Introducing two new cats to one resident cat
Discussion
My elderly and frail father has gone into hospital, and I'm hoping to persuade him to go into temporary respite care for at least a couple of weeks when he's discharged, and possibly permanently.
He has two cats, a neutered male ("Toby") and neutered female ("Lula"), which we took to the vet for a health check yesterday because the female is rather skinny (but eating heartily). We thought she might have worms because we're 95% sure Dad hasn't been keeping up with vaccinations, worm treatments, flea treatments, etc. The vet diagnosed hyperthyroidism in her, but said that the male is in rude health. The vet thinks they're about 9 years old.
Mrs Oxgreen and I have decided to try looking after the cats in our house, but the difficulty is that we have an elderly (17 year old) neutered female ("Truffle") who is blind. Previously we've assumed it would be impossible to get the three cats to coexist peacefully, but we've decided to give it a go because animals sometimes surprise you. If they can get along then it would be an ideal solution while Dad is recuperating, or maybe even permanently.
So... I could really do with advice on how to do this. We've put an additional litter tray away from 'our' cat's tray and also food bowls. The new cats arrived yesterday afternoon, and they have hissed and growled a bit whenever they see our cat, although the aggression has not escalated beyond that yet. But our cat doesn't react at all - remember she's blind! We have allowed the cats to meet whenever we are there to supervise, but have divided the house and kept our cat away from them overnight.
We're planning to do some scent swapping and maybe some cross-contamination of the litter trays. Whenever one of the new cats hisses or growls we'll try distraction with a toy. And we'll probably make the introduction sessions relatively short and keep the new cats separated from ours in between. We'll prevent the new cats from going outside for a few days.
This morning the new cats seem quite settled in the house and don't seem stressed, although the female will always be a little bit more 'wired' due to her hyperthyroidism. Our blind cat seems relatively unfussed during the introduction sessions, with only some mild anxiety evidenced by some shedding of fur - have you ever noticed that cats shed a lot more fur when they're on the vet's examination table?
Any other suggestions on how to go about this? Ta!
Edited to add: We haven't yet decided how to treat Lula's hyperthyroidism. It depends on how this experiment goes, and we haven't yet told Dad about it. He has not been taking his own insulin and other medications (not surprisingly, he's in hospital because he suffered a severe hyperglycaemic episode on Sunday), so it's highly unlikely he would be disciplined enough to give her daily tablets. The other options - surgery, or being sent away for iodine treatment - are more expensive and we'd need him to agree to that.
He has two cats, a neutered male ("Toby") and neutered female ("Lula"), which we took to the vet for a health check yesterday because the female is rather skinny (but eating heartily). We thought she might have worms because we're 95% sure Dad hasn't been keeping up with vaccinations, worm treatments, flea treatments, etc. The vet diagnosed hyperthyroidism in her, but said that the male is in rude health. The vet thinks they're about 9 years old.
Mrs Oxgreen and I have decided to try looking after the cats in our house, but the difficulty is that we have an elderly (17 year old) neutered female ("Truffle") who is blind. Previously we've assumed it would be impossible to get the three cats to coexist peacefully, but we've decided to give it a go because animals sometimes surprise you. If they can get along then it would be an ideal solution while Dad is recuperating, or maybe even permanently.
So... I could really do with advice on how to do this. We've put an additional litter tray away from 'our' cat's tray and also food bowls. The new cats arrived yesterday afternoon, and they have hissed and growled a bit whenever they see our cat, although the aggression has not escalated beyond that yet. But our cat doesn't react at all - remember she's blind! We have allowed the cats to meet whenever we are there to supervise, but have divided the house and kept our cat away from them overnight.
We're planning to do some scent swapping and maybe some cross-contamination of the litter trays. Whenever one of the new cats hisses or growls we'll try distraction with a toy. And we'll probably make the introduction sessions relatively short and keep the new cats separated from ours in between. We'll prevent the new cats from going outside for a few days.
This morning the new cats seem quite settled in the house and don't seem stressed, although the female will always be a little bit more 'wired' due to her hyperthyroidism. Our blind cat seems relatively unfussed during the introduction sessions, with only some mild anxiety evidenced by some shedding of fur - have you ever noticed that cats shed a lot more fur when they're on the vet's examination table?
Any other suggestions on how to go about this? Ta!
Edited to add: We haven't yet decided how to treat Lula's hyperthyroidism. It depends on how this experiment goes, and we haven't yet told Dad about it. He has not been taking his own insulin and other medications (not surprisingly, he's in hospital because he suffered a severe hyperglycaemic episode on Sunday), so it's highly unlikely he would be disciplined enough to give her daily tablets. The other options - surgery, or being sent away for iodine treatment - are more expensive and we'd need him to agree to that.
Edited by Dr Mike Oxgreen on Sunday 24th July 07:44
http://icatcare.org/advice/how-guides/how-introduc...
Hopefully the above link will provide all the info you need for the introductions. It is an excellent website.
You will also find info on treating hyperthyroidism if you look around it.
In the meantime,assuming the condition was confirmed with a blood test,then I would personally start on tablets as this is the simplest and then when you have more time to think then consider the longer term options.
