kitties Archives | The Band Wife

So, I’ve had a lot of people asking how Mac and Charlie have been getting along since we brought Mac into the family in January. To answer the question, I would have to say that it’s been a bit of a bumpy road so far. At first I really worried about Charlie because even though we took the introduction really slow and tried to make her feel secure, she was still obviously in an extremely stressful state for weeks about the new housemate. She also just wasn’t being herself and we had a really hard time getting any affection (or even just a purr) out of her for a while. It just about broke my heart and I wondered if we had made a mistake in getting another cat, but I didn’t know what to do about it since we had already made the decision.

Thankfully it has gotten better since those first few weeks. She doesn’t exactly want to snuggle up to him (in fact she will get up and leave if he sits too close to her), but she is willing to let him be about two feet from her if he is acting cool and collected enough. She does hiss at him a lot and bops him on the head with her paw, but we also see them take turns chasing each other and doing other things where I think she is having at least a little bit of fun (although I don’t think she would admit that ). Anyways, my hope was that they would be instant best friends, or at least a mother/son type of bond since she’s older and he’s smaller, but the best we can do right now is a older annoyed sister vs. annoying little brother scenario. I don’t think it helps his case by always pouncing on her head while she’s napping. Charlie no likey.

I keep saying that this guy is both the sweetest and baddest kitty I know. He will do things he knows he shouldn’t (jump on counter, spill cat food containers, attack plants) over and over until you just start to lose your mind. Even though he doesn’t like it, he’s not afraid of the disciplinary spray bottle (he just braces himself for the spray) so we’ve started to up the water dosage from the faucet and put him in time out in another room instead. All this time you just want to kill him, but when he’s not being bad, he’s the sweetest snuggle bunny you’ll ever meet. Just so friendly and such a doll…
I love when they are in the same room together and both happy—I hope it happens more and more!We try and make sure to give Charlie some one-on-one time with us without Mac, and I think that helps a lot. She’s been acting more like herself lately and playing with her favorite toys again, so I think that’s a sign that she’s getting a little more used to him. I also started using cat calming pheromone plug-ins and sprays to try and get Charlie to relax and Mac to calm down, so maybe those will end up helping some.