The Way of Cats

Some cats love fellow cat companionship. Some are indifferent to having other cats around. A few did not get the benefit of being exposed to or interacting with other cats, and must remain Only Cats, while some simply Don’t Get It. Like some people, they lack the social skills to understand other cats.

Puffy is the nerd in the gym. He annoys other cats, just by being there.

Most of it is his engagement style. He will sometimes clean the top of Mr. Bond’s head for him, and Mr. Bond returns the favor (top of the head being a tricky area where help is needed) and when there’s a crisis they will confer, but there isn’t any cat buddying going on.

Puffy doesn’t particularly care for mutual play, or wrestling, or sharing his windowsill. He finds cat relationships tend to ask too much of him, and he just wants to be left alone.

Puffy’s timid demeanor means other cats will see if he can be bullied away from his food dish or off the bed, and he always can be. So we have to stick up for him in such situations. It isn’t that cats are being mean to do this. Cats always want to know boundaries, and when they discover Puffy has none, they accommodate him.

As a kitten, RJ got hissed at by Puffy once a day, and did not bother him the rest of the time. Now that RJ is older, he is often content to sit near Puffy and observe him. RJ and Mr. Bond, being Beta types, are content to let Puffy do his Puffy things. When we had an Alpha kitten, it was a different story. They are highly assertive and love to manipulate objects. This “I’m going to build a super collider in the basement as soon as I get the parts” kind of cat would find Puffy an irresistible object to manipulate. And would.

So if you have a cat who:

• loves keeping the furniture, the routines, and the food always the same
• is very geographically oriented, caring more about the placement of objects than the different kinds of objects
• spends a lot of time hanging out observing, and very little in moving or manipulating objects
• has more caution than curiosity in their makeup, and doesn’t rush over to investigate the new

you probably have a Gamma cat. They are wonderful, easy keeping, affectionate cats, but they are the ones who find a new addition to be extremely stressful. When I had many cats, it was actually easier to accommodate the Gammas among them, because the Alphas and Betas had other Alphas and Betas to hang with, and the Gammas were left alone, the way they like it.

With fewer cats, each cat’s persona has increased impact. So adding a second cat to your Gamma is the trickiest and toughest cat introduction of them all.

An established Gamma will react best to another adult, opposite sex, Gamma. When getting the second Gamma, it is most important to set up a separate room for them, and let them explore it at their own pace. Too much too soon will overwhelm these gentle personalities, and they will react by withdrawal.

Let the situation simmer for a while, like a fine stew, and let the new Gamma out supervised for a while. Soon the new Gamma’s routine will mesh with the old, probably without touching, but in harmony.

Gamma cats like Puffy, unlike the other types, really don’t care if they have cat companions. But with proper care, they will share with like minded others. More than any other type, it’s essential that the others are truly like minded.

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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.

More than half of all cat owners have more than one cat. I think there are many factors that contribute to multiple cat popularity. But there are also some serious considerations that have to enter the equation.

more cat pictures

The most cats I’ve ever had at one time is fifteen, and I regularly averaged ten. But this was not a hoarding situation, where mentally disturbed people accumulate cats with no regard for their well-being. This was simply the natural consequence of my love of cats, having enough room to care for them properly, and also having other people in the house who helped with their care and attention needs. Cats were often rotated out to new homes, and, unfortunately, there were plenty of new cats who needed homes.

This last is a huge factor in how many cats a person winds up with. It’s hard to turn around and not discover a heartbreaking situation that an animal lover is moved to alleviate. Kind hearts lead to full houses.

There are many wonderful reasons to have more than one cat. Once we are already serving food, refreshing water bowls, and scooping litter, adding another cat to the routine does not double our workload, but only increases it by a small increment.

Multiple cats enjoy each other’s company, prevents loneliness and anxieties, and eases our training. We communicate with the cats on the level of the cat who is best at it, since they can easily convey our wishes to the other cats. I find cat interaction to be one of the most fascinating and amusing aspects of cat enjoyment.

So the question of “How many are too many?” has to vary for each person. For people unable or unwilling to commit to a cat’s considerable needs for attention and affection, one is too many. For those who enjoy cats, they can have as many as their resources would allow.

Cats are self-maintaining, have few material needs, and spend two thirds of their life sleeping. This means multiple cats are not nearly as demanding as the uninformed might think. The important part, aside from physical needs, is making sure each cat is getting as much attention as they want.

