing the new cat in its own room at first will appease both the new cat and the old cat. Make sure that all the cat amenities are available in the confinement room- litter box, food, toys, etc. This lets the old cat know that his whole home hasn’t been taken over and also gives the new cat a safe place to hide.
You will want to keep the new cat in this room for at least a week, though you may want to wait two or three weeks, depending on the attitude of your old and new cat. Make sure to spend lots of time showing affection to and playing with all of the kitties. You may notice the cats pawing under the door, sniffing, and perhaps even hissing at one another. This is okay. Wait until the cats have done this and seem okay with one another before introducing them face to face.
Before you have all the cats meet each other, give the new cat a chance to explore the whole house. You may wish to enclose your current cats into an enclosed room during this time.
Make sure you have enough cat stuff for everyone. You should have one more litter box than you have cats. Make sure you have lots of toys, scratching posts, etc. Enough that the cats cannot fight over them. You will also want to place the litter boxes and food bowls in different places, so that one cat cannot guard the bowl and force another cat to not eat or use the toilet.
Once you are ready yo have them meet each other, just open the door and let them be. Make sure to supervise this and be ready with a towel for any physical altercations. Simply lay the towel over them to stop them. If they are hissing, but not attacking, then this is fine, let them be.
