Things You'll Need
- Litter box
- Water bowl
- Food bowl
- Cat toys
- Cat treats
- Cat food
- Blankets and towels
- Spray water bottle
Instructions
Set up a room in your house for your new kitten. Provide water and food dishes, dry or wet food (or both), a comfy resting spot or pet bed and some cat toys. Purchase new toys and dishes for your new kitten so you do not take away your senior cat's items, upsetting it. You will confine your new kitten to this room for about two weeks. This quarantines your new kitten from your senior cat so it does not pass any illnesses on to it. It also allows for an adjustment period for each animal.
Take your new kitten to the vet for a checkup and blood tests to ensure it carries no communicable diseases that it could give to your senior cat. A 14-year-old cat can easily become sick from a variety of conditions a young kitten could carry. When you have a clean bill of health, you can slowly (and safely) introduce the cats to each other, while you still confine your kitten in its room.
Feed the cats at the same time, on either side of the door to the room that you have your kitten confined to, recommends The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). This way, each cat associates the scent of the other with something good (food). You can also give each cat some treats when they sniff each other under the door, to positively reinforce this behavior. Do this for at least three to four days, or more, if either cat reacts badly (hissing or growling), until the behavior stops.
Rub a towel on the face of the kitten and then on the face of your senior cat, then repeat with another towel. Leave a towel for your kitten near its food, and do the same for your older cat. This will acclimate the cats to each other's scents. Your older cat may hiss at the scent to start with, but if it reacts without hissing, give it a treat.
Open the door to your kitten's room and place a baby gate in front of it. Allow your cats to see and smell each other through the gate. Give each cat a treat to encourage them to interact together and associate the experience of meeting each other as a positive one. Do this for two to three days or longer, depending on the reaction. Keep this level of confinement until each cat no longer reacts by hissing or growling.
Allow your older cat to enter the kitten's room without the kitten present. Then allow your kitten to explore the rest of your home while you supervise it. Do this for one or two days. As before, positively reward good behavior or reactions to smelling the other cat's scent.
Leave the door to the kitten's room open and allow each cat to freely enter or exit the room. Supervise the cat and kitten's first meeting and discovery of the other with no barriers between them. If either cat reacts violently, use a spray bottle to squirt water at the offending cat to break up the fight. Confine the cats as before if this happens and begin the reintroduction from Step 3. If the cats react well to each other, provide a treat to each cat to positively reinforce the experience.
Confine your kitten to its room when you, or another adult, are not home to supervise the interaction of the cat and kitten. Do this for the next two to three weeks. If no incidents of violent behavior have occurred between the two cats, you can now allow each of them free access to your home, unsupervised. To keep the relationship harmonious, feed each cat with its own set of bowls, and the HSUS recommends having one litter box per cat plus one (so three litter boxes in total available for two cats).