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This is why a group of cats will never be a pack. Each group is different because cats have individual dynamics and no clear duties. A missing pack leader prompts a lower level to ascend.
While if a Cat Civilization loses a Supervisor, there’s simply one less Supervisor. Supervising is something cats do happily according to their own inclination, and will do it more if it pleases us.
With small groups, differences off the group norm are more potentially stressful for the cat, if the cat cares. Some cats shrug it off. Others will react to the social signal being sent, and modify their behavior.
Larger groups are more likely to build pods of similar cats. This is where we look from one group to another to see how the cats react to “visitors arrive” always seems to group the cats this way, while “a new toy” groups them in a different way. This puts us on our way to seeing each cat’s reactions and how they vary.
Do we like a lot of mellow group interaction? Do we want companions in our activities? Do we want a tight ship or cats who are more flexible when they have each other to rely on?
We have the ability to encourage our civilization in the direction we’d like best. It’s a good goal to have, if we like having cats.
The society at large disparages the keeping of more than one cat. This makes us a “Cat Person.” But society should learn that there’s a good reason people do this. It’s easier and more fun. If there’s anything our society likes, it’s easy and fun.
Three is the magic number where we reach Cat Civilization. With only two, they can’t form groups.
Then we are missing a deeper level of insight into all of our cats.
Learn more about the different cat types.
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There’s more about multiple cats in The Way of Cats than the article you are reading now. See more posts on the MULTIPLE CAT ADVANTAGE.
When we moved into our big old house, my spouse said: This is a nine-cat house. Well, we didn’t intend to fulfill that prophecy (we had three cats at the time), but given a neighborhood full of abandoned/feral cats, kittens born on our back porch. . . we built up to nine. Now, with our two oldest cats recently departed, we’re down to seven. Somehow, that number doesn’t work out as well as nine did, mostly because we had one senior cat beloved by every other cat, and he’s gone. We do have a young one who seems on his way to being that same sort of cat, but he’s not quite there yet. I can confirm that we have “pods” of distinct groupings. Yet the two kitties who were most bonded to our sweet departed elder, are now left mostly adrift, without a close set.