Alright, so here's the deal. I recently moved in with my partner, who has two cats and one dog. I also have two cats. Neither of us is giving up any of our animals.
All the animals are fed, kept clean, litter boxes are changed out regularly, dog walked, water bowls full and fresh, etc., so they're all taken care of. Aside from that, my girlfriend's mom is not well, and needs regular care throughout the day also. So even though everyone is taken care of, it's taking way the fuck too much time out of our lives, and we are miserable.
I know that the true answer here is just "have less animals", but since no one is willing to budge on that, I'm wondering if anyone has any advice for how to make this easier. I am at the end of my rope here, covered in shed animal fur, and feeling desperate.
Cats need to be slowly and carefully introduced. If you just throw them into the same space right away they'll often fight and may hate each other indefinitely. On the other hand, if you keep them in neighboring rooms, they can get used to each other's smells and play with each other under the door for a week or three.
You'll have an idea for how they're feeling if you pet the cats in one room a lot and then let the cats in the other room smell your hand. If they're reactive in a negative way, they're definitely not ready.
After they seem fairly comfortable with their smells and playing under the door, you can transition to something like a screen door (cats will just jump over one of those baby wall things) or just short glimpses through the open door, and just ease into it that way. Maybe 1 on 1 cat play dates. I can't emphasize enough that cats flip out with too sudden of introductions and in scenarios where they feel threatened, like being outnumbered. Also being in a new space makes them on edge.
Anyways the point of this recommendation is that it is infinitely easier to take care of 4 cats that get along with each other after a 0.5-2 month acclimation than having to separate them indefinitely because they hate each other.
Not sure what to do about the dog. Dogs can be friendly to cats they were raised with and acclimated to but be really into chasing introduced cats. I haven't had to introduce adult cats to adult dogs before, so do a lot of reading!
My partner and I introduced our new cat too quickly and they fought and the first one started peeing on stuff and it’s taken nearly a year of keeping them mostly separated to get them okay with each other. We still don’t fully trust the first one to not pee on our bed.
Introduce them right the first time.
Been here for almost a year, did our best with introducing them gently, smells first etc. I'm just thankful that the two adult females aren't trying to kill each other, even though one is bullying the other. The two adult males cannot be in the same room, though. One of them wants to be friends, the other one does not, and the former is not getting the hint. Doesn't even respond to hissing or anything, doesn't get aggressive back, he just slowly approaches until he scares the other one and they start fighting, so we're keeping them completely apart.
Mostly I just need ideas for how to deal with making things easier, like fur being everywhere, feeding, litter, dog walking, etc.
I introduced my dog and cat the same way, with the Jackson galaxy method. They ignore each other for the most part, except when the cat fucks with the dog which doesn’t happen often. So that was a success.