OK, I have a 3 year-old extremely friendly, very gentle mix-breed cat (Maggie) who has been my 'baby' for several years. She has always been around other cats, although last year my roommate's 17 year-old siamese would chase and lash out at her. We kept them separate as much as possible, but now in my new apartment, I adopted a 1-year-old Maine Coon about 1 1/2 months ago.

Sage is as sweet as she can be. She seems to adore Maggie and bounds up to her to play and Maggie just freaks out, I guess she's thinking Sage is coming after her like my old roommate's cat did. By freak out, I mean literally go nuts, and make that awful cat-in-terror shriek as well as lashing out with ears back. Sage always backs off and looks rather confused that Maggie doesn't like her. Because she is just a year, she hasn't fully grown out of her kittenish play stage yet (plus she was found at 7 mos with a litter of kittens and probably missed out on most of her kitten stage playing mommy).

I did separate them at first and introduce them slowly. Maggie will touch noses with Sage sometimes and I have even seen Maggie let Sage lick her face. It doesn't seem to be a jealousy issue because Maggie seems calmer around Sage when I am close, and most of the time when she freaks out I am out of the room or on the other side of the room. Maggie growls whenever Sage comes near her, and Sage follows Maggie around with utter devotion.

I have been trying the Feliway plugin and the herbal remedy suggested here for at least three weeks and it hasn't seemed to make a difference. I think if Maggie calmed down she'd realize that Sage totally adores her and wouldn't hurt her, and would also be a fun playmate. My old roommate also had a kitten and he and Maggie played together all the time with no problem.

Any suggestions?

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