I have a cat dilemma. I have two. One is nearly 17 years old and I've had him since he was born.?

The other is a 6-month-old kitten that I rescued from in back of my office building when he was approximately three months old. His mother and two siblings were killed in the street so he was out there alone for a while until I was able to rent a trap and get him out. He is a sweet cat and much more fun than the older one, naturally.
The problem is, the older one will not tolerate other cats in his territory. He is mean, nasty and combative toward other cats. I know because I had a housemate with a cat and even after two years my cat simply would not accept her and always tried to fight with her.
I don't want to give up either of them, but as it is now I have to keep them separated and that is proving to be difficult in more ways than one. The kitten has been through so much I can't bear the idea of taking him to a shelter and I'm leary of giving him to someone through the classifieds.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I could possibly integrate these two? Thank you.

I had almost the exact opposite problem last year. I have a young cat, and when my grandmother passed away I volunteered to take care of her 15 year old cat. The 15 year old bullied my cat until we couldn't take it anymore and put up barriers to keep them separated. Eventually we took down the barriers, kept food/water/litter separated for both of them, and they both seemed to keep to the spaces that they were designated (for the most part). Of course, there is the occasional spat once in a while, but all in all they are doing very well living in their own spaces.

If you know a close friend who wants a cat then simply give the other cat to them.Or you can do like most people do,keep one pet indoors and the other one outdoors.If that doesn't work then get a really huge fence and fence of one area of your house and put one of the cats in there.

Besides the great answers already given.....separate, etc, have you considered getting some Feliway spray and using that? It's a hormone that's supposed to help calm cats down.

Also, catnip works pretty good.....They play with it, roll around on it, then take a nice NAP!

After being in the same household for 3 months, I'd think they would have learned to "co-exist" by now!

Another thing......since your older cat is 17......have you had him to the vet lately? He may be "dealing" with some illness that you aren't aware of. Cats hide illnesses very well. He's at just the right age for "age-related" illnesses to "crop up".

Have you had the "new" one neutered, yet? I'm assuming that the 17 yr old is already neutered!! When you get the "baby" fixed, or when you take the older one for a checkup, ask the vet about your "domineering" problem.

Good luck with these two. and ENJOY.......hopefully everything will settle down.

This situation happend to me. Twice. I have rescued two kittens within the past 3 years, both were orphaned strays. At the time, I had a 8 year old, fat cat that I bought from a pet store 8 years ago. I kept them seperated for a while, but eventually they learned to tolerate each other. They still hiss every so often, but they've learned to put up with each other. They even use the same litter box. Some cats may be different. But that's how it turned out for me.