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Old 03-06-2007, 12:17 PM
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Wittesea Wittesea is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: East of the River, in the Quiet Corner
Posts: 1,238
15 yr Member
Wittesea Wittesea is offline
Senior Member
Wittesea's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: East of the River, in the Quiet Corner
Posts: 1,238
15 yr Member
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Kurt,

Welcome to NeuroTalk
.


You have beautiful cats!

I have also had introduction issues with my 3 cats.

When I introduced Guinness (the youngest) to the family, Winston (the oldest) didn't really care and didn't really react. He had already been through his reaction phase when we introduced him to Marbles, so he was fine.

But Marbles (the middle one) reacted a lot when Guinness came into the house. They got along with each other very well - but Marbles and Guinness were competing with each other for my time and attention. They are both lap cats that want to cuddle and be with me and near me, but they didn't want to share my lap so they would chase each other away from me.

One of the things that helped them to stop was that I designated certain areas for each cat at their "lap and cuddle" place.

When I was on the couch I would call Marbles and give him my attention and I would shoo Guinness away, and when I was on the computer I would invite Guinness and shoo Marbles away. Since I spend equal time in both places they both got equal attention, and they eventually both learned that they can share me without fighting and chasing each other.

At this point, both Marbles and Guinness will cuddle with me no matter where I am sitting. Often I have both of them on my lap
.
But during the transition, they both needed to know that they were both still loved and they could both still get atttention without competing with each other.

I also made sure that I was inviting them to sit with me and inviting them to cuddle me... sometimes that meant searching the house for one of them and picking him up to bring him to sit on my lap to get his "turn" to get my time and attention. This was a bit of a pain in the butt at times because of my physical stuff (using a flashkight and crawling on the floor to find a cat that is hiding under the bed is not easy!!).

But it was worth it because in a short amount of time they all realized that I had plently of time and attention for each of them and they all realized that I want to give them that time and attention.

I hope that helps, and I hope that your 3 become good friends without any problems.

And Welcome to NeuroTalk
.


Take care,
Liz
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