I just got a little bengal boy (3months old) last night. I am attempting to intoduce him to my two domestic moggies (a year and a half old). The bengal and my other cats are hissing at each other. Should i just allow this to happen? At the moment i am trying to distract them to prevent any problems. Both my moggies are trying to get to a high position to avoid my little bengal boy. Both my moggies are shy but normally will interact with another cat as long as it shows no sign of aggression.

A lot depends on whether the aggression is real or just posturing! Most people seem to recommend keeping them separate and only having supervised contact for the first few days, maybe playing with them together with wand toys and feeding them in the same general area. I must admit I'm a bit more inclined to leave them to sort it out together provided there's no risk of injury and they're all confident characters. It took 3 or 4 weeks before my Bengal accepted the rescue moggies and I had some quite stressful times thinking they were never going to get on together but all's well now.

At the moment they've all had their world turned upside down so it's understandable that they're unsettled. It will take time to sort out a pecking order and for them to realise there's no threat from each other. Good luck with the introductions.

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There's no hostility at all now - they eat together and sometimes sleep together (although usually they all pick a place of their own). I wouldn't say they were bosom buddies - Dolly is kind of indifferent towards the moggies - but there's absolutely no aggression and they do have lovely moments when she suddenly starts to wash one of them. I did have doubts for the first couple of weeks but looking back now, I wonder what I worried about.

This is Dolly sharing her fleecy blanket (a bit reluctantly) with Delilah


and giving Samson a quick wash in between games of Da Bird

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