In my almost-50 years I think I've only met "cats with cat friends" a handful of times. Even when we had a pair of sibling cats that "liked" each other, when one of them died the other actually seemed "happier" after, which is kind of sad and dark.
Cats being "solitary" animals is largely a misunderstanding of cat behavior towards humans due to cat affection being expressed differently than dog affection.
I hate when the idea that cats can't bond, isn't loving, all of the stereotypes of cats are thrown around. Because they are just wrong.
I do think a fair amount of it is not knowing how to properly socialize a kitten. But even a socialized cat will never be as affectionate as a dog. Or at least not the way a dog shows it.
But I have 2 cats, they will sometimes sleep in different rooms and sometimes cuddle up basically on top of each other. They almost every night will sleep in my bed or at the very least will sleep on the cat tree next to me.
I have noticed that when I have had to take one of my cats for an extended stay at the vet the other is noticeably... different. I don't want to assign an emotion since their emotions are different. But he is not himself. This often starts when I put one cat in a carrier.
They seem to know when I am in a mood and really need that affection.
But I also acknowledge that a cat isn't for everyone. Some people need that constant unquestionable affection that a dog gives you. Cats are more subtle.
I know some people accomplish this, but it honestly seems like the exception rather than the rule.
(EDIT: I should mention that our cat came from a shelter where she lived with a pile of other kittens. But her response to other cats now is... GTFO here)
The approach we took was to keep the new cat in a separate room for the first few days to allow them to begin to get used to the new scent. We would then swap blankets to give them further time to get used to each other's scents. Then we'd open the door and allow them to interact under supervision for short periods and then we gradually increased the time they could interact each day.
I'm not sure this would work if you had outdoor cats. We didn't actually intend to get the third cat, but we ended up taking him in as our friend's original cat refused to acclimate to the point that he was spending all but 20 mins a day outside of the house and so they needed a good home for their new cat.
Yep.
> It took around a month for both the second and third cat to be completely accepted.
Oh boy that's nothing. I think we were like 10 months. They still don't get along flawlessly but it is now tolerable. We did precisely the recommended steps (scent swapping, separate spaces, associating each other with food, play nearby each other).
It's probably true for a lot of other animals as well.
What I wish people told us was that sometimes it isn't enough to do everything right. We planned everything and did as much as we possibly could to socialize them effectively and it ended up only fine after a lot of struggle. I had always figured that people who had cats who hated each other simply didn't follow the best practices when introducing them to each other. But that's clearly not the case.
Cat colonies, as I understand, tend to follow the the eighth rule of Fight Club, which can make introductions seem unsuccessful even when they may not be.
Yup. I spent several years working with feral cat colonies throughout central Massachusetts in a TNR program, and they are quite similar in their social structure to lions, less like other more solitary cat species. The colonies at their core tend to be groups of related females, with adult males roaming between a few different groups of females. Neutered males tend to act more like females and stay with a particular colony. Given the artificial food supply the "crazy cat ladies" provide, you will see colonies of unrelated individuals, but if there are multiple food sources readily available the colonies will tend to fracture by maternal line.
It's also a great way to pick a few cats to bring home. My local shelter will just let you into the room, and you can hang out and decide which ones (and how many) you'll bring home.
She's such a mellow "no f's given" cat. Lives in a house with two border collies and doesn't take any crap from them and lies around totally chill all day long. I suspect this might be due to her socialization at the animal shelter.
Is that why my cat dropped a dead vole on our doorstep last week? Is she sad that we're deprived of such essentials? :-)
I wonder if seeing nature as more ferocious, competitive and individualistic that it really is comes from psychological projection.
He was a zoologist apart from all the other topics he had time to deal in because of his noble heritage. Here is the wikipedia article [0] since I do not know how HN regards links to e.g. libgen.
Much of the myth that cats are naturally solitary creatures comes from people studying the behaviors of the European wildcat and attributing them to housecats, which is wrong because that's not what housecats are descended from.
I know such friend relationships can exist with them, I just rarely have seen it.
But cats are social animals and will absolutely bond with each other. Even cats not from the same litter will bond with other cats. Usually it takes a careful and patient introduction, which people don't realize. All they'll do is put the two cats in the same room, observe them fight, and come to the conclusion that their cat just wants to be alone. But that probably isn't the case at all.
The bolder cat was hit by a car one morning and died. His adoptive brother never fully gave up waiting for him at the top of the stairs. As far as he knew his brother just hadn't come home yet. It was quite sad. It wasn't long after that that he went outside for the last time and never came back.