r/CatTraining

Here’s the demon in all her glory, Miss Boo 👻

My furry gremlin is 8 months old and the ultimate huntress, we live rurally so she takes that to her full advantage. She celebrates with a hunt, then goes for a hunt and later hunts (if you watch Rick and Morty you’ll get it 🤪). BUT she keeps plopping her “presents” down on my pillow while I’m asleep or eating them on my bed. Both you know could be considered sweet because I am her mum 🥰 but alas I don’t know if I can handle another mouse in my face at 3am 🥲. HOOOOOOOW can I get her to stop. Keeping her inside is not an option she will scratch and LITERALLY leap at the windows and doors ready to bust them down.

Hey guys just looking for advice on getting a second cat

This is our first cat Millie, she’s a rescue that we adopted at 1-2 years old, we’ve had her for two years and she’s the most cuddly playful cat I’ve ever known.

We have been talking about a second cat for a while now and just want some tips on introducing them and how to make sure we don’t upset Millie, the second cat will also be a rescue, tips on if we should get a boy or another girl, how long to keep them separated and anything else is very welcome.

Thanks in advance

Lisa Marie (11 months resident cat with some white fur)
Priscilla (3 month cat adopted 1.5 weeks ago)

Im having a hard time telling if they’re playing or fighting.
Lisa Marie is the one always initiating/chasing Priscilla. When Lisa will chase Priscilla she sometimes makes some noises and then and run away and corner herself. Once Lisa leaves, priscilla will go play with her toys (most times it’s the same room lisa is in). There are times priscilla also follows lisa but doesn’t really play with her.

When they aren’t in a playing/hyper mood, they are fine sharing a space. They both sleep in the bedroom and love to eat eachother food. 🙄 they also use the same litter box even though we have 2.

2026, many things happened and tit was not a smooth year yet for me. I lost my dear aunt in April. Fast forward, in June I rescued a little stray cat while I was driving from a funeral of a colleague’s father.
It was getting dark in the evening on the busy street, I was driving thinking subtly that I wanted to adopted a kitten and raised them to be as family. I love pets, and I wish to adopt a puppy when I move to a bigger house.

Now she’s growing bigger but the problem is he bites a lot and I don’t know how to discipline him.
If anyone could give me advice pls do.
Now m just sharing how much he has developed over the months. 🤗

The small cat on the ground is my resident cat. She’s about 2 years old and very small because she was the runt of her litter. She’s an extremely sweet cat who loves being held, cuddling, and playing.

We recently had to put my other kitty down about 2 months ago. He was a biiiiig cat. Probably three times the size of my little one lol. They were extremely bonded, so I knew bringing another cat into the home would be a big adjustment for her, but considering how bonded the other two were, I figured she might be open to having another new friend.

Fast forward to now: I knew someone who had a stray/maybe feral(?) cat that they found outside a couple of months ago. They got him vaccinated and neutered, but unfortunately had to rehome him after discovering they were allergic to cats.
I say “feral” with a question mark because he really doesn’t display typical feral behavior. He is about 1.5 years old according to vet. He’s very comfortable around people and clearly wants to interact with my resident cat. He sometimes chases after her, but it seems playful rather than aggressive, and he’s only hissed at her 2–3 times, every time it has been because she has hissed or growled at him first. He seems like he really just wants to play with her.

I kept them completely separated for the first 2 days. On day 3, they were able to have their first face-to-face meeting for a couple of minutes. I’ve also been feeding them on opposite sides of the door and playing with them together. They’re able to share Churus without any issues.
On days 3 and 4, my resident cat would stalk him, growl at him, and then hide under the couch when he approached her to play. Once she got to that point, I would separate them again for the rest of the night.

Now, they’ve progressed to hanging out together under supervision once or twice a day for about 30 minutes to an hour at a time. He really wants to play with her, and she still growls at him, but she doesn’t immediately run and hide anymore unless he swats at her (which has never seemed aggressive).

Another thing I’ve noticed is that she will sit outside the room where he sleeps, where his litter box, food, and water are, and her tail will wag while she watches the door. She seems curious and interested in what he’s doing.
Does this seem like progress? Or should I be doing anything differently to help them adjust to each other?

Hi guys!
So im introducing my ~3 yr old resident cat to a 4 month old kitten, and it isn’t going badly, but I would like some advice. And my BF is new to cats and is very worried about RC never getting used to our kitten.

We’ve scent swapped a ton, had them eat on opposite sides of the door, and put the kitten in a playpen at least 1-2 times a day, and I usually go in there with him so he can play. We’ve done this for about a two weeks (maybe less).

