Need help getting a cat to accept foster kitten

Pumpkinseeds

Our 6 year old cat Felix has been ignoring the fact that we have a foster kitten in a safe room in the house for the past month. Tonight he decided to acknowledge her while my husband was playing with her. In the past when Molly sees him she hisses and bushes her fur out, she doesn't do that with our other 3 cats.

My main concern at this point is Felix. He did the howly jowly thing for a minute but it was the pitiful meowling that he was doing that worried me. He didn't sound angry so much as fed up and upset. Now, we've only been bringing Molly down to the living room for an hour for the last couple of days as there is so much tension with Felix attacking a 2 year old male cat that we adopted in May, so we've been trying to keep the tension to a minimum.

Felix is on Zylkene, we have 3 Feliway plug-ins going and he's spoilt rotten with fuss and attention and toys. Any constructive advice would be much appreciated.

Nody

Feeding outside the door with tasty food and move to open the door with baby gate would be the standard route I'd look at along with room swapping. In both cases he does not need to see the other cat but the smell becomes known to him and part of the house.

Pumpkinseeds

We have a pet gate on her safe room and 2 of our other cats jump in to see her if they want when we're in with her. We keep the room door shut if we aren't in there. We haven't really wanted to pick Felix up and carry him into her room while she's elsewhere as he's been on antibiotics for months and had a couple of weeks of ear drops too. He's generally just hacked off with us and with going to the vet so if we pick him up he hisses and gets really annoyed.

We've cut his food back today and the bowl of kibble comes up when he's awake as I don't want him grazing, we really need to get some weight off him. He went and saw her again today. They had a little sniff through the gate then he hissed at her and wandered off. She had been trying to play with him through the gate. At least there was no howling and pitiful mournful crying that time.

I'm really hope he'll settle soon as he finished his antibiotics a day ago and we're hoping his ear infection is gone. Long term we'd love to foster kittens, I say kittens as I know my 4 wouldn't accept another adult cat. But if it's going to be too stressful for Felix we'll have to put his needs first.

Nody

Pumpkinseeds wrote: »

They had a little sniff through the gate then he hissed at her and wandered off. She had been trying to play with him through the gate. At least there was no howling and pitiful mournful crying that time.

That's a normal reaction though; he's basically telling the kitten to back off. As long as the ears are not flipped back the whole time it should be fine and simply let it take time

Pumpkinseeds

Yeah, I don't think he had any socialisation with other kittens/cats when he was a kitten. He was a year old when he wandered in to us. He wants to play with other cats but the play aggression just turns into aggression and they don't want to play with him. All the vet trips haven't helped and she's been to the vet with us twice while we had him there too, so maybe he associates her with that.

Last night felt like he was saying ah no, for fecks sake not another cat in the house:(