Bees meets the Mothman and the Jersey Devil…
Yes! It’s done!
In the second week of July, we adopted two kittens: Moth and Jersey. We introduced them slowly to one another, but much faster than recommended. Most websites we looked up recommended an introduction style that took seven weeks. Seven whole weeks!!
Listen, we live in a tiny, tiny apartment and we have only one room that we could possibly lock the kittens in: our bedroom. Thankfully, we don’t currently own a mattress (see: bedbug epidemic) and we are sleeping on couches, so we can still be with Bees, our older cat. That said, these kittens would wail and cry mournfully in the night until they finally curled up, sad and alone, on the plywood base of our empty bedframe.
We also thought it was really inconvenient.
What we ended up doing was opening the door a crack while one of us sat in the bedroom and letting Bees watch them through the door. Bees would growl and hiss, but we realized that beyond yelling at them, she didn’t demonstrate any hostile body language. No rising hackles, no yowling, no indication that she was gonna start a fight. We got brave and changed our methods. Basically, we let Bees wander in and out of the bedroom while keeping the kittens corralled inside. She took her time investigating and yelling at them until they all calmed down and sniffed noses.
After the three days, the kittens were released and now they’re free to irritate the hell out of us! Bees will frequently break the kittens out of the bedroom if we lock them up because they’re being too disruptive (2am, Moth and Bees will play with each other and run laps around the apartment) or too mischievous (chewing through cords, as kittens do).
a note from 2021: they all sleep together and stuff. everyone is no longer in that apartment!