Are my cats trying to kill each other ??
I (22F) have been living in my appartement with my cat (4F) for 2 years and my roomate (23F) moved in in November. In January we started gradually introducing her cat (4M). My cat (lets call her Cat A) is a calm, discrete and playful cat. She is also unfortunatly declawed. Before living with me she was living at my mom's with another cat. They got along well but were never best friend (he is a super anxious cat who's even anxious around humans). My roomate's cat (lets call him Cat B) is very active, playful, likes to go outside and loves humans. He still has his claws and never lived with another cat.
We first tried to introduce them step by step. At first, cat B was living in my roomate's room, door closed. We tried to avoid any contact as much as possible. We tried to bring their food closer and closer with the door closed but cat A doesnt have a very scheduled apetite so it worked more or less. We did periods of times where Cat A was in my room, door closed, while Cat B was exploring the appartment. In summary, we tried really hard to introduce them to each other following the proper steps.
In mid-march, we felt that both of our cats were ready to meet each other as they were both looking very relaxed even though they were living with the scent of another cat in the appartment. It did not go as planned.
Cat B immediatly ran after Cat A and they started to fight very intensly, forming a ball. We separated them because we where scared that cat B would hurt cat A. We tried to continue following the steps without them meeting but when felt they were confortable enough to meet, the same thing happened.
It scares us because they don't stop without us separating them. We are quite scared for Cat A because she is defenseless in front of Cat B. Cat A is very small and declawed and Cat B is massive and clawed.
At this point Cat B was getting pretty uneasy living in my roomate's room as he is more used to big spaces. He was meowing a lot espacially when my roomate was absent.
We started to introduce him into the appartement during the day with his leash. However, the moment that Cat B would see Cat A, he would immediatly pull very hard from the leash trying to attack her. Cat A started to hide when she heard he was out of his room. Sometimes, when he is sleeping in the cat tree, she gets out of her hiding spot and comes to see me and my roomate. But if Cat B wakes up, we have to hold his leash so he doesn't attack her.
We don't hold Cat B's leash at all time. We pay really close attention to him and when we see that cat A is getting out, we hold it tight. However, it happened a few times that we were either distracted or in the bathroom and they would see each other. Cat A would instantly try to hide as quick as possible but sometimes she is not quick enough, causing a big fight. They form a ball, we hear lots of loud meowing and sometimes there is even some furr that is falling on the ground. We sometimes wonder if Cat B would kill Cat A if we would'nt stop the fight.
My roomate and I both love our cats and we would love for them to be able to live in the same space without being scared for their safety. Is there any hope for them to get along? Do you have any tips? Would adding another litter help solve the problem?
Please help us.