Introducing a cat...

[jfinner1]

There's a really long story that has something to do with a feline custody battle, but to sum it up, I may be adding a cat to our household. The cat has been around other cats and dogs, and never had any problems, but he's never met a rabbit. Both of my rabbits have lived in households with cats before, so I don't have to worry about them being to scared or anything, but I'm not sure how to go about introducing the cat to the rabbits. What precautions should I take? I obviously won't be leaving them along together any time soon, but it there ever a point where this will be ok? My rabbits have been getting more and more unsupervised run of the house, when I'm home, but not necessarily in the same room. And they have an open top exercise run that they play in when they play in when I'm not home. But the cat could probably jump into that with no problem, so I'll have to get a top for it or something... Truth is, I have no idea what to do about them. The biggest issue is that we have a small house, and the pets have always been based in the basement. So I can't just close a door to keep them separate. Advice please??

 

[MiniLopHop]

I have two cats and a rabbit. When I am at work they are together unsupervised because I leave the play pen door open all day. One of my cats also jumps into the play pen when it is closed at night to play with the rabbit.

I introduced them by first having the rabbit in her cage and letting everyone sniff with bars between them. They were all curious about eachother but the cats soon wandered off, which is good. Then I let the rabbit out into the play pen and the same happened. Eventually when I felt the cats were very board with the rabbit I let her wander with supervision. For the longest time the cats or the rabbit might go up to the other and sniff, but they would walk away. Over time they built up trust and started to play little games together. By the time they were racing up and down the hall changing who was chasing whom I let them together during the day.

I'm glad I let this bond develop because when the rabbit was spayed the cat licked her face and was very comforting. I think you just have to watch the personalities of everyone involved and make sure there is no stalking or harassing. My second cat is not as big of a fan, but as long as the rabbit is not on her spot on the bed she is just ignored.