Much like human relationships, relationships between cats in a home can be complex. Introducing cats can result in lifelong friendship, tolerance, or stressful fighting. Once things have gone wrong, these situations can be hard to fix. In many cases, the most challenging part isn’t actually the cats; it’s keeping the humans involved motivated and getting them through a very long, challenging process.
I wanted to investigate the human component to not only help my own clients, but help other other consultants, veterinarians, or anyone working on introducing new cats into a home. I conducted a survey of cat owners that have completed an introduction, whether successful or not, to get a better sense of what they found most challenging. Now that I have enough responses, I want share what I found and a few practical implications.
How Survey Was Conducted
I don’t have a robust research budget so I used the best tool available to me: Google Forms. I collected responses by sharing on social media and via my newsletter. My network shared the survey to help expand the responses beyond just people connected to me. In order to get a larger sample size, the survey was open from late 2024 until early 2026.
The survey was specifically looking for people who had resident cats already and introduced new cats to their home. It included both people whose cats were integrated and situations that did not work out. If people had done multiple cat introductions, I asked them to think about their most recent one for purposes of the survey.
Survey Questions
There were 7 questions total on the survey, with the final question only being for people who rehomed one or more cats. Questions included:
- Two open ended questions that required a numerical response about how many cats were being introduced and how many resident cats were present.
- A yes or no question about if it was someone’s first time introducing cats
- A likert scale rating the difficulty of the process from 1 (it was very easy) to 7 (it was extremely challenging)
- A question about where people found information about the process. This question allowed people to pick multiple options. There was one option for people who did not seek additional information.
- A question about which part of the process people found the most challenging. It only allowed one response to help identify the most difficulty part as my goal wasn’t to figure out everything that was challenging, but what parts people found to be the largest barrier.
- A question about why people decided to rehome a cat if they were not successful in introducing their cats. This question was the only one that did not require a response as it wouldn’t apply to everyone.
Results
Side note: Before we get into a bunch of numbers, if you only care about the practical implications and my thoughts you can skip ahead to the analysis.
The survey received 79 responses total. One response was removed as it indicated there were 0 new cats being introduced so it did not appear to be a valid response. The final results were calculated based on the remaining 78 responses.
Number Of Resident Cats
| Number of Cats In The Home | Number of Responses | Percentage of Responses |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 46 | 59 |
| 2 | 24 | 30.8 |
| 3 | 4 | 5.1 |
| 4 | 2 | 2.6 |
| 6 | 1 | 1.3 |
| 7 | 1 | 1.2 |
New Cats
| Number of New Cats Added | Number of Responses | Percentage of Responses |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 62 | 79.5 |
| 2 | 14 | 17.9 |
| 4 | 1 | 1.3 |
| 12 | 1 | 1.3 |
Note that I chose to keep the 12 cat household because the rest of the response indicated validity. While not something I would do, stranger situations have happened.
First Time Introducing Cats
The majority of respondents, 57.7%, had introduced cats before. The remaining 42.3% said this was their first time doing a cat introduction. While there were slightly more experienced respondents, the responses weren’t skewed too far in one direction.
Difficulty
Respondents rated how hard they found the process from 1 (very easy) to 7 (very difficult). The majority of respondents indicated they found the process at least somewhat challenging with 73.1% rating the process as being a 5, 6 or 7. 7 (very challenging) was by far the most common response with 33 people, or 42.3%, choosing it.
Sources Of Help
Respondents were asked where they got information about how to introduce cats. They had to choose at least one response, though one option was “I didn’t seek additional information/Tried to figure it out on my own.” Interestingly, only 4 respondents did not seek additional help during the process. A few indicated they tried to DIY it combined with another source such as YouTube videos.
By far the most common source for guidance was websites and blogs with 74.4% of respondents choosing this option. YouTube or other video sources came in second.
Sadly for me, cat behavior professionals was pretty low on the list. This may be because people still don’t realize there are people who can help with their cats’ behavior, but the survey didn’t look at this. Perhaps for the next one I will ask about this!
| Most Common Sources Of Cat Introduction Information Ranked |
|---|
| Websites or Blogs |
| Videos (YouTube or others) |
| Rescues (3 way tie) |
| Friends/Family (3 way tie) |
| Social Media (3 way tie) |
| Veterinarian |
| Book |
| Cat Behavior Professional |
| Didn’t Seek Information |
Multiple Sources Was Common
Overwhelmingly, people sought out information from multiple sources: 79.5% of respondents who didn’t select “Didn’t Seek Additional Information” picked two or more sources of information. 4% of those who picked not seeking information also selected another source. These were excluded from the total who selected multiple sources.
