There's a huge myth that cats are solitary animals. They don't like the company of other animals. That's not true. I believe that all cats should be with other cats the way they are in nature. But how do you do it?
How do you get cats to get together? That's what we're going to do today. Cat to cat introductions.
Now let's get catified. And what is up beautiful people? It is your cat daddy Jackson Galaxy here.
Today we're going to talk about the introduction of cats. Cat to cat introductions. Back in the early 90s when I would go into shelters and I'd be like well tell me how I should introduce a cat to a cat. It's so... many times I would hear, it's cool man, just put them in a room together, they'll work it out.
Guess what? They will not work it out. No.
They'll work out who will wind up losing an eyeball and who will wind up losing a claw and the other ones. eyeball and they'll work out who's going to wind up on top of the fridge for the next month and a half. The first thing that I would tell you to do whenever doing introductions is make sure that your existing cat is already on a meal time.
In terms of preparation, the biggest thing is no free feeding. That means that you're putting your existing cat on a meal plan. They get fed X number of times a day, twice a day, three times a day is fine. Just make sure that you're sticking with it.
Get your cat on a schedule. That includes playtime. They already know that when you wake up in the morning something's gonna happen. When you come home from work something's gonna happen. You can't sync up mealtimes right around that neck of the woods and you're almost there.
Step two would be base camp. That's the place where your new cat's gonna hang out. That's their zone, their base camp. The whole notion of base camp is that you have a place that might not be home at first but becomes home. And for cats becoming home is a lot about scent.
Being able to get their scent into things is really important. really important. There's objects that I call scent soakers, which are, you know, like this little fuzzy beast right here. That cat can get their body onto, roll around in, and every time they walk up to it, they smell themselves. Same thing with the beds, the same thing with blankets, the same thing with litter boxes.
Clearly, all that stuff goes into their base camp. You take your cat, your new best buddy cat, bring them straight into base camp. I don't want these two cats having any eye contact, any contact contact, no nothing until I tell you. Right now I'm telling you not to. Cat goes into base camp, that's their place to be for the next who knows.
Could be less than a week, could be more than a week. You have to know the cat that you're working with in order to get that together. In the meantime, I don't want that cat living in there 24 seven for weeks on end. That's not fair to the new cat, and in a way it's not fair to the old cat as well. Because let's say for instance, that base camp is your bedroom.
You're now roping off one of the most important territories in the entire world from your existing cat. not cool. They will let you know when they're ready to start moving out of base camp. They're going to let you know that they're sort of got their nose at the door.
They're wondering what the heck is behind the door. And if they let you know that within three hours, start the site swapping. If it takes a few days for them to acclimate, do that.
Site swapping is swapping the different sites. And you do that without them ever laying site on one another. Which is to say, for instance, your cat's roaming around the world.
You take your cat, put him in the bathroom. Take the new cat, let them. them out into the house, take your cat, put them in the bedroom. No eye contact, no contact contact, nothing.
You are calling these shots for the first however long, right? We are never letting these cats work it out because as we have talked about before, they ain't gonna do it. Another really important part of prepping for a new arrival is catifying for a new cat. Catification is pretty much a key to every little aspect of the things I talk about. I mean, if you've watched my show before, you're probably tired of me. me saying, you have to let your cat explore the vertical world by allowing them to get away from each other.
When they finally get to each other, one can get high, one can get low, one can get away while the other one's like, hey, what are you all about? If you have just the floor for them to compete over, it's probably not going to end well. Someone's going to wind up in a corner.
Someone's going to wind up getting ambushed. This way, make sure that things are number one, out in the open, and number two, there are places to escape. The worst thing that you can possibly do with getting two cats together is is have a litter box in a corner. Have a litter box in a place where there's no getting away from each other.
And having one litter box. I don't know how many times I gotta tell you guys, one cat, two litter boxes, two cats, three litter boxes, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I know you hate doing that, but believe me, what you're going to not have happen by having these extra litter boxes, you're gonna thank. So the next thing we're gonna talk about is the bulk of the introduction concept.
That is the other side of the door feeding room. ritual. Started, right? You haven't given your cats any visual access to each other at all. Why would you start now?
You wouldn't. But what you do want to do is start creating a positive association. and that positive association is food. If the only time your cats smell food, they smell each other, and the only time your cats smell each other, they smell food, that's a positive association right there.
That's why I had you get into the mealtime vibe. That's why we're having both cats eating meals. Now, you're gonna go on the opposite side of a door, and then you're gonna give your cats personal space, and then slowly, with every meal, you're gonna do this. The goal is, basically, that they're gonna walk up to their bowls, they're gonna eat, they're gonna walk away. No hissing, no growling, no shenanigans.