RC will usually look at him and sometimes hiss (but the amount of hissing for every look has gone down significantly), but sometimes she will walk over (one time she ran over) and hiss and swat at him, then then just loaf nearby, usually watching the bird videos on tv. While i’m in the playpen, my bf usually gives her treats as positive reinforcement. Is her behavior a cause for concern?

I hate the way she approaches just to swat, but the way she then loafs next to the playpen, sometimes yawning and with her back to him implies that she isn’t that stressed. For reference, she shows no signs of stress besides hissing. No airplane ears, normal posture, etc. The pic I used is an example of her doing that, but she’s often closer to the playpen.

Also, she’s only met him outside of the playpen once, and when she did, he only approached her, she tried to keep her distance.

I’m also wondering if she dislikes that I’m in there with him, since i’m her favorite person. Please tell me if i should be doing anything differently! Does it sound like she’s making progress?

Also, he’s getting neutered next week and i’m wondering if his unfixed hormones might be bothering her? idk. She is spayed btw.

Hi, I hope this post reaches those that are in a similar position to us with introducing 2 non-aggressive but somewhat opposing personality cats. I want to share how my cats have gotten on after about 10 months.

They are coexisting at this stage with minimal supervision. They've been unsupervised for a few hours at a time while we've been out of the house. Still not perfect as we haven't tackled a full day of unsupervised time or nighttime yet. But on their good days, they're better than most other multi-cat households with only occasional small squabbles rather than full on boundary fights. They actively choose to be near each other, can share all resources and will play together outside once in a while (albeit still abit one sided chasing). We did the slow intro with all the trimmings. It took alot of effort for months with one major reset. We also absolutely went beyond what may be necessary but our OC has stress-related urinary flare ups so we needed to take it at his pace.

Now I want to share the good, bad and neutral ideas for integration (from my pov) as well as unexpected parts of becoming a multi-cat household. I don't want to list the details of everything we did but happy to answer any questions.

I hope this post helps someone along their cat introduction journey especially since my pair are not the typical personality clashes you see so often reddit. And i also hope it spurs some discussion as I'm still going through the latter stages of coexistence so would love advice/tips to overcome the final hurdle of fully unsupervised coexistence.

**Background**

OC - Hades, 8 years old and BSH pedigree. Very tolerant, calm and not playful.

NC - Senri, 2.5 years old (est 1-2 when adopted), DSH. Energetic, high prey drive and friendly.

**Biggest issues**

1. Hades is not a confident cat but he also isn't aggressive/fearful so he never communicated his discomfort well. He would leave and avoid Senri rather than actually hissing, growling or swatting. He only ever hissed 3 times in the first few months.

2. Senri is very confident and was also excited to interact with Hades. Jumped at barriers, enthusiastically and tried to play at every opportunity including wrestling later on. This wasn't easy for Hades especially since Senri is the same size and was acting like a kitten.

3. Playtime together couldn't be a part of the equation. Hades has always been lazy with play while senri flies off the shelf for any toy with a high prey drive. In the later stages with more free roam, Senri overwhelmed hades with persistent play/wrestle attempts and hades wasn't able to relax.

4. Miscommunication. Senri views hades attempts at leaving, meowing or swatting as an invitation. Senri also didn't know how to initiate an interaction without just jumping at him.

5. Geometry of the house. Upstairs became Senri's and downstairs became hades'. This was fine initially with barriers but after free roam started, there was alot of senri chasing hades up the stairs as soon as hades went near it.

**Our experiences**

**The bad**

1. Playing with Senri before a session with Hades. Although he needs play to get expend energy, doing it prior to meeting hades never worked as it just riled him up. We used mid-tier treat games i.e. scatter and training time, instead to ground him before he saw Hades.

2. The Jackson galaxy step of having both cats engaged in something like a toy or treats when they are in the same room. While it helped with lessening fear initially, this is more for pairings that have aggression. For us, it just prolonged the time where they didnt know how to communicate with each other. It was never going to result in them ignoring each other as Senri's eagerness to interact was strong so we had to pivot.

3. Multiple sessions in a day. You would think that the more times they get to interact neutrally or positively in a day would help but actually we found that it overwhelmed both of them. It was subtle but Hades was tired of going upstairs and meeting Senri for a bit of licky treat when he was having it every day, 3-4x a day. Senri would also struggle to regulate himself as every few hours, his excitement would go up. We found they learned more socially when we lessened the amount of sessions with more time apart in between.

4. Leaving the barrier up with Senri being able to freely interact. I really wanted it to work where I could just leave Senri upstairs, while having the barrier up for Hades to come freely. However, Senri got fixated. It's like when cats have seen something move or have caught something once in a random corner and they just constantly return and stare at it. Senri wouldn't leave the barrier and often would try to just break it despite having access to us in other rooms upstairs. It wasn't good for his nervous system and did nothing for the integration process. So we had scheduled times where he would come out of his base room for interactions with us or Hades and return before he started pawing at the barrier. We also used a blanket over the transparent barrier to reduce the visual aspect of the other side.

