Hi, I was hpoing somebody could help us with our 2 kittens.

We picked our new Bengal kitten up on Sunday evening. Her name is Sumi (Soomi) and she's lovely! She is 3.5 months old brown spotted.

We already have a 4 month old DSH kitten who we have had for about 2 months. She is called Jemima.

Sumi was quite nervous when we got her home and we kept the two apart until Monday afternoon when we briefly let them see each other. There was a lot of hissing and growling, so we kept them apart again.

We take turns in letting one have a roam around the house whilst the other is kept in a seperat room. (Not for too long though, so they don't get jealous).

During the night, and when we are not at home, they are kept apart. We leave a slight crack in the spare room door so they can see each other but not fight or cause to much distress.

When they are apart they seem quite happy and playful, and Sumi has now started eating properly, which she wasn't doing at first.

We have tried a few other times since at introducing them, and thought they were getting a bit more friendly towards each other, but today Jemima took a swipe at Sumi and seemed quite aggressive. Which is a bit worrying!

Is there anything else we should be doing?

Any advice would be very much appreciated!

Thanks.
S.

You're already doing the right thing but I would suggest letting them have a bit more contact when you're there to supervise. They may hiss and growl and may even hit out at each other but unless blood is flowing, then I'd be inclined to let them get on with it without confining them to separate rooms.

I introduced 3 moggie kittens (4 months old) to Dolly (18 months old) last month and initially I left the catflap open for Dolly but she simply disappeared whenever she saw the kittens. In the end I kept her in for a week to force her to have contact with the kittens. I didn't try and keep them separate - I figured there were enough places they could all hide if they wanted to. At first I couldn't see any possibility of them ever getting on but after a week they were eating alongside each other and now I wonder what I was worried about.

Cats are very adaptable and yours are young enough to adjust to each other so just give them a bit of time to get used to each other. Don't be frightened to let them work things out for themselves though.

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Thanks for your reply. You have set my mind at rest.

When they are fighting, hissing etc, are they trying to work out who will be the dominant one?

Thanks again!
S.

I think it's just a natural response to a strange animal and an unusual situation. My cats even growl and hiss at each other when they come home from the vet and when Dolly came home after being missing for a week, Daisy was really aggressive towards her for several days but it settled down.

It's possible you may find they don't ever become the best of friends but they should at least learn to tolerate each other within 2-3 weeks, but the fact that they're both still kittens means you should have a really good chance of them becoming playmates. Toys are probably the best way of getting them to interact together at this stage - the play instinct is pretty strong at their age

Good luck - let us know how they get on.

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just noticed this thread...

yeah - I've always just let the cats get on with it unless things got nasty... We have to separate our bengal from the other cats more now that they're all used to each other than we did when she was brand new. Over a year later and she knows she's boss and can jump all over them (playing) anytime she feels like it, and sometimes they just don't feel like it!

Do you have any pics of your babies that we can all drool over?