As she is young iodine treatment would be worth considering but it is expensive and it us an intensive treatment involving her being hospitalised for about 2-3 weeks with minimal contact. Long term for a young cat though it would be worth it.
Hope your Dad is ok.
Hopefully the above link will provide all the info you need for the introductions. It is an excellent website.
You will also find info on treating hyperthyroidism if you look around it.
In the meantime,assuming the condition was confirmed with a blood test,then I would personally start on tablets as this is the simplest and then when you have more time to think then consider the longer term options.
As she is young iodine treatment would be worth considering but it is expensive and it us an intensive treatment involving her being hospitalised for about 2-3 weeks with minimal contact. Long term for a young cat though it would be worth it.
Hope your Dad is ok.
A week on, and things are going well. Lula (the little black-and-white female) no longer hisses at Truffle at all, and Toby (grey tabby male) is getting much better.
Dad has agreed to let them stay with us while Lula's hyperthyroidism is treated. She's seeing our local vet for a confirmation blood test this afternoon, and we'll discuss the options. We favour the iodine treatment despite the cost.
Dad has agreed to let them stay with us while Lula's hyperthyroidism is treated. She's seeing our local vet for a confirmation blood test this afternoon, and we'll discuss the options. We favour the iodine treatment despite the cost.
Brilliant progress in such a short space of time, well done.
I am inclined to agree with the iodine treatment as she is still young really and haa already shown she is adaptable so will probably cope with the regime itself.
I think it is definitely an option I'd consider if I thought my cat could cope with it.
Did you find info about it on the website?
I am inclined to agree with the iodine treatment as she is still young really and haa already shown she is adaptable so will probably cope with the regime itself.
I think it is definitely an option I'd consider if I thought my cat could cope with it.
Did you find info about it on the website?
Well, Lula's blood test results are confusing.
She's a flighty thing, and wouldn't allow the vet to safely take a blood sample - so she had to be fasted overnight and come back the next day to be sedated and hospitalised for the day for the blood sample to be taken. Another £200, sigh.
The test came back showing normal thyroid activity. So they did a second test (using the same sample), which the vet said is often used to detect early signs of hyperthyroidism - but that has come back negative as well.
So despite the first vet saying he'd be 'astonished' if it wasn't hyperthyroidism, and the second vet agreeing that she could feel the thyroid enlarged - it looks like it's definitely not!
To be honest, although she looks quite skinny, her weight is actually fairly normal - about 3.9kg, which is normal for a small-ish female cat. So that also doesn't quite fit with hyperthyroidism.
Her skinny looks could be due to her slightly thin and poor coat. We know that she's had problems with flea allergy in the recent past, and we think my Dad might not have been managing that effectively. We think she does groom excessively, licking particularly hard and doing that nibbling thing with her teeth a lot. Her grooming also seems haphazard rather than systematic - it's as if she's constantly responding to irritation, and she seems to suddenly groom with great urgency. So we've decided to pursue that possibility now - she's seeing the vet again this evening (this time it's the highly experienced older vet), and we'll suggest an anti-inflammatory injection to see if that makes her more comfortable. This worked wonders when we had a cat with a flea allergy in the past.
Having said all that, she does seem a bit calmer now. We have also tried spraying her favourite sleeping spots with Feliway spray, and that might have helped so we'll get one of the diffusers.
Just a couple of weeks ago, there's no way you'd see her relaxing like this...
She's a flighty thing, and wouldn't allow the vet to safely take a blood sample - so she had to be fasted overnight and come back the next day to be sedated and hospitalised for the day for the blood sample to be taken. Another £200, sigh.
The test came back showing normal thyroid activity. So they did a second test (using the same sample), which the vet said is often used to detect early signs of hyperthyroidism - but that has come back negative as well.
So despite the first vet saying he'd be 'astonished' if it wasn't hyperthyroidism, and the second vet agreeing that she could feel the thyroid enlarged - it looks like it's definitely not!
To be honest, although she looks quite skinny, her weight is actually fairly normal - about 3.9kg, which is normal for a small-ish female cat. So that also doesn't quite fit with hyperthyroidism.
Her skinny looks could be due to her slightly thin and poor coat. We know that she's had problems with flea allergy in the recent past, and we think my Dad might not have been managing that effectively. We think she does groom excessively, licking particularly hard and doing that nibbling thing with her teeth a lot. Her grooming also seems haphazard rather than systematic - it's as if she's constantly responding to irritation, and she seems to suddenly groom with great urgency. So we've decided to pursue that possibility now - she's seeing the vet again this evening (this time it's the highly experienced older vet), and we'll suggest an anti-inflammatory injection to see if that makes her more comfortable. This worked wonders when we had a cat with a flea allergy in the past.
Having said all that, she does seem a bit calmer now. We have also tried spraying her favourite sleeping spots with Feliway spray, and that might have helped so we'll get one of the diffusers.
Just a couple of weeks ago, there's no way you'd see her relaxing like this...
Did they check her kidney levels at the same time and were her liver levels normal? I don't suppose they can do her blood press! Stress and overgrooming can cause similar behaviours, body condition to a thyroid one.
I hope she seems better soon.
I hope she seems better soon.
Edited by bexVN on Wednesday 10th August 16:00
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