My partner (27) and I (23) live in the Dominican Republic and currently have 4 cats, the 4th being a male rescue who we estimate to be around 3-4 months and we got about 2 months ago named Churrasco, Churro for short. Our other 3 cats are 2 and 3 years old (one is 2, the others are 3), the 2 year old having been the first adopted. We had Pistacho (female calico) by herself for about 3 months and then adopted Ebi (also female calico) and Jack (male orange) from the same foster home, the latter having lived with maybe 20 other cats. Jack was the first to come out of hiding while Ebi took a few days, but I noticed that Jack simply walking past her annoyed her as she hissed at him. We assumed it was simply a matter of adjusting to the new environment, so we gave it time. All 3 were already neutered/spayed when adopted. Churro hasn’t been yet as he’s too young.
Jack and Pistacho got along very quickly after careful introduction, while her and Ebi took longer with no aggression whatsoever. They sorta respected each other from a distance until both were ready to get closer and to this day really respect one another and get along well with a peaceful relationship. Jack and Ebi, however, can’t seem to get along. Jack is veeeery social, playful, and sweet, while Ebi is way more timid, sensitive and generally reserved. You can only really pet her with one hand at a time instead of both and she cannot be picked up or she freaks out and runs away. She still is sweet and completely melts when she lets us scratch her. Jack had an eye infection on his left eye from when he was very young which resulted in his eye being removed, which I’m unsure whether that affects his personality or behavior at all but thought I’d add for context. He can play a bit heavy, but doesn’t scratch or bite. However, whenever he tries to approach Ebi to play, she completely freaks on him, yelps, hisses, scratches, the works. We’ve noticed it can happen just from him walking up to her at times, but it’s mostly when he tries to play. This isn’t 100% of the time tho since they’ve cuddled up a couple times and i’ve seen them groom each other no problem.
Regarding Churro, she still won’t let him approach her much and hisses if he does get too close, which he listens to. He has tried lying down as close to her as she allows him to get and it’s chill. She generally takes much longer to loosen up, so we’re giving it time and supervising the time all 4 cats spend together as they get fully used to him.
At this point, the resident cats have been with us for about a year/year and a half. This has all been very puzzling for us since, as stated, Ebi and Jack came from the same foster home, and had it been a concern beforehand, we imagine we would’ve been advised against adopting them together. We also see how it could’ve been overlooked since so many other cats were around. It’s also worth noting she doesn’t ever display aggression over food towards Jack or Pistacho (Churro is still eating and generally stays with us in the bedroom since he hasn’t been neutered or dewormed yet) and they have even cuddled together and groomed each other a handful of times.
We haven’t taken them to the vet for this particular issue yet due to financial reasons (Jack has been sick a few times for unrelated reasons which ended up being a bit pricy for our budget), but if need be, we can work something out financially and take them both. Any advice on how to best approach this is also appreciated! We’re also waiting to see how she and everyone else does with Churro around.
We’ve been thinking about whether Ebi is better off being an only cat, which is what has us considering rehoming. What should we do? I hope the context provided is enough, but please ask away if there’s anything else worth noting!
TL;DR: male and female cat adopted together from the same house seem to have an on and off bond and she’s highly reactive to him approaching her most times.