Biggest Challenge
The question about the biggest challenge people faced included eight common things people find challenging and one “other” option. My focus was on which part people found the most challenging so they had to pick just one option. Interestingly, every option received at least one response. You can see the results summarized below:
| Option | Number of Responses | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Keeping the resident cat(s) happy | 22 | 28.2 |
| The amount of time involved | 14 | 17.9 |
| Knowing how to introduce cats properly | 12 | 15.4 |
| The work involved | 10 | 12.8 |
| Keeping the cats separated | 8 | 10.3 |
| Keeping the new cat(s) happy | 3 | 3.8 |
| Injury to a cat | 2 | 2.6 |
| Setting up the home/environmental changes required | 2 | 2.6 |
| Something else | 5 | 6.4 |
Rehoming
The question about rehoming received 17 responses so about 21% of people ended up rehoming at least one cat involved in the introduction process. There were 13 options total and not every option was selected. Participants were instructed to pick the top reason they rehomed their cat. It also instructed them to choose the closest fit.
| Answer | Percentage |
|---|---|
| Wellbeing of the resident cat(s) | 47.1 |
| It didn’t seem like it would ever work out | 29.4 |
| It was taking too long | 11.8 |
| Unable to afford professional help | 5.9 |
| The work involved was too challenging | 5.9 |
| Options That Weren’t Chosen |
|---|
| I didn’t have time to do the introduction |
| Recommendation of a professional |
| Personal reasons |
| Wellbeing of the new cats |
| Other behavior concerns (i.e. spraying or housesoiling) |
| Unable to make environmental changes (i.e. having enough litter boxes) |
| Medical reasons (i.e. once cat devolops an illness or is injured) |
| Something else |
Statistical Analysis
While raw numbers and percentages give us interesting information, it misses a lot of important insights that don’t show up until you look at the relationships between the numbers. It has been a long time since I’ve actually ran some statistical analyses myself, but I searched deep in my memories from my undergraduate days to run some statistics for you.
Yes, I did math to help you understand what this means better. You can thank me with a tip.
There were a few very interesting finds in the data, including a few surprises.
Most Common Groupings
The most common arrangement of cats was 1 resident cat and 1 new cat. Is this because people predominantly wanted to get their cat a friend? I didn’t ask about that so we can’t know for sure, but anecdotally I hear this reason a lot. The next two most common arrangements were involved one pair of cats and one singleton for a total of 3 cats involved.
In other words, most people are introducing one cat to one cat. There were a few pairs of cats that were introduced to another pair of cats, but most involved a single cat as either the resident cat or newcomer.
Unexpected Results
One thing I wanted to investigate was differences between how difficult people found the process and other factors. I was expecting difficulty to be correlated with the number of cats involved (there is a lot more to think about if you’re introducing multiple cats), if people had introduced cats before, and whether or not the introduction resulted in a rehoming.
Well… I was wrong. There was at most a slight relationship, but overall almost everyone found the process challenging regardless of experience. Most people who rehomed at least one cat found it very difficult, but so did a majority of other respondents.
Knowing More Didn’t Help
Out of curiosity, I looked at whether difficulty ratings and how many sources people used had any relationship. My though process was if people know more, it must make it easier! Maybe they read a book about cats and then got a few ideas from a cat expert’s blog. That should be helpful, right?
Well, much like the other variables I looked at, people didn’t find gathering information from multiple sources to help reduce the difficulty. Most people found things challenging even if they had a lot of information. Because this is a survey, it’s hard to pick out causation from the data so there may be a confounding variable: Because they had a more challenging situation, people looked for additional information. It’s still interesting to note and something to investigate further.
Limitations
As a good scientist, I need to acknowledge the limitations of my survey. It’s always possible there could have been bias and it’s always a good idea to replicate scientific research (including adorable scientific research). I hope that someone with actual funding tries to replicate what I did and improve upon it, but my survey gives a good starting point. Some challenges include:
- Potential bias due to how and where I collected responses
- Small sample size, especially of the rehoming group
- Potential bias with phrasing of questions
- Long timeframe for survey completion and possibility people answered multiple times
- Inability for participants to expand upon “other” responses
- Lack of validation of questions (I am only one person!)
- Lack of peer review (though my cats did take a look at the results as I was analyzing them)
- I am better at interpreting statistics than I am doing math so there’s a chance I may have gotten some of my numbers wrong
- High percentage of people rating this as difficult may show bias in my sample. It’s also possible it really is that difficult!
In other words, if you are an actual researcher thinking of doing more robust research on this topic, it’s needed! I’m happy to help replicate this in a more formal, scientific way so get in touch.
Why Are Cat Introductions So Hard?
All those numbers are great, but what does it mean for veterinarians, cat behavior professionals, or people who want to perform further research? What about people who are going through the introduction process?
The biggest conclusion is that cat introductions are challenging even for people with experience with cats. If you get the wrong pairing of cats? This is going to be a very slow process. Even if you’re successful, it may not be easy!
The Most Difficult Part Of Introducing Cats
While the process of introducing cats can be complicated, that’s not the most challenging part: it’s the emotional toll it takes on people. It requires upending your life for a long period of time. You may need a full door height pet gate to keep your cats separated for weeks or months while trying to balance keeping both cats (or groups of cats) happy. There’s a lot of uncertainty and hopelessness involved. Taking care of yourself is required as part of the introduction process.
Rehoming often comes once people become hopeless. Whether you’re doing this alone or with a professional, make sure you are keeping yourself afloat mentally as you go. It’s normal to think of the wellbeing of your cats, but your wellbeing is important, too!
For Cat Behavior Professionals
Specifically for professionals, your clients may struggle with the amount of time involved. They may also find this draining mentally even at the beginning. It can be hard to keep their cats separated! This is especially true if their resident cat or cats can’t spend as much time with them as they are used to. The majority of respondents cited the wellbeing of their cats as the reason they ended up deciding rehoming was the kindest choice.
Your behavior plan always needs to address:
- Your clients’ guilt, stress, and worry
- Resident cat or cats’ welfare
- Feelings of hopelessness
It’s not only about the technical aspects of the behavior plan. You are less likely to successfully help your clients if you don’t take the things that present the greatest barriers to success into account.
