Bringing a second cat into the home

etloveslsd

Hi all,

I'm looking for some advice. we brought in a stray cat a little over a year. She isn't what you would call friendly but she is not aggressive either, she tolerates us (so typical cat then!!). We know nothing about her life before us. She is around 3-5 years old. She is now a spoiled house cat.

There is a stray in our area who is uber friendly and we would love to give him a home. He is a Tom. They have had limited interactions, as in he jumps up on the windowsil and ours goes mental hissing, growling and trying to hit him.

We haven't tried any sort of proper introductions yet, where we would introduce his scent into the house and then a gradual meeting process, as we haven't decided weather or not to take him in. Our concern is her reaction to him being near the house. Is she being territorial and trying to frighten him away? Could it be a memory she is having of being attacked by another male while she was alone.

She doesn't act this way with female cats that approach the house.

If she is being aggressive is there any hope that they could live under the same roof?

Obviously we would be bringing the new cat to a vets to make sure he is not sick before bringing him in.

We have also been in touch with local cat shelters in case we don't take him, he really is too nice a cat to not have a loving home.

Nody

Not being neutered may be a big driving factor here; when he's neutered (and the hormones are out of his system) she may be very much more accepting. It's normal to hiss and bat at a first encounter though as she's standing her ground so to speak so I'd try to get him neutered and set up in a spare room your current cat is not using and take it from there.