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bunnTime to note how the cat integration is going, before I forget.
Yama and Suma appear very much settled in and confident. The only clue that they might not be 100% happy yet is that Yama's rhinitis is playing up: his nose is running and he's doing a lot of sneezing (and producing a great deal of green slime, delightful). I think this may be partly down to stress.
At the moment Suma is sitting on the back of a sofa, Perl is on her cushion on the next sofa, and Footie is on a chair, all fast asleep. The dogs are also asleep in the same room. This is progress. At first the Bengals chased all the other cats, and I don't know what they did to the dogs when I wasn't looking,but it made the poor dogs squeal! Whereas mostly now they are greeting politely. Perl is giving the Bengals a good growl if they come too close, but they aren't retaliating.
The advice we had from Bengal Cat Rescue was to crate them at any sign of aggression or unwanted behaviour: we didn't quite do that, but we banished them to the library. Suma clearly understood this very quickly, and is being pretty good with the other cats now. Yama took a bit longer.
They were SO badly behaved around food! Their behaviour was appalling. I think their previous owners must have fed them from their plates, or shut them away during meals, or perhaps both, inconsistently. They tried to steal from us, from the dogs... At first they would just walk up and try to start eating from our plates. When we didn't allow that, they tried rushing us, grabbing an item and running away, the little scoundrels! I think they are finally starting to get it, but it may be a few weeks before it will be possible to eat a meal in peace with them in the room.
As well as the banishment, we've also been using distraction to try to get the cats playing in the same room, which has worked pretty well. I bought a lot of cat wands from http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Catopolis , which have proved a good investment.
Yama and Suma have now been allowed official access to the big wide world. They went out there and had a good sniff round regularly for a few days: then the rain began, and since then they have been staying pretty much indoors! So much for the ferocious leopard-cat hybrids!
We are not sure what Henning is up to. We think he is the most upset of all the cats, and I am pretty sure he is comfort eating. At the moment he is mostly hanging out in the utility room: could be that he is keeping out of the way of the Bengals, but it also appears that he is taking control of important resources (the food dishes and catflaps) by his positioning. I keep wondering if we could put another catflap somewhere else to stop this sort of route-control thing, but it's very hard to work out where to put one.
He is also taking out his frustrations on the other cats. Perl is not taking any messing about and bops him sternly if he tries it on with her, but he is also being bad tempered with sweet Kjetil and poor Footie. They are used to his wicked ways though, and with a bit of luck this will all subside once he has forgotten the Bengals are new.
Yama and Suma appear very much settled in and confident. The only clue that they might not be 100% happy yet is that Yama's rhinitis is playing up: his nose is running and he's doing a lot of sneezing (and producing a great deal of green slime, delightful). I think this may be partly down to stress.
At the moment Suma is sitting on the back of a sofa, Perl is on her cushion on the next sofa, and Footie is on a chair, all fast asleep. The dogs are also asleep in the same room. This is progress. At first the Bengals chased all the other cats, and I don't know what they did to the dogs when I wasn't looking,but it made the poor dogs squeal! Whereas mostly now they are greeting politely. Perl is giving the Bengals a good growl if they come too close, but they aren't retaliating.
The advice we had from Bengal Cat Rescue was to crate them at any sign of aggression or unwanted behaviour: we didn't quite do that, but we banished them to the library. Suma clearly understood this very quickly, and is being pretty good with the other cats now. Yama took a bit longer.
They were SO badly behaved around food! Their behaviour was appalling. I think their previous owners must have fed them from their plates, or shut them away during meals, or perhaps both, inconsistently. They tried to steal from us, from the dogs... At first they would just walk up and try to start eating from our plates. When we didn't allow that, they tried rushing us, grabbing an item and running away, the little scoundrels! I think they are finally starting to get it, but it may be a few weeks before it will be possible to eat a meal in peace with them in the room.
As well as the banishment, we've also been using distraction to try to get the cats playing in the same room, which has worked pretty well. I bought a lot of cat wands from http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Catopolis , which have proved a good investment.
Yama and Suma have now been allowed official access to the big wide world. They went out there and had a good sniff round regularly for a few days: then the rain began, and since then they have been staying pretty much indoors! So much for the ferocious leopard-cat hybrids!
We are not sure what Henning is up to. We think he is the most upset of all the cats, and I am pretty sure he is comfort eating. At the moment he is mostly hanging out in the utility room: could be that he is keeping out of the way of the Bengals, but it also appears that he is taking control of important resources (the food dishes and catflaps) by his positioning. I keep wondering if we could put another catflap somewhere else to stop this sort of route-control thing, but it's very hard to work out where to put one.
He is also taking out his frustrations on the other cats. Perl is not taking any messing about and bops him sternly if he tries it on with her, but he is also being bad tempered with sweet Kjetil and poor Footie. They are used to his wicked ways though, and with a bit of luck this will all subside once he has forgotten the Bengals are new.
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Date: 2007-05-31 07:44 pm (UTC)Kjet & Foo are the loveliest characters, but they are also at the bottom of the hierarchy: I sometimes wonder how they would change if we only had the 2 of them, or if they lived with more submissive cats.