We currently have an issue following the adoption of our third cat. We can't find a way to introduce him to our two other cats.
Context
We have three cats:
- Female A, 7 year old, adopted in May 2018: she is adorable with us, but really scared of unknown animals/humans.
- Female B, 4 year old, adopted in November 2018: she also is adorable with us, she isn't scared by other humans, but she is not always comfortable when she sees another animal for the first time.
- Male, 6 year old, adopted at the end of August this year: he is adorable with us too, but sometimes aggressive or territorial when he sees Female A or B. The volunteer from the shelter where we adopted him told us that he used to live with 2 other cats.
We had some difficulties to introduce Female B to Female A in 2018 because A was scared/aggressive at first, but now they can live in the same room/house without any issue. They don't play together, but they don't attack each other neither. They tend to ignore each other.
When we brought Male at home, we put him in a separate room (first floor) while A and B were allowed to use the ground floor, the corridor of the first floor and, sometimes, the second floor.
What we tried
We let them eat at the same time, A and B in the corridor of our first floor and Male in his room. They were on each side of the same door. A was not comfortable at first, but she finally managed to do it. B was fine.
When they were ready, we opened the door, but put a mosquito net between them so they were able to see the other cat(s). It was also hard at first because Male tried to remove the net to chase them, but we managed to stop him.
Then, we put Male and Female B in the same room: we played with Male and gave food to Female B (Female A was too scared). We did this two or three times without any issue, but Male finally chased and attacked Female B.
Now Female B is scared of Male so she runs away when she sees him: unfortunately, it encourages him to chase her so we have to stop him. Female A does the same thing when she sees Female B doing it...
We tried to put them in the same room again, but with Male on leash this time (it doesn't bother him to be on leash). Unfortunately, Female A and B stay under our sofa and growl when he tries to approach them. When it happens, he starts to act like a predator and we have to stop him or he tries to go under the sofa to chase or attack them...
He has been with us for 6 or 7 weeks now and we can't see any kind of progress...
What does not help is that Male does not bear to stay alone or in his room for too long and he sometimes pees next to a close door if it happens (sometimes, even if we are in the room. He just wants to explore the whole house).
We tried to use a Feliway diffuser, but it doesn't seem to work. We can't motivate Female A or B with food because they are too scared to eat when they see Male.
tl;dr
We adopted Male, our third adult cat, 6 weeks ago. He can be a bit rough while Female A and Female B are easily scared.
We tried to introduce them slowly, but Female A and B keep hiding or running away so Male tries to chase them.
If you can suggest another method or some tips to help us, we would love to know them!
