I adopted a stray cat outside my apartment a few years ago. She was originally aggressive both to cats and people, but after I started taking care of her she warmed up to the neighbors, too. Since she’d lived outside for about a decade, I let her out in the yard (supervised) and she came to love lounging and waiting for passers by to give her scritches.
Unfortunately, I’ve had to move. No more outdoor time for the foreseen future, partially because she’s in a completely new town, and partially because there are so many birds around here I don’t think I’d be able to keep her from running off.
There isn’t even a window facing the walkway where she can interact with people through the window, which was another thing she liked doing in our old place. It’s just me to entertain her, and I can be gone ten hours a day.
She has lots of toys and beds and things to climb, but since she loved the neighbors so much, I’m worried she needs a companion. Anyone else been in this situation? How do you help your cat adjust?
I’d like to, I guess I’m concerned about the logistics. I know you’re supposed to keep them separate for a while, which means one cat has to be stuck in a single room while I work out of town. And if they never fully warmed up, I’m afraid it would just be a ton of stress on the other cat if I had to send them back to the shelter.
I’ll probably save up some PTO before I try it, so I can be home and make neither of the cats are being neglected during the process.
I can’t tell you what to do, but maybe my experience will help you. My wife and I got two cats 9 years ago, a third two years ago and last year, unfortunately, one of our cats died, so after a while we filled up to three again because there was stress between the other two. I would say that what we see as “aggressive” is actually more defensive behavior, every time we brought in new cats there was a lot of hissing and growling. We always kept new cats in a separate room for 7 days, with a close-meshed door net attached to the door frame so that the cats could sniff each other but not touch. This has always worked really well so far and in the end they are always inseparable. I would try it, friends of mine had different experiences and had to give up a cat. But that’s not the end of the world either, in the end the animals should feel comfortable and if it doesn’t work out, you can find a better home for the new cat. Yes it would be stress for the new cat if it doesn’t work out, but in the other hand there is the possibility that it works out and it is less stressful for the animal than when it stays in the shelter.
Additionally in between we found a baby stray cat and brought her up (took about 3 weeks of nursing) and our cats were much more open than with new adult cats. Maybe this baby bonus could work with your cat as well if you want to invest the time, it was a great experience. Especially because the cat would have died if we left it where we found it.