**The good**

1. Treats. Luckily, both cats are treat motivated and we could lure hades to the session area, which was upstairs to start with then expanded to other parts of the house. It helped them bond and have positivity. To fix the upstairs/downstairs divide, I started giving them a routine of treat time on the stairs then eventually on the landing once hades became more confident. No matter the issues through the day, we always rewarded them with licky treats together.

2. Instead of ignoring each other being the final goal, we tried attempts to relax in each other's vicinity. This meant using mid-tier treats for Senri and rewarding him for settling. I even taught him to sit on command and once his excitement lessened, we eventually used slow play to get both cats engaged together by the barrier. Even if Hades was mostly just looking during this play time, it helped boost Hades confidence with Senri as he would flop by the barrier to show he's friendly. This ability to chill transferred over to f2f sessions where we eventually got Senri to rest/loaf in the same room (even if it was a few seconds to start with).

3. Training. Senri is very good at picking up cues. So i taught him "uh uh" as a no, settle (sit) and pause by putting my foot in front of his path. By the end of it, even a slight twitch from me meant that he would pause. This helped immensely with f2f interactions where it was all down to how senri approached hades. If he approached too fast, I would say "uh uh" and put my foot infront. He would sit, watch hades then I gave a treat. Then he went at a slower pace and more curved line towards hades tail for example to sniff and interact.

4. Letting them settle boundary disputes. I don't mean to leave it to them entirely but making sure to allow safe clashes. Their first "breakthrough" interactions at the barrier were batting each other. Although senri thought of this as play, hades was establishing a boundary with swats from up to down. It sort of helped get it out of their system in a safe environment. Then later at f2f sessions and more free roam, they argued for sitting areas and beds. We allowed some swats and if hades left or they were stuck in a loop of swatting, we would call it off with a clap or a blanket in between. They also got rewarded for sitting/settling near each other or walking away after a squabble instead. In the worse case scenario, separating Senri into his base room helped to teach him to stop. At some point, we had to rely on Hades to tell him off and we just became the enforcer to stop Senri from continuing the cycle.

5. Removing competition for resources. We had double of everything and was cautious of treating both the same with food/treats/petting. Even then, they would argue over the prime window watching position and this was worsened when they were allowed into the garden through the doors in the same room. We started letting them out from another door instead and kept to routines so they understand that there's designated times for outdoor rather than taking it out on each other.

6. Garden time. I know this may not be possible for many people but it really helped. I'm able to give Hades unsupervised garden time where he can just freely go in and out to nap. Meanwhile, Senri gets supervised time in the morning and evening, which helped immensely with his prey drive. Both are able to relax near (but far enough) from each other and even instigate some play. As Hades allows this outside, when Senri does it inside and he gets told off, it really drives home the msg more.

**The neutral**

1. Feeding meals together. This was good initially when introducing visuals but it didn't matter for the cats after a while. It's hard to tell whether it caused more stress but I noticed hades would eat faster and end up puking so I now feed them meals in separate rooms.

2. Feliway diffusers. I've never noticed a difference in Hades throughout his life with diffusers and same with the integration process. But I was desperate like many are so I kept using them incase they did work.

3. Longer sessions. This is the goal highlighted in many advice pages and is kind of linked to the ignoring each other step. But during barrier stage, Senri would just get more frustrated with seeing Hades and not being able to interact properly. This was especially difficult when he was super excitable in the beginning and only wanted to play, scaring Hades away as he started jumping at the barrier. So instead of trying to reach 30 mins or longer with barrier stage, we moved onto f2f sessions. At this point, it made sense to reach longer sessions but only when both cats were being polite and learning from each others cues. With more things to do around the house at free roam, it became easier to reach longer sessions.

**Unexpected things**

1. The impact of cat backgrounds. Although Senri was friendly and turned out gentle, because he had been a young stray with only 2 weeks stay in the shelter, his nervous system needed alot more regulation for an indoor/garden cat life. It was hard to separate him when he was so excited to be home with us and meet Hades.

2. Having just Hades for 8 years, I had gotten used to his routines and didn’t expect that there would be such a shift in his decisions now. It was quite sad that he stopped going upstairs and worse, he doesn't do his nightly routine of biscuit making in our bed anymore. Not that this is lost forever as we're working on his confidence upstairs and it's understandable that he doesn't want to bother going up when alot of his upstairs experience has been Senri chasing him. Overall, their changes is something that I don't think many people will consider, especially with more reserved cats, when going from a solo to multi-cat household.

