Expert: Norman Auspitz - 10/4/2009

Question
I live in a large house with 2 cats and a dog.  On cat resides on the second floor, on cat resides on the closed porch and on room attached and the dog stays on the first floor.  All were recently introduced in a common area.  The two cats are now to the point where they will sleep in the same rooms and play together.  About a week and a half ago we introduced a stray into the house.  This stray was taken to the vet and tested, and so forth. There is a possibility the new stray is pregnant.  The vet said it was too early to feel for fetuses.  He told us that when we brought this new cat back in 2 weeks for vaccinations, he would probably be able to tell.  We plan on having her spayed before she would be able to deliver.  We recently just started introducing the stray to the other animals this past week.  The stray also resides on the second floor but is confined to either a bathroom or bedroom.  When we attempt to introduce the cats, the stray attacks the other animals and chases them.  We have tried the cage introduction but every time another animal comes close to the cage the stray hisses and attacks the side of the cage.  We are hoping that once she gets spayed she will be calmer and it will help with these interactions, however we are still completely uncertain.  We were also thinking about getting her front paws declawed.  The other 2 cats in the house have both front and back claws, but we were considering getting the stray declawed.  It is just really frustrating because this cat to humans is nicer than both other cats she does not bite like the others do, and she does not use her claws like the others do to humans, she just pulls out her weapons on other animals which we wonder if some of it has to do with having to survive on her own outside. Please help!

Answer
Jessica,

First of all declawing would probably make matters worse as many declawed cats become biters,  Secondly, it would leave her defenseless against the other two cats.  So far, her behavior is normal.  Cats usually have to go through a "getting to know you" ritual which involves lots of hissing and spitting and posturing and often sounds like world War III. My contention is that nay and all human interference is counter productive and tends to prolong the getting to know you rituals. Also, has anybody drawn blood?  Cats have very, very tough skin and all the clawing, biting, and even loosening of fur is not hurting anybody!  This is often no worse than rough play.  Often times the chasing is a game, even if it ends in a "fight".

I would leave them alone to sort it out amongst themselves and give it a few weeks for everyone to figure out how they want to inter-relate to everyone else.  Also, watch out for falling into the trap of ascribing human emotions (except, maybe, jealousy) and human motives to cats.  They do not think like we do, and we do not understand how they determine their inter-relationships.

Spaying would calm the girl down.

Please let me know how it goes.

Best regards... Norm.