I have two well behaved cats that have been living separated by a door for 2 years. They both are trying to get thru the door these days - Lily (my girl cat) tends to escape every now and then and Philip (mom’s boy cat) is always beating down the door or gazing intently thru the cracks. There was hissing in the beginning but no longer.
Any recommendations on introductions and how to do it? Would make life easier if we could manage it.
Do you have a couple of baby gates handy? I have several because of various dog and housemate pet arrangements over the years so for me this is easy. I stack one of top of another in the doorframe and let the cats see each other for a couple of days.
Since it’s been 2 years and they aren’t hissing anymore I’d be tempted to just open the door and see what happens.
Well, we have just introduced our two cats to the two cats who already lived here.
We kept them in our room with the door shut for two days, and everyone knew there were Strange Cats on the other side because they sat and stared at the door.
Then we started leaving the door open for various periods during the day while we were available to supervise.
8 days later, the cats are getting along fine. The very old cat is super not interested in any new friends, but the other 3 seem fine. We are still keeping our 2 in our room over night, though.
I am heartened that I don’t need to do anything super involved and can just give it a shot!
Another thing to try first is to swap them for short periods and let them explore the stranger’s space and smell. You can also feed them both near the door to create positive associations with each other. Main thing we saw is just go slow, separate them again if necessary. We still do when Goof gets too obnoxious and keeps trying to jump Floof. Or the Xmas tree…
We were introducing new kitten to existing cat, but I don’t see how your situation would be much different. If they’re habituated to each other’s presence you can maybe go faster…But it depends on what they do.
Oh, also…saw it advised to keep a towel or blanket handy to break up a fight if it happens.
The doors are open! So far Lily strolled by Phillip without him really caring much. He did notice but no hissing or stalking.
Hooray!
If they get pissy you can start the introduction process over, but with Feliway Multicat plug-ins to help! Two years is a long time though, they’ve probably gotten used to each other’s smells ages ago 