Edit: I can’t figure out how to post a picture of the diagram I drew ?? I put it in a Google Doc and added the link at the bottom.
Prefacing my diagram with the following information:
I am graduating in a couple weeks with a degree in companion animal sciences. I have worked in cat specific animal shelters and have a decent amount of experience with cat behavior.
Ages: PB (only male) and Vin are 7, Chef is 4-6, Soot Sprite just turned 1, and Kitai is 3.
I got Vin when she was a kitten in 2019, moved to my new apartment in 2022 with her and then got kitten Kitai that year spring. The two of them adjusted fine together after a few months and taking it slow. In January 2024 we took in PB from a grandparent who could not care for him any longer. PB had lived with other cats in the past, and our goal was to integrate him with the other two. We tried all of the tricks over literally a year. Feliway diffusers, swapping items between rooms, swapping cats between rooms and spaces, interactions through carriers at a distance, interactions through a door frame filled with baby gates, and all forward and backwards steps within those permutations of escalation of contact, he just never ended up getting along with either of them. Kitai would actively fight with him and Vin would fight/defend herself from his aggression. We ended up just letting them split their time between parts of the apartment.
We found Chef outside in April 2025, she was pregnant and quickly had her babies in our apartment. We kept one kitten because they were very bonded and we fell in love with her. Cue lots more introductions, forward and backwards steps, the whole ordeal. Lots of trial and error with who can eat in what room with who based on different interactions of food aggression. I drew a chart so I could visualize where we’re at now after two years with PB and a year with Chef and Soot Sprite. Up until recently, the four girls had been fine out together, and PB was the only outlier who took turns hanging out with Chef and Soot Sprite, as he oddly bonded with Soot Sprite and tolerates Chef. After Soot Sprite was spayed there was some re-introduction aggression, mainly Kitai directed at her. Soot Sprite gets along fine now with everyone except Kitai. It has been two months of re-trying all of the introduction steps to get Kitai and Soot Sprite to get along again. Kitai is on fluoxetine 5mg and occasionally 50mg gabapentin. I changed all the diffusers to optimum instead of multi cat. Kitai is still cornering Soot Sprite and even charging/swatting, also swatting Chef. Chef is FIV positive so the only way this was working is that they got along, but at least Chef is still not aggressive at all. This all worked so much better when we had just two groups of cats, but now we have to keep them in three separate areas. the only things I have not fully tried is adding more litter boxes, we currently have four, which I know is not enough for five cats. Ideally, we would have six, but I just don’t know where to put them. I could probably squeeze in a fifth one.
Any advice would be much appreciated, I’m getting to my wits end with this!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-jgYs7tlsTr1hfk3tCg_6UHOcceGNANpTU1hxIZFi04/edit?usp=drivesdk