[Chris]

Hi Brooke, first, thank you for being willing to take in these two cats and provide homes. It certainly can be a bit up in the air with uncertainty when you take in two new cats who don’t know each other. But in many cases, it can work out in one of two ways. First, I find that giving it at least two weeks is a good amount of acclimation time. During this time, you can try to keep them somewhat separated, either in different rooms or with a baby gate, and just see how they react to each other before having more direct interaction. It sounds like you might be past that point, unless you may feel it could help to reinstate a more gradual re-introduction if things were rocky just putting them together right from the get-go.

Second, I find that after those 2 weeks or so, the cats will either be buddies or they will stake out separate areas of the home and generally avoid one another. In the latter case, how that goes can depend on the home size and set up. It’s important to have separate resources (food, water, litter box, and perches/hiding places) available to each cat and on different levels of the home if possible. Many negative housemate interactions will be related to conflict over valued resources, even just favorite places in a window or on the couch. Providing as many options as possible is helpful.

It can separately be a challenge sometimes to keep a cat indoors that has been used to being indoor/outdoor or outdoor only. If you feel like you’re seeing specific issues here (like the cat is scratching the door or trying to dart outside, yowling to get out, or even urine spraying behavior) after two weeks of trying an indoor approach, you may need to provide an option to go out. Now this could be an outdoor cat condo, for which there are many options/designs you can find online, or just letting them out. In these cases, always make sure the rabies, FVRCP, feline leukemia vaccines are updated and a flea/tick/heartworm product is being used. I hope some of those tips are useful.