Your new boy is beautiful ! Congrats on your new addition :)

What a striking cat! Congratulations on your new kitty. Siamese and Siamese mixes have such great personalities.

wow, he is a beauty! So cute. He' looks thrilled like he knows he's finally got a home, really. I hope the two get to be buds. Let us know how it goes! It's so much fun when they hit it off. I love taking in older kitties too. So happy for him!!

Beautiful! I hope he turns out to be a Best Friend Forever.

Thumbs up for adopting an adult cat. They truly do have a hard time competing against a kitten, and that's sad. Kittens don't stay kittens very long..........but a cat can live decades. One of my best cats ever was a siamese/tabby mix adopted when she was past the tiny, furball stage. She was as devoted and demonstrative as a dog, quirky and I adored her.

Congrats on the new addition to the family! He's a lucky boy!

He is seriously cute and adorable, lol.

What a looker, his markings are beautiful. God Bless you for adopting a shelter cat, you are an angel and he will reward you with love for the rest of his life.

I'm so glad that you put your cat's best interest ahead of your own preference regarding the number of felines you could accept into your family. That was a great kindness you did for your lonely boy. Your new boy is quite cute with his Jimmy Durante nose. I hope that lonely boy and new boy develop a great and lasting friendship.

Laurie

Here are all three of them somewhat peacefully coexisting. Not leaving them alone unsupervised though.

LOL! When I saw this photo, I thought, "This photo looks like it's taken in my neck of the woods." I had to go to your member page and see where you're located. Sure enough, you're here in MN! I'm even going to venture a guess that you're somewhere up here in northern MN with me. Looks like you're on one of our 10,000 lakes. Sheesh, your furniture even looks familiar!

That's a very encouraging photo of the cats. No open warfare is always a good sign.

Laurie

Aw Gibby, what a beautiful trio of cats you have. They look very peaceful and relaxed, even your newcomer. That looks like a cat-friendly room with all the windows for them look out at birds and wildlife. Glad to hear that all seems to be going well!

What a good group! lol

On a side note, I think I'll move to MN!

Looks like kitty heaven to me!! Lucky kitties to have such a wonderful home!

He's beautiful...he looks ultra soft, too!

he;s beautiful and best of luck to all three that live in harmony!!!

hooray for you for adopting and saving a life!!!

gibby - is that Tucker in the picture? How is he doing? I remember when you brought him home and had him in the bathroom at first.

Nice to hear he has a friend again.

Yes that's Tucker and he is great! He needs a pal though. The latest newcomer has now taken over the bathroom. It was a guest bathroom but has become more of a cat bathroom.

This post was edited by gibby3000 on Wed, Aug 21, 13 at 18:36

Setback today - after all seemingly getting along reasonably well and keeping their distance, new cat aggressively attacked Tucker this morning and scared the daylights out of him before he escaped and hid under the bed. The new cat is now back in the bathroom. He was out last night for the first time at night and there were no cat fights. Not sure what got into him this morning but clearly he's not ready to be out unsupervised. I feel terribly bad isolating the new cat in the bathroom and terribly bad for poor Tucker. I've never had aggressive cat behavior like this before when introducing new cats into the household. Hard to imagine them being buddies at this point.....

Unfortunately, I've had considerable difficulty integrating adult males into my existing clowder. In my experience, the cats most likely to display this sort of aggressive behavior are males who were neutered after reaching sexual maturity. My males who were neutered before 6 mos of age have rarely demonstrated a problematic degree of aggression toward other cats, though a couple of them can be aggressively playful.

My guess is that your new boy was neutered late, after having developed tomcat behaviors. He may or may not mellow out any time soon, though it's too early to give up on him yet. When I integrate a potentially aggressive adult male into my pride, I put the aggressor into a kitty harness (NOT a collar) and light leash, and keep him leashed to me when he is at liberty in the household. I allow him to lead me around the house at his will, but the leash allows me to instantly stop any aggressive behavior toward any of the other cats. It doesn't take long for the harnessed cat to learn that aggressive behavior is not allowed.

Once the aggressor is reliably minding his manners on-leash, I drop the leash and allow him to drag it behind him as he moves freely around the house. This is done strictly under my supervision so that I can make a quick grab for the leash if misbehavior ensues.

If the newbie continues to integrate smoothly, I will remove the leash but keep the harness on the cat when he is at large in the house (again, to make it easier for me to grab him, if need be). If all remains peaceful, I will ultimately remove the harness, as well.

This process may take hours, days, weeks, or months, depending on the individual cats involved. Until the integration is complete, the newbie is kept separated when not under my close supervision.

Even if the integration is accomplished successfully so that there is no more significant aggression, Tucker may not ever trust the new boy to the extent of developing a close relationship with him ... or he may. It'll depend on how forgiving Tucker decides to be, how much he wants to cultivate this new potential friendship, and how successful you are at preventing any future aggressive attacks by the new boy.

Laurie

Ya, that's what I'm afraid of now - that they will never really get along. Last 24 hours have been uneventful and Tucker seems back to normal. The new guy is kept in "solitary confinement" as DH refers to it when we're not around to supervise. We'll see how the weekend goes when we have more time out of solitary.

No solitary confinement this weekend and no problems - just an occasional minor hiss. They all even slept on the bed together one night, albeit a couple feet apart. Hopefully we are beyond the major hurdles.

Let them sniff and visit under the door. That has worked well in my household, where new kitties are isolated until for some time until all second round of blood tests are cleared for transmittable diseases. It also gives everyone time and space to adjust to each other's presence.

As far as late neuters, that might very well be true frequently but two of mine (that I can think of) were both late neuters and love other cats, male or female. I also had a really bad integration (involving 3) and it all worked out but took over a year. Unusual, but it happens! I would never expect it to happen quickly, although that happens frequently enough too, lol.

Good luck with them working things out. Looks like a mellow crew!

Thanks snookums - we're past the sniffing under the door stage and past medical quarantine. They're all out together now and continuing to get along reasonably well though not loving each other yet. I think it's going well considering it's only been a few weeks and especially after the fur flying encounter.

Glad to hear things seem to be working out. I've never integrated a new cat into the household without a spitting match, so the fur flying argument was probably inevitable. Hopefully they settled things and have moved on now.