Should I get another cat?

geri1965_2 · 22 November 2012 at 8:46PM

vl2588 wrote: »

Cats can be social, yes, but they prefer to have their own space and to do it in their own time...multi-cat households are usually too small with too few hiding places etc. to accommodate several cats. The space available has to be taken into account, and the cats' ability to get away from one another. They are not pack animals, social or not.

Whatever you do I hope it works out, and if you rescue you will be doing a very grand thing

You do raise a valid point regarding space, but the OP is considering a second cat, not planning dozens more. Even a fairly small house (like mine) can accommodate two cats easily enough.

antw23uk · 22 November 2012 at 9:56PM

Fire_Fox wrote: »

IMO depends entirely on the individual cats.

"It is a common myth that cats are asocial. Cats are social, but their social system differs from that of dogs. Cats have neither been exposed to the same extent or direction of artificial selection that dogs have, nor have they been developed in a breed-specific sense to execute specific tasks.

The basic feline social unit is the queen and her kittens. Weaning occurs between 5 and 8 wk, although given the chance, some kittens will occasionally suckle much later. This is probably related more to social behavior than to nutrition. Under free-ranging situations, kittens will remain either with the queen or as part of her extended social group for the first 12-18 mo of life. Male kittens more commonly leave the group before social maturity (2-4 yr) than do females, although all combinations of groupings have been reported for cats. Multiple generations of related females can be found in free-ranging situations, and they may provide some degree of communal care for the young.

Density of free-ranging domestic cats appears directly dependent on food resources. Most domestic cats are solitary hunters. Prey species include those considered by humans to be vermin, which may explain why cats are found worldwide. The small body size of the cat may be another reason that cats have been allowed to coexist with people in the absence of much artificial selection for specific behaviors. Kittens will learn to prefer and to best hunt the prey species that their mother preferentially hunted. Pet cats learn to prefer a certain texture of food."
http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/in.../bc/140218.htm

"In the past two and a half decades, an increasing body of research conducted by various scientists throughout the world has made it clear that, while the feral and free-living domestic cat, Felis catus, can survive in the solitary state when food resources are so widely distributed as to be unable to support a group, social groups that have internal structure, and in which group members recognize each other and engage in a variety of social behaviors, are formed whenever there are sufficient food resources to support a group ... In other words, they are a social species.

Within the group, commonly called a colony, cats form affiliative, or friendly, relationships, with certain other cats, grooming them, rubbing them, greeting them, and sleeping curled up next to or even partially on them. Also within the colony, certain cats fail to form strong affiliative relationships with certain other cats, thus producing a socially complex society in which alliances and antipathies can affect access to resources, frequency of friendly and agonistic behavior and other issues that we are just beginning to understand.

Most people who have cats have two or more cats. Failure to understand what will promote friendly, amicable behavior and what will promote aggressive behavior can lead to various behavior problems, including aggression and conflict over resources, such as food, resting sites and litterboxes. Thus, it is critical that we understand the natural social organization, relationships and communication of the cat." http://zoopsy.free.fr/veille_biblio/social_organization_cat_2004.pdf

Sorry but you have just copied and pasted something from someone else which i find a bit poor. If you have something to say then surely your own words are better?

We fostered 24 cats (not all at the same time but some together and also a queen and kittens) over three years via a charity. I always belived cats just got on with each other. It wasnt until we got involved with lots of cats that we realised just what a minefield it is for them to share homes which is one of the reasons i dont 'always' agree with charites only homing two siblings together because chances are when they get to six months they are gona hate each other and tolerate each other at best!