Expert: Ali - 1/13/2011

Question
hello ali,

I have brought in a stray/dumped female cat and is about 1/4 size smaller than my 6.5 month old male cat Bubba. She has been in the house for about 48 hours and has a few behaviors that I was wondering how to either a help eliminate or help alleviate. She is in my opinion about 4-5 mos old based off the size. when I cuddled her in my newly purchased soft fuzzy blanket she nestled in it and began to suckle. I know that this is due to improper weaning and mother/kit bond being severed early. Is there anything I can do to help eliminate this habit or help her become more secure? And two i think she may be near her first heat but not really showing any signs of it. (Bubba was recently neutered 5 weeks ago keeps trying to mount her) is there anything i can do do help with these behaviors and identify issues? As far as I can tell they are getting along. since Bubba was separated from his litter mates about 2 mos ago he is good with animals and tries to get her to play with him but she as expected is shy at first a little aggressive but has made significant tolerance improvements in the last day they even romped around a little bit. They are not quite sleeping side by side and bonded like you would see two littermates but at the rate they are progressing I would say it is possible in about a month or two. The darling little female was brought in by my other half who saw her wandering our porch for about a hour then brought her in. She is potty trained and very affectionate towards humans and like i said before showing remarkably more tolerance towards my male. I just wanted bubba to not be lonely anymore and thought maybe the female would help the loneliness. (since we moved his litter mate Tigger has not been with him he's always mewing and seems to hate being alone) also i was considering getting him a play mate which lead me to decided to keep her. I just want this transition to be as painless as possible. Will her possibly being in heat and her suckling cause adaptation issues? Other than Bubba aggressively trying to mount her, she tolerates him fairly well. Do you have any suggestions? If you have any other questions please ask. To best clarify my situation without a vet checkover i would say she is in decent health and eats cat food and is potty trained but I really worry about the suckling problem. I have dealt with suckling before but they were young enough I could hand bottle them longer until the need disappeared but she is about 1-2 months max shy of Bubba's age. Any advice and suggestions would be helpful. i just want them both to be not only happy but happy with one another as well.

Answer
Jennifer,

Congrats on your new little foundling friend. Ultimately because many people fail to realize the importance of keeping kittens with their mom and littermates until they're at least 12 weeks old it's not uncommon for kittens to have self soothing behaviours like suckling. Unfortunately there's not much you can do to change that behaviour - it's a part of this kitten. All you can do is love her for who she is. If you feel that your baby girl is anxious you can give her a homeopathic remedy called Bach's Rescue Remedy - 3-4 drops rubbed into the reasonably fur free area on the outside of her ear flaps a couple of times a day should help. My eldest cat is a bottle raised baby who sucks on her own belly fur all of the time. I would recommend that you keep a close eye on the blanket that she's sucking on because you don't want her to ingest parts of it, but other than that this behaviour isn't harmful - it's the feline equivalent of thumb sucking. I would also suggest having her spayed ASAP since your recently neutered male is mounting her because it does take some time for the testosterone to leave their system once they've been neutered (around 3-6 weeks depending on the cat, I'd say the lower end of this estimate would apply to you since your little man isn't very old). If you have any further cat related questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me again - I'll be more than happy to help you and your cats in any way that I can.