how long did it take for them to come right 😭 pan has terrible anxiety which is a big part of how he got this sick (quelled for now by the 8 doses of meds i have to give him every day) but i worry he’ll get badly set off if she keeps this up long…

As I recall, it usually took a few days to a week, depending on how long the other cat spent at the vet. The smell needs to recede. Until then, you have to treat it like you're introducing two cats all over again... which can be very confusing for the one coming from the vet, for sure.

Same here. Most cats use smell as their main identification tool. Imagine your friend comes home one day and they're wearing a disguise that they can't take off. They sound the same, they move the same, they talk the same but it takes days before they look the same, you're gonna be suspicious.

that is an excellent comparison, thank you for helping me think about it in a different way! We’ve been trying to pretend like they’re strangers and reintroduce them slowly, but honestly we’ve probably tripped up and let them see each other more than needed.

They'll also figure themselves out a bit too, as long as you don't let them scrap I think you're probably ok. It will seem a lot worse than it is.

It’s just so hard coz Pan chirps and drunkenly runs over to her like HI! I’m home! and she’s like “if you take one step closer you’ll have no eyes, stinky stranger man” He’s not awake too much, but when he is he’s trying to either get to her or hide from her 😭

It's important to remember they have brains the size of walnuts. 😉 Within a week, they'll be spooning again and it'll be like nothing at all happened. Just keep them apart, for now.

that’s a very good point re brain size

Fortunately we love them anyhow. 🥰

I had this with some of my pets re: vet and scent! One thing that helped us a lot in speeding things up was grabbing a towel and scrub all over (in this case) Echo to get their scent, then all over household items they both play on, then rub it all over Pan.

We did this 3 or 4 times and they came good the next day, because it was massively diluting the scent. You can also rub it all over Pan first, rub it on Echo (she will hate it, but she'll groom herself and realise it's not an Evil Scent), then do the rest.

we’ve been doing this, she’s definitely a lot calmer when reacting to us when we pat her after touching him!! i think it still doesn’t smell like Pan tho, so she still hissed when we tried to do the cracked door method situation. Ah well, it’s only day 3 of doing shifts on the couch and bed 😅

Ohhhh once he's out of the crate and given some good snuggles, maybe a trip to the litter box as well she should be okay - the smell just has to recede enough where she goes okay this is my brother and she may even start grooming him to get the stink off. Hopefully won't take too long!

it’s been 24 hrs now and she is still not having it. we’ve had to sleep in separate rooms with them 😅 to be fair, he was an absolute mess at the hospital — every time they tried to clean him he would get super distressed so they did minimal. he’s trying to clean up but he does smell rank even to me

he smells like iodine and saline and iv and blood and fear probably and other cats and other humans — she’s furious at us for bringing a stranger back instead of Pan 😭😂

oh, and piss and shit, since he had an open catheter and no control of his bowels poor love

Poor little guy - yeah keep them separated but where they can sniff each other maybe. I hope he's feeling better soon, he's been through a lot

struggling not to rush the process but yeah, it’s looking like this may take a while 😅

She just needs to realize he's okay again. It'll take a bit of time. Don't forget to give her snuggles too - maybe even after handling him, get her used to the smell or cleaning it off? Might help