[X0Refraction]

It takes a long time to introduce a new cat, we have 3 indoor cats all introduced one at a time. It took around a month for both the second and third cat to be completely accepted.

The approach we took was to keep the new cat in a separate room for the first few days to allow them to begin to get used to the new scent. We would then swap blankets to give them further time to get used to each other's scents. Then we'd open the door and allow them to interact under supervision for short periods and then we gradually increased the time they could interact each day.

I'm not sure this would work if you had outdoor cats. We didn't actually intend to get the third cat, but we ended up taking him in as our friend's original cat refused to acclimate to the point that he was spending all but 20 mins a day outside of the house and so they needed a good home for their new cat.

[UncleMeat]

> It takes a long time to introduce a new cat, we have 3 indoor cats all introduced one at a time.

Yep.

> It took around a month for both the second and third cat to be completely accepted.

Oh boy that's nothing. I think we were like 10 months. They still don't get along flawlessly but it is now tolerable. We did precisely the recommended steps (scent swapping, separate spaces, associating each other with food, play nearby each other).

[animal531]

It's funny if you think about it, in a certain way cats are very much like people. Those that are poorly raised or socially isolated when young have issues later on to adapt to having others around, whereas if they've been brought up properly (and maintain that through practice) then it's a lot easier for them to make new connections later in life.

It's probably true for a lot of other animals as well.