Your story is a great illustration of how cats learn from each other. When they can.

I got him a companion cat — a rescued kitty from a shelter, who was sweet and gentle, but timid. While this guy will cuddle for hours at night, he is hard to catch and hides from humans. Nonetheless, my primary cat looked after him like a big brother by cleaning his coat and playing and sleeping with him.

I then adopted two Himalayans who were highly socialized. Both had grown up participating in chat shows and living in cat saunas. They had the graces, good manners, and intelligence of Harvard graduates.

By example, the highly socialized Himalayans have taught my timid rescue kitty how to behave. He follows their example and models his own behavior after theirs, in turn, becoming more confident and social. He also turns upside down and sleeps with all four legs in the air, like they do.

The Himalayans who know they are a class above the other two sometimes amble by and slap the other two cats in the face. When it happens, the other two look on in disbelief and usually retreat.

One of the Himalayans is a dork. I don’t know what is wrong with her. She is sweet, but a little nuts, perhaps from too much inbreeding. Nevertheless, my rescue kitty generally targets the dork Himalyan. For whatever reason, he loves mounted her, biting the scruff of her neck, and meowing. Sometimes he just meows at her. I don’t know whether this is a school boy crush of his or if he is trying to establish his place on the pecking order by pickinig on the nerdiest cat.

So far they all get along, with the most highly socialized cat sitting on the top of the cat hierarchy and the most dorky one, sitting at the bottom. The dorkiest, incidentally, loves people.

I didn’t mean to imply that husband wasn’t trying, he of course cares very much for his little Geek Cat. It’s just that we had no idea what was going on until I stumbled across your blog a few months ago. His rough play always seemed wrong to me, but I couldn’t argue with his facts: Robie not only “kept coming back for more”, but also strongly preferred husband over me. If he didn’t like the rough play why wouldn’t he withdraw from it, the way Khaki had made her opinion known? Now we know why, and poor Geek Husband has to admit I was right after all these years! He’s starting to see that at Robie’s age, he must change his favorite bonding rituals, but having a hard time because they’re 11 year old habits. I’ll explain your insights to him. These area great ideas, and Robie loves to invent his own bizarre little games for us. We’ll continue to work on replacing those of their rituals that might make be making Robie feel pressured.

I don’t know how soon I might be able to foster but I will let you know if/when it happens! It would be great for Fiona, the new girl, and take the pressure off me to keep her entertained so she won’t stress out the seniors. She’s so disappointed that they won’t play with her! We hadn’t planned on a new cat so soon after Daemon, but Fiona turned up in need of rescue and bonded to me, so all 3 kitties have had big changes recently.

Add arrogance to poor social skills, and it doesn’t seem like he longs for cat companionship. The sad Dork who is driven to seek other cats, and doesn’t know how to do it, probably doesn’t apply.

You could foster some kittens, which would be considered a close-ended deal and would let you “test drive” the other cats reactions. Close monitoring of the kittens would be in order; they would need to go to their new home with lots of people skills and good cat relations, which they could get from each other if all else fails. The youngest one could be a great help; she would probably love to have some kitten playmates; something two 11 year old cats would find challenging to provide.

And this brings up a good point for Robie’s future; he’s 11. Your husband would improve his cat relations with Robie if he could moderate his attitude. Robie is about 60 in human years; a tough time to still feel pressured to patrol and be the Big Strong Cat. Bright cats age into a more Grand Old Man approach; if Robie is not given this graceful out, he can feel too much is being asked of him, and he can get defensive and over-compensate. He’s now The Coach; not an 19 year old freshman tackle.

I’m sure your husband cares about Robie, and his “manly interactions” are intended to express that. I’m sure he feels Robie likes it. And since it’s coming from The Biggest Cat of all, Robie sees it as part of their bonding rituals. But it can be done verbally, with praise and admiration, instead of hands on, as Robie ages–something very many of us hate to admit. Games like hiding a toy and encouraging Robie to look for it, and seeing if Robie likes pretend games like “Where’s Robie?” (we look for the cat in different places, while the cat tried to explain they are right there!) with a big finish of “Robie, I’ve been looking all over for you!” can help them express their interest in each other without rough play.

So I think you could certainly foster kittens, with proper policing and support. But Robie’s interests might not lie there; while his mutual avoidance style might be tested by kittens wanting to play, the 1 year old can handle those recreational duties. But you and others could enjoy the kittens; Robie’s not a bully. He simply sees himself as someone of which much has been asked; it’s a credit to him that he handles it as well as he does.

He’s now 11 years old and very much bonded to my husband, who unfortunately had taught him to enjoy rough play and despite my efforts and having him read your articles on the subject, old habits die hard… he still gets Robie overstimulated by grabbing, wrestling, etc. As if this weren’t enough, Robie, though neutered at 5 months old, behaves pretty much un-neutered, except that he doesn’t spray. He’s very territorial, scratches everywhere to mark his turf no matter what we do, and has inappropriate relations with clothes and towels.

I feel bad for him as he’s very bright and I’m sure he gets bored.
I’m considered fostering some kittens. He’s lived with 3 different cats so far, and the best relation has been mutual avoidance with the occasional slap-fight if they get too close. We have two spayed females in addition to him. They’re 11 and 1 years, at least the girls seem like they might get along well once the younger one settles down (a young playmate might help until then?) Given Robie’s other issues besides Dorkiness, is introducing more cats/kittens a good idea?

Since kittens are still learning social signals, they can give a handicapped cat the benefit of the doubt; which is sometimes all they need.