No shenanigans, no great amounts of fears that they won't eat at all. Walk up, eat, walk away. You're going to determine that challenge line, that place where your cats are really comfortable on one side of the line and really not on the other every single day.
One paw over, one paw over, like they don't even know what's going on, but they're getting closer, they're getting closer. This is key. Don't rush it.
Don't go too slow. Every day a little bit of challenge, but every day it happens. Every meal it happens.
These cats shouldn't come into contact with food without having some kind of of contact with the other one. Of course, by that I don't mean visual, I just mean contact. Okay?
So the next step after we've been doing this between the door feeding ritual, you're gonna get to the point where you've gotten the cats, I don't know, a foot and a half on either side of the door. You're gonna have about this much space. There's the door, there are your cats. You're getting to the point where they're walking up, they're eating. Hey, I know you, I smell you.
You're probably a good thing because you represent dinner. All right, I'm gonna eat and walk away. Then you're ready for visual access.
The next step, visual access. So the... The best way to introduce cats to cats once you get that visual access thing going is a screen door.
You think it's a big deal, it's actually not that big a deal. Taking a door off its hinges and putting a screen door on there is real, I can do it, I've done it. You have no, I can't even like make ramen without setting the house on fire.
And I have put a screen door up before. I am not kidding you. So if I can do it, you can do it.
But there's other ways of doing it. There's baby gates, there are pet gates. And pet gates tend to be to be about four feet high.
Now as long as your cats don't jump the pet gate, then you're okay. You can use that as well. The idea is you want to create a new safe visual way for them to introduce one another.
You're going to go back, you're going to do the same damn thing with the feeding. This time they can see each other. I love using blankets that you can drape over, for instance, the pet gate and slowly raise the curtain as time goes on. Just as you gradually did this, now you're going to gradually do that while you do this. Does it sound like a lot of steps?
Yeah, it is. But this is the whole lifetime of these cats moving forward. I like doing it this way.
Take it or leave it. You can actually speed it up, slow it down, do whatever you want. I'm giving you the basics here because it's always worked for me. Always.
Now we are ready for the final step in your cat's introductions. I call it Eat Play Love. So Eat Play Love is just an exercise that I do where basically we're taking all the things that cats love and we're putting it into one little exercise. They love to eat.
They love to play, they love to love. The idea is that when they finally come to each other, when we finally remove that barrier between them, and we're usually doing it around dinner time, right? But what we're gonna do is we're gonna give them an activity as they come into the room.
The worst thing that you can do when having cats work it out is give them nothing to do, because then that other cat is something to do. Is messing with them becomes something to do. Being offended at their presence is something to do. Becoming territorial is something to do.
Leave. one of the cats into the room with a toy or the promise of treats or whatever it is whatever turns that cat on the most and then have the other cat in the other part of the room you're already doing something with them either again treats toys laser pointer you're getting them to move in the opposite direction of the cat that is coming into the room if they're coming in they've got nothing to do that stare down that thing what are you huh I don't know if I like you why you staring at and the stare down turns into a throw down, it happens constantly. Don't let the stare down happen.
If your cats get to that point while you're doing the play with them that they lose interest in the toy and they do that stare down, bye bye, it's over. If eat, play, love only lasts five minutes the first time, two minutes, three minutes, fine. Gotta end it on a high note. Don't let it devolve into mayhem because then you gotta step it back.
Separate the cats, do it again tomorrow. Just stay on the horse. You know what I'm saying?
make sure that just because there's an argument, even a fight, even if they chase one another, break it up, tomorrow you're going to get back on the horse and do it again because the more you avoid getting back on that horse, the more that that last memory for your cats is going to stay there. And that's how they're going to remember each other. After all this time of you creating positive associations, you're going to leave it with a negative? You don't want to do that. The last thing that I want to mention is this.
As we go forward, after your cats have met, after you become sort of a happy cat, happy family, I want you to bear in mind what a happy family is. Everyone thinks that their cats, after they meet, are going to snuggle up like kittens, litter mates, on the couch and go to sleep in each other's arms. Come on.
We have to realize that we're dealing with cats here who need to sort of prove that the other one is beneficial to their life and not a threat to their life before things can start happening. So just remember, having those cats tolerate one another, that's the promised land for the first little while that you have these cats. Let them get to know each other.
create positive after positive after positive, then they'll become friends. I don't want you to get scared off. I just want you to be ready for things. Having this process down will make sure that you're minimizing any fracases, any kerfuffles. There you have it.
Introductions between cat to cat to make for harmony in your home. Keep tuning in and also don't forget to subscribe to this here feed. Until the next time, I see you and you see me. All light and all love and all mojo to you. Bye.
Bye bye. Meow.