Do cats miss their deceased companions?

Robin9

Tasha's were buried under a fence where she spent many hours.

Now Bob has taken over some of her other spots - the neighbour's shed roof, a fence post. He has also become super affectionate.

Pollycat

I missed your thread when it was first posted but many years ago I had 3 kittens all about the same age (within 4 months).
The last one wasn't my choice, he was the last of the litter and had less than a week to find a home, my OH simply arrived home with him from work one weekend.

He was the half brother of the older, first kitten who was alpha male of the neighbourhood.
They often fought like crazy but always made up, slept together, groomed each other, always together.
When we lost the eldest cat (aged 8), the one who was left actually bloomed.
He too became very affectionate, very playful and a real character.
I think he had just been overshadowed by a stronger cat.

seven-day-weekend

We have two cats, full sisters and litter mates. Since they got out of kittenhood they have never done more than tolerate each other. They have carved up the home into individual territories, although each does have 'right of way' over the other one's. . They never groom each other or sleep together, never have, and when Rumple went missing for a couple of days, Mungo's behaviour did not change at all.

They are nineteen in January, I don't think they will change now.

SensibleSarah

I have 4 cats currently (all unrelated) and have absolutely no doubt that they won't miss each other at all. They aren't close and although they don't fight, I always think that they co-exist in the same area rather than live together

However, I've had a dog in the past that showed some very strange behaviour when a specific foster dog went off to it's new home. She didn't do it with any other foster or dog I minded, just this one - but she seemed almost depressed for a few weeks after he'd gone. She could have been picking up and responding to my own feelings on that particular dog though... who knows?

Dollardog

There was a squirrel killed on the road outside my house a couple of years ago and another squirrel, possibly its mate sat on a wall and kept wailing, it was pitiful. A neighbour moved the body in the end so the living squirrel hopefully would get over it better.

Pollycat

This is really off-topic but....
I was watching a programme yesterday about Elsa the lioness and the real Joy and George Adamson and their work with lions and the Born Free film.

Virginia McKenna & Bill Travis found a lion called Christian being kept in a shop on Carnaby Street in London, bought from Harrods in the 1960s. :eek:

The lion was taken to Africa to George Adamson and a year after Adamson released Christian to the wild, his former owners visited George and the lion remembered them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqhJuwUukX8

calicocat

My cat missed my dog for a while searching the house for him for the first few days and was confused........ then totally came out of herself.
Again a scenario where she wasn’t in charge, the dog was . I thought I had a weird cat that wasn’t keen on the kitchen, turned out that the dog must have been telling her she wasn’t allowed in there......lol. They got on great, cleaned each other, had fights, slept together , ate each others food, stole my food and shared it. But once she clicked he wasn’t coming back, she loved being the new top dog, and became very affectionate for a while....when it was deemed necessary. .

So my answer would be yes, they miss them, but for how long is debatable.

Mandy53

I agree that it depends on the cat and the relationship they had with the deceased cat. I have 2 male rescue cats,brothers, one of whom has medical problems recently requiring a stay for a few nights at a specialist vet hospital. His brother, cat K didn,t seem to miss him at all and was much more affectionate with me , wanting and enjoying all the attention and having the house to himself while cat M was away. When i got cat M back ,cat K was initially intrigued and grooming cat M but then things went back to" normal." Both cats do get very jealous of one another and cat M steals Cat K,s food,nudging him out the way at feeding times yet both are fed the same food. Because Cat M often pushes cat K out the way at feeding time, cat K "attacks" cat M when he is sleeping as if he is getting his own back! They do groom each other though. I give cat K Zyklene to keep him calm(on advice of my vet) when he tries to attack cat M and also use Feliway plug in :cat M has to be kept as stress free as possible due to his illness which is easier said than done at times.

littleangelisme

Some cats are just like human, like mine. They thought they were one of us.

tesuhoha

My Bengal cat was run over and killed by a car two years ago. She was very close to my other cat. They grew up together. My other cat witnessed it and she came crawling into the house on her haunches. She spent the whole evening as in shock, lying with her eyes wide open, staring. Then she was trying desperately to see the body before it was buried. After that she was very clingy for a week and the whole atmosphere in the house was weird. We got another Bengal to bring things back to normal but the other cat went awol for a couple of days.

Eventually, they made friends but they scrap and are not soulmates like she used to be with the first bengal. I still talk to her about Mia and she seems to know what I am saying.