Getting a kitten for my 3 y/o cat
I have an opportunity to take a longhair tortoiseshell kitten (under 4mo) from a friend. My fiance and I currently have a 3yo female tortoiseshell cat we adopted from a friend because her and the friend’s first tortoiseshell cat did not get along at all. Main concerns here are if my cat has residual trauma from living with the other nightmare tortie and will revert back to survival mode if we bring a tortie kitten in. Not sure if that’s a thing that happens, like if they care that much about appearances lol.
It’s worth it to note that this other cat our 3 yo didn’t get along with is absolutely insane. Orange cat behavior on steroids. Has no boundaries with people/furniture/other animals and lives to terrorize everyone, so maybe it was just a clash in personality. Our 3yo on the other hand is very laid back, literally no “bad” behaviors to speak of unless you count how neurotic she gets when we’re gone for extended periods…
It seems like she has some kind of separation anxiety or anxiety about being alone — when we’re gone for work, she hides under the bed most of the day. If we are gone for more than a couple days, with a sitter visiting her to play with her and feed her, she starts not using the litter box and sometimes gets bloody hairballs.
Not only do we want another cat anyway (I’ve always had multiple cats growing up), we’d like to do something to help with her fear of being alone during the day. We also have a fallback in case they don’t get along — a friend is wanting to adopt a kitten also and has agreed to hold off until we decide for sure we’re keeping this one. Our top priority is making sure our cat is happy. We don’t want her to change for the worse or revert back to her extreme anxiety state she was in at her last house.
Tips on introducing a kitten to an adult cat appreciated. We have a 3br/2ba so space is abundant, and we’re prepared to get more litter boxes and introduce them through the door, feed them near each other, etc.