wrote in message
...

A week ago my older cat passed away (he
was the alpha of my two neutered males,
the only two cats).

In the cat world, there is no such thing as an "alpha" cat. A cat in a
two cat household may at some point be considered "dominant," but cat
heirarchy often changes.

My bad choice of words. Q was always the dominant cat, I had them both from
kitten but Q was a year older and was with me for a year with no other cat.
I was told I had imprinted on him and he became a 'one animal cat' whereby
he would get jealous and start spitting if I petted another cat and even
spat at girlfriends though was generally OK with other male humans. For some
reason he always tolerated Worf though was never cuddly with him as cats can
be.


What you need to keep in mind is that this cat has gone from being
abandoned, to living for a long time in a stressful shelter situation,
to coming into a new home with strange people and a strange cat. This
many changes in such a short time is very stressful for cats, and she's
feeling very vulnerable and defensive. Going on the offensive and
attacking the resident cat is likely to actually be a defensive move
designed to scare him off because she's unsure and scared herself. The
right thing to do for her is to keep her separated in a room of her own
and give her time to make the adjustment to you and get used to her new
surroundings before exposing her to the rest of the house and the
resident cat. No doubt Worf could also use a break from her. ;-)

Thanks, have done. Took me half an hour to 'walk' Worf through the house
when he came back in last night to assure him she was not going to jump out
on him, poor mite.

Some of this could be related to too much, too soon, but you also need
to understand that some cats get easily overstimulated from petting and
the biting is a warning that the cat has had enough and you need to back
off. Cats do give warning signals, and you'll need to learn to recognize
the body language she exhibits that precedes the biting.

Yep, have recognised that - she sort of yaps before attacking.

The best approach for integrating this cat successfully into your home
is to give her some time, don't rush and instead take things very
slowly. A good rule of thumb is if you think she's ready for the next
step, wait one more day. HTH.

Megan


Thanks for the advise, will see how it goes.
--

I.P.Freely