How To Introduce A New Cat To Your Household
Here's a handy guide to help you introduce a new cat to your home.
Separate Spaces
It's all about territory, so you want to keep both cats feeling safe.
- Create a room for the new cat with essentials: water, food, bedding, litterbox, scratching post and toys.
- Set up a separate room for the resident cat with their own supplies.
- When bringing the new cat home, keep the resident cat in their own room with door closed, and place the new cat in theirs with door closed, ensuring they don’t see each other initially.
Scent Introduction
- Use socks to transfer scent between the cats by wiping each cat's face with a different sock and placing it in the other cat's room. This way they can get accustomed to each other's scent in a nonthreatening way.
Exploration Time
- Twice daily, let the new cat explore the house while the resident cat is in their own room with door closed. The new cat will rub their scent on furniture, walls and such and smell the resident cat's scent on things, too.
Make sure both cats are calm before taking the next step.
Controlled Meet and Greet
- Set up a tall baby gate at the new cat’s door, covered with a few inches uncovered at the bottom. Let the cats see each other briefly while giving them treats.
- Gradually increase exposure time and reduce the gate cover, associating each sighting with food and positive interactions.
Interactive Play
- If they're calm, introduce playtime with a wand toy through the gate, rewarding good behavior with treats. Keep it short before anything negative happens.
- Gradually increase the play time.
Supervised Time Together
If there's no staring, hissing or other aggressive behavior you can move to gate-free play sessions. Good signs are purring, casually glancing at the other cat and lying down. Reward that with a treat.
- When they're comfortable, let the cats interact without the gate under close supervision.
- Keep a barrier like a piece of cardboard handy to quickly separate them if needed, and use distractions like toys or treats to diffuse tension.
Unsupervised Time Together
- Gradually move to unsupervised periods once they’re consistently peaceful.
It takes time and you may need to backtrack along the way, but yes, purry harmony is possible.