Two kittens have gotten off to a bad start; can we go back?

Post date: 2021-01-26 10:30:42

If you introduce two kittens and it doesn't work well (ie one attacking and overpowering the other till they both have to separated), is there any way to re-set? I'm worried they're never going to get along after such a bad start!

I bought a very rambunctious eight week old kitten a week ago and quickly realised through internet research that it would be better for her (and me) if I also get a companion of a similar age. So, one week later, when she'd settled in really well (apart from the play aggression directed at me), I bought her a friend of the same breed and one week apart.

This new friend, though, has I think been a little traumatised by living for a week with an older cat who beat her up repeatedly. She seems a little boney, needy and stressed which I guess is from a week of being bullied.

After a little period of keeping them apart and swapping the rooms they were in so they could smell eachother, and also after I just couldn't take the yowling of one of them if I was spending chunks of time with the other (I was worried I was doing them damage - especially the new nervous one) I introduced them. Probably too early I admit.

It seemed like it was going ok - there was some repricocity in their fighting, with little pauses, so it officially seemed like play - but the boisterous one, who is way more settled in and also now quite full in the belly, just keeps attacking the nervous and thinner one who has not fully had time to settle in. I think a well-ajusted kitten would just give her as good as she gets back; it starts of good natured but then as the other one is so much slower and nervous she starts to dominate. The nervous one keeps growling and occasionally hissing, which I've heard means she is not enjoying it, but she doesn't really defend herself - whereas the boisterous one often jumps really high and gets the nervous one in a neck lock. So then I wade in, shout no at the boisterous one and put her in another room for a while (which I feel so guilty for as she's just being a kitten!). I read that if you allow a dynamic to start then it will continue and I don't want kitten A to bully kitten B, who's already had a tough time.

I feel so guilty for introducing them both too early, but I also feel like now I've done it I can't go back - they both just yowl whenever I'm not with them, so I need to find a way to keep them together without traumatising the second one. The first one is SO full of energy, whereas I thnk the other probably hasn't been eating from the stress of the other cat.

Any advice on whether this can be corrected, or have I ruined this now?

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