3. The joy in seeing them interact with each other as they become companions. They're never going to be truly bonded but their f2f sniffs, resting near each other, hiding from scary noises together and chases in the garden (that Hades starts half the time) has been so sweet and rewarding.

** TLDR **

Generic guides including Jackson Galaxy is fine for the backbone of the introduction process but it was on us to create more of a tailored integration for our specific pairing. Above all, understanding our cats' signs of stress, fear and excitement and learning to regulate that for them has been the most important.

Thanks for reading this long post and hope others can use this for ideas or atleast solice in knowing that you're not alone in, what could be, an extremely long process.

​

Honestly, I wouldnt change a thing and I love this kitty to death. She is definitly my soul cat and has played a huge part to why I am still here.

But why does this little menace only become a lap cat when I try to do my knitting and she would be in the way?

Again, I dont want to change the behaviour, but I find it interisting and would love to hear opinions why she does it (I also take tips how I can keep knitting with her on me)

Also, I have included more cat tax

Hello. My parents have 3 cats. The older one, f is 10 years old, the black on the video is 7 (f, it’s her daughter), and the grey kitten (m, newly adopted) is 6 months. They were introduced pretty smoothly, the black cat accepted him very quickly. And now this little shit boy bothers them with his play. The older cat is somewhat stray and has seen some shit in her life, she knows, how to be scary and he doesn’t bother her much. She also leaves the house and has her peace either in the staircase or in the front of the house. The black one isn’t that hardcore and the kitten doesn’t understand neither from the first, nor from the 100th time, that she doesn’t wanna play. She actively vocalizes and runs away, he chases her (though, not for long, like 3 seconds, before she turns around and slaps him again). After the failed attempt, he stays calm for like 2 minutes before jumping back on her. I’m a bit bothered about her mental health because of this.

They are all neutered, and the older cats aren’t generally hostile to him, even the older cat can just casually sniff and lick him, the black one even initiates play by herself, but backs off with hissing and growling after his return swing.

How do you think, what can be done here? Is there something to be done at all, or I’m just overreacting? The vocalization on the video is quite rough, and the fact that he chases her also bothers me. And the frequency ofc. My idea is to keep him busy with something else, like toys or idk, so he f***s off the other cats at least for a while, is it how it works with cats? Thank you in advance!

UPD: I’ve just bought a couple of toys and played the shit out of him, I’ll wait to know, if he will sleep well tonight.

My cat ate through my blinds when I took the dog for a walk without him.

He starts banging the blinds at 5 am if I don’t get up so I put him outside of the bedroom and he ate under the door.

I take him on walks and he tries to kill birds while leashed.

He use to be an inside outside cat but my neighbor shot him for killing his squirrel. I sued him that’s another story.

I don’t remember ever having a cat like this. Is this normal?

I have a baby named Eevee that I rescued from a pretty bad situation. She’s not spayed. She used to live with many female cats. I was only able to take her out of the bunch due to the conditions of the other cats, and the “owners” were keeping their “favorites”

I’ve had her for about 3 weeks. She only hides, she never comes out to play, I seldom see her outside her cat house. Otherwise, she uses the potty correctly. She’s eating well. I’ve been giving her space hoping she will eventually show her personality, but it seems we aren’t there yet. ):

Is there any advice you guys can give me for her to open up more? Or should I just continue giving her that space?

Thank you so much

I recently made another post asking if I should let them fully meet, and you guys helped me get the courage to do it. don’t mind the fast camera movement at the end I am SO scared of a cat fight lol. It seemed calm for about three minutes until this point, Maeve (older white one) growled and smacked him pretty hard. Should I keep letting them do this for a couple minutes every day or do I take a step back? As I said, I’m so terrified of them fighting each other and having to re-introduce, but I couldnt tell if this is boundary setting/play fighting, or if this was about to go south? Any tips appreciated

They’re both female cats (spayed) under the age of 2. Tuxedo is the resident cat (adopted in January) and calico is new addition (adopted very beginning of July). seemed like it started as play but then progressed?

i think the little one is trying to play but i’m not too sure about the resident cat

this is a week since they scent swapped and were able to face each other

the resident cat also just watches her all the time and chases her a lot as well // sometimes he chases her back and forth from the sofa not letting her leave from behind it; she doesnt seem scared at all because she immediately goes back to playing with toys after we seperated them

at the same time we saw them licking each other (very briefly) once so i’m really not too sure what is going on and whether we are on the right track or not

please help !!

Hi! I’ve recently gotten a kitten for my resident 3 year old cat.
Introduction has been going fine but just wanted more opinions if this is just play.

They also do this and then groom each other after, and in general they have gotten pretty close. Just a bit unsure if it’s full play or too territorial