Thanks for stopping by! Get The Way of Cats, delivered, by asking for my RSS feed. Get my free cat advice newsletter by signing up here and get the FREE eBook, Ten Cat Tricks (Every Human Should Know.)It can seem that we have no idea why some cats become friends, and others do not. We adopt siblings, we get cats who resemble each other, or stick to one breed… and we still have cat conflicts.
We are on the right track by trying to match our cats. We are simply trying to match the wrong things. Cats don’t really care what the other cat looks like, or if they are the same breed. What cats find most compatible is when they share similar outlooks on life.
I call this mirroring.
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Take the classic older cat/kitten conflict. It’s a problem because they don’t want the same things. The older cat wants to hang around, think Deep Thoughts, and enjoy the couch corner. The kitten wants to wrestle heads and run full tilt through the living room.
There’s not a lot of common ground there.
The source of other cat conflicts can be in poor social signals, bad beginnings, or simply a cat who doesn’t understand community. But no matter what the conflicts are, we can always moderate them. We might not wind up with buddies, but we can settle for not-enemies.
Play is crucial. We might think our older cats “don’t play anymore.” But that’s not true. It’s simply that their play has switched from active and physical to mental and observational.
All cats do both kinds of play. Urging cats together when their play styles are intersecting will create the shared moments which create cat buddies. We can draw our older cat into wand toy play with the kitten. But suppose our kitten is wearing out and ready for a nap. Now is the time to scoop them up and place them on the bed or windowsill where our older cat is hanging out. Then we hover.
Pet the kitten and encourage them to settle down. Pet the cat and let them know we are here to make sure the kitten doesn’t bother them. Expect this not to work… at first. But by patiently planting the seed in the cat’s minds that lets them know when they can get along, we can encourage them to recognize these opportunities.
Because cats do want to get along. No one wants to hang out with beings that we feel dislike us. Mr. Bond, at twelve, was not as enthused as two-year-old RJ was when presented with the new kitten. But by directing her play attempts to RJ, and getting Mr. Bond to share the bed with her when she was sleeping, Mr. Bond has come around to see the quiet side of our kitten. Which he likes very much.
Without such hands-on direction from the humans in the house, Mr. Bond would never see Olwyn’s quiet side. He would be too busy hiding from The Pouncing Menace. Of course, it helps tremendously that we have RJ for the kitten to play with. A situation with just Mr. Bond and Olywn would mean that even with humans playing with Olwyn all the time, she still wouldn’t get the cat closeness she also needs.
Which brings up another crucial point. While it may seem counter-intuitive, getting another kitten or cat to fill our “cat companionship gap” is actually less trouble, not more. Whoever is asking for more, and getting rejected, is the cat we need to match with our new cat.
We need to match activity levels, not age. We need to match favorite play methods, not coat colors or breeds. We need to match what the cat does; not what the cat means to us.
We get another cat to play with, cuddle, and love; no matter what. If we get another cat to fill in what our Cat Civilization is missing; we get more cats.
And happier cats.
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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.
