Hi all.

My partner and I are introducing our cats and it’s going very badly.

Both are females. Both 8 ish years old. Both spayed. I mention it later but both have been seen by vets recently and are healthy and have no known issues.

My cat (cat A. New cat to the home. She’s been staying with my friend after I moved in until December of last year) has been around other cats her whole life (adopted her as a kitten) never had issues with other cats. Played and quite frankly I’ve never even done slow introductions before with her. She’s just been fine.

His cat (Cat B- been living with him for 4ish years, established in this home) is far more skittish. Slow to trust. Adopted from a shelter at age 4? Ish I believe after being a stray. Super sweet to humans after she trusts you. We knew we needed to be careful.

We’ve followed the guides online as closely as we can. Jackson galaxy’s guide was the main one we followed. But I’ve read many many others. Opposite side of door feeding, scent swapping, site swapping etc etc. I have reread the guides, gotten them new toys, new treats, new meds with our vets help of course. I’ve also read just about every Reddit thread on this topic it feels like.

We also tried feliway difusers in all rooms for several months and they did not help. We tried calming collars and they didn’t help. we tried calming treats and they didn’t help. We tried cbd treats and neither cat would eat them.

Cat A has been put in our office for months. She is understandably sick of it. We have tried to slowly introduce them but it is just not working. We have timed feeders close to each other on other sides of the door. We have been careful to not let them interact too much. And if they do it is supervised and limited and we try to keep it positive despite cat B being… well… opposed to it. It got slightly better (in the beginning if the door to the office opened at all cat B would hiss and growl at cat A… that stopped but then if cat A is visible for too long or if we try to have her venture out of the office cat B (again cat b is the established resident cat) will freak out and try to attack cat A…. Then we did longer little peeks and that was ok for the most part.

We have gotten cat A on meds as she’s gotten to the point of yowling and tearing up the carpet in the office and freaks out. We try to spend time and play with her when we can but we both work full time and only can be in there so much. We take time every day to interact with both of them and play and snuggle and pet them. Make sure cat A gets attention and loves so she’s not neglected, but I can’t deny she does spend a lot of time alone. More so than she is used to. But recently cat A has gotten fed up with being in the room all the time. She’s been going nuts about being in there and any time one of us isn’t with her she just screams and howls and claws at the carpet or furniture or will start knocking things over despite toys and scratching posts etc etc. it’s been slowly driving me especially insane and also breaking my heart because we simply cannot be in there 100% of the time while we are home, or have her out of that room and cat B in there, as if Cat B is in there she will do the same thing.

Here’s where I messed up big time…

I finally got so overwhelmed by the screaming and scratching a week or so ago and just let cat A out. (Only while supervised) And it honestly seemed like it was going ok. Cat B seemed ok with it. She wasn’t doing the constant stare down, would even sleep and just chill… just some occasional staring and a little growling here and there… we had a few episodes of her going over to sniff cat A and them getting into it but we’d break it up and overall things seemed tame and far more positive than in the beginning when we tried some “bigger” introductions in January. (Stupid on my part) My partner and I agreed we’d put cat A back into the office during work and bedtime to assure we could keep an eye on them until we were sure they were ok to be left alone unsupervised

Well…. Now when we put cat A back in the office she goes absolutely BALLISTIC. Even worse than before. Screaming, clawing, throwing up… And when we let her out? Cat B starts attacking her on sight. We are at a total loss. Over the course of this week it has gotten to the point where we cannot let our guards down. It actually seemed like it was ok and they were kind of getting along better but it ramped up SO quickly and I cannot figure out why. They have separated water, food, toys, litter, etc etc. we play and cuddle separately. I’m very hesitant to try to play with them near each other as cat B will NOT stop trying to attack cat A.

As I type this cat B is staring down cat A on my partners lap and we are trying to keep the peace.

I’m to the point where I’m questioning if I have to rehome my cat ):

Does anyone have any suggestions? Neither of us can be home more than we are… we have no friends or family to be home here to watch them more… I have carpet protectors up but my cat managed to move them and destroy our carpet… I put a towel by the door when cat A is in the office so they can’t see each other but cat A just manages to pull the towel through the gap…

Side note: both cats have been very recently seen by their vets and are perfectly healthy and fine. No health problems or concerns. Cat B might be getting on anti anxiety meds soon (really wishing they would’ve done it up front at her last appointment but they said they’d “wait and see how it went 😒) cat A is on anxiety meds and I have a call into my vet as of this week and haven’t heard back about possibly switching doses or meds all together as I feel they aren’t successful due to her constantly yowling and scratching.

So desperate for advice so can try to keep the peace and my cat… ): unfortunately I have a chronic illness which has been taking a ton of energy out of me as of late and has made it harder on me to deal with all of this mentally and I’m afraid I might have no choice but to rehome my cat and I’m really hoping someone might have some advice on how to make any of this easier… if the decision to rehome her is what is best for her then I will be a responsible pet owner and do that but this is my last ditch effort to find some sort of solution that doesn’t involve me giving her up.

We’ve spent so much money on these cats in the last few months on stuff that hasn’t been helpful which is fine I’m more than willing to do that, but I’m hoping to try to find solutions that are more… well… actually helpful lol.

I just want what’s best for both of them and clearly this isn’t it. They both are obviously stressed and miserable… and quite frankly so are we.