Animal Welfare Professionals

We recently adopted a 3 year old cat. She shows no signs of agression what so ever to our 8 year old cat. The 8 year old however is doing the normal hissing. Things are slowly getting better but i had a quick question.

Today i brought the new addition (Clementine)out in the pet carrier. Leyla (8 yr old) didnt hide for a change but stayed where she was. A little later on she approached the carrier, sniffed a bit, then hissed. I told her no and she ran away. Should i be correcting her about the hissing or is it something i should let be worked out?

Hi Aaron,

Congrats on the new adoption! Great question, and the best approach is to avoid correcting/punishing any hissing - it is a normal communication between cats and likely Leyla is reacting out of fear of Clementine (especially if you notice that she is mostly hiding from Clementine so far), so you want to make sure you aren't increasing her fear of Clementine by punishing Leyla's interactions with her.

Leyla's signs of fear and hissing are a pretty good indicator that things are likely moving along at a quicker pace than Leyla is comfortable with - cats are extremely sensitive to change and introductions are best done in very slow stages. I really like this article: (https://icatcare.org/advice/how-guides/how-introduce-new-adult-cat-your-cat), which breaks down some helpful steps to introduce cats, and offers a lot of information about how to make Leyla and Clementine comfortable with each other's presence. Good luck!

Yes, I agree. Your older cat is just sort of hissing in preparation of seeing the new cat again. It sounds like progress is being made and time will have them friends.