For some cats, who are cat-oriented and have plenty of recreation opportunities, a daily petting session would suffice. Other cats, who thrive on human interaction and want a close relationship, would need a fairly constant stream of communication and exchange.

In human relationships, it is rare for one person to meet all of another person’s needs. This is also true for cats. A person’s present, only cat, might not be as interested in the kinds of interaction their human wants and needs. They can be slow to trust because of past trauma, low key by nature of their personality, or simply not around as much as the human would like. They could be a reserved cat, and their person wants more cuddling. They could be a high-energy cat, and their person needs a break. This is the cat gap, and there is only one solution: more cats!

If we take care to meet each cat’s needs, (Puffy needs support and understanding, Mr. Bond needs intense interaction and puzzles to solve, RJ needs a lot of affection and attention,) and we are able and willing to commit the proper resources to take care of their health, there isn’t any reason for us to hesitate about adding another cat, if we want one.

The least important factor should be worries about what people might say, or if we are perceived as “that crazy cat person.” Other people are not living our lives, despite any eagerness they might have to tell us how to do so. Have we ever noticed how quickly Other People will announce our likes and desires as somehow off-norm? Is there any sensible reason why we should care?

The world would be a very dull place if each of us were just like everyone else. We should devote considerable time and effort into discovering who we really are, and just what makes us happy and fulfilled. Other people collect non-living things like coins or rocks or celebrity autographs. What’s wrong with a collection of living things, which are capable of returning our attention and devotion?

I don’t see any reason to hesitate about increasing the amount of love in the world. It’s that simple.

How many are too many? It’s easy to tell. If we are making our present cats happy, but don’t think we have the time or room to add one, that one would be too many.

But if we want another cat, that’s probably a sign we can handle another cat. Choose carefully, or at least introduce properly, and we will be expanding our cat civilization. We will have more of something we already like.

I don’t see anything wrong with that.

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There’s an even higher goal than having cats who get along. It’s having cats who genuinely enjoy each other’s company.

Mr. Bond (on the left) and RJ (on the right) are sharing a moment on the bed. RJ is paying Mr. Bond the highest compliment. He is mirroring Mr. Bond’s body language.

Recently we have been spending a lot of time in the bedroom instead of the living room. We’ve been doing some rearranging and putting together of new storage devices. RJ is not sure how to handle these changes. He knows the hanging out in the bedroom routine well, but the added wrinkle of boxes and clothes strewn around the room; that’s new. He doesn’t know what to think.

When I found RJ hanging out in the living room, lonely and confused, I picked up some toys, and then him. I carried them all to the bedroom and put them on the bed, where Mr. Bond already was. Mr. Bond arranged himself on one side of the toys. Then RJ did.

Mr. Bond, by modeling the correct behavior, was a great source of reassurance to RJ. Whatever this was, it was to be studied, not feared. So RJ settled in next to Mr. Bond, who was supervising the process, knowing it well, alert to the always predictable appearance of the vacuum cleaner in Act Two.

(We think Mr. Bond is studying the vacuum cleaner for his great treatise, The Behavior of the Vacuum Cleaner, which will be published, he knows, to great acclaim. We know Mr. Bond is a promising cat scientist, because he is capable, upon the delivery of a new vacuum cleaner, to recognize the picture on the box, and avoid that box conspicuously until it vanishes again.)

A few minutes later, and their head positions have switched; now it’s Mr. Bond, on the left, who is pretending not to look at the other. RJ has stopped pretending he is sleeping and is investigating his rabbit. Mr. Bond continues to signal that all is well.

After half an hour, RJ’s curiosity about the temporarily empty closet is going to be greater than his fear, and he will jump down to explore. But he will first look back over his shoulder, because Mr. Bond will know when it’s safe to go in there.

This is something we humans might miss. We might not think to tell him ourselves. We might not know what he is asking. We might lack the mutual communication skills to let each other know what we each need to know.

But Mr. Bond knows the routine and how to speak Cat. He will tell RJ what is safe, and what is not. He enjoys this role, especially since Modeling in a Dignified Manner is his preferred technique.

We have fostered this relationship by saying nice things about them to each other. Since they are both Betas, they tend to have shared interests. Mr. Bond’s settled ease and savvy behavior has made him into the cat RJ wants to be when he grows up.

Mr. Bond, as we suspected, has been sucked in by the flattery.

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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.