Trends in some cat rescues..

[berlingo 10]

Most people I know have multi pet households and I find that if all are neutered they mainly share their space quite happily, especially if neutered young :-)

[NewBiz 10]

I have 2 cats I got together as adults from RSPCA. They had come from a household of 24 cats when the guy couldn't cope with them all any more. I only intended getting one, but they were snuggled up together and seemed best of friends. Also one was reasonably confident, but the other was terrified, so I couldn't leave her on her own!

 

They both hid at first and only came out at night when I was in bed, but are both now really confident cats (with me that is)

 

However, there have been a fair few spats along the way, caused I think by their understandable insecurities, and having found a loving home they felt the need to compete.

 

Now they get on fine, but Sky (the one who was frightened initially) gets incredibly jealous instantaneously if she sees me fussing Rosie, and will try to barge in, and subtly (she thinks!) bump Rosie out of the way, flop on top of her or give a thousand yard stare to make her move! She's so funny, not very bright God love her, and very needy. Sky also likes to chuck Rosie out of comfy spots when the mood takes her.

 

In short I'm glad I got 2, and I think despite her jealousy Sky is happier having Rosie around. I think however Rosie would be quite happy if Sky disappeared one day in a puff of smoke!

 

If more people took 2 cats of course, it would help with the overflowing rescues.

[Rosa 10]

Some nice stories there. :-) Yeah of course in that situation I don't think anyone would have had the heart to have left the poor insecure cat behind alone. But as you say a 24 cat household is quite rediculous and hard to cope with.

 

I think what we had been worried about was that some shelters were advocating that people take 2 cats or more when there possibly is no need if the consequences for the cats would be that ultimately the less dedicated owners take them back to the shelter is problems occurred.

 

It's so lovely to hear people's stories on here and interesting to have the conversation as we feel it is food for thought.

[milliardo 10]

My parent's cat is a bit psychotic and just likes a fight, never ever friendly with any other cats, got a chunk taken out of her ear and plenty of scars.

 

However, my OH brought a big grumpy cat into relationship. Someone had found a kitten dumped in a bag in a bin and we decided to take it on. Grumpy cat -hated- kitten with a passion to start with, but kitten loved grumpy. Now kit is grown up and they have their 'lover's tiff's', but will quite happily cuddle next to each other, or groom each other, use same tray, and absolutely no fighting over food. It's a love story!

[Rosa 10]

awwww, we can hear the violins and pussy cat wedding bells as we write. :-)

[vwkittie 10]

We were told we had to take two kittens.... big mistake and imo the wrong advice. They're around 4 now and have never got on, and never shown the slightest inclination to be sociable with each other or any other cats. They would both have been far happier being only cats. Fair enough if you've got siblings or cats that have been together since being tiny but randomly putting unrelated kittens together? Not necessarily a good idea.

[spats 10]

I don't think I know of any Rescues that push for cats to be rehomed as pairs, unless the cats have shown behavioural dependency on each other whilst they have been in their care. Sometimes people handing over cats to rehome request that a pair stay together, & rescues will try to honour that. Rescues will take into account each cats individual needs and try to find the best home possible, whether that be as an only cat or as a pair.

However, most Rescues do rehome kittens in pairs if the owner is going to leave a kitten on its own for long periods. This usually is very sound advice, but like VW says, hers actually would have been quite happy on their own! So I guess sometimes you do get antisocial kittens who would be more than happy to remain as numero uno in his own home rather than having to share!!

[Rosa 10]

I know what you mean if a cat comes into a rescue with another and they are clearly happy together but I think the worrying trend I have noticed is kittens going in twos when there is no evidence they would not cope alone and are advertised on certain rescue websites, without knowing who they will go to, as needing to go with another kitten as it seems cute to do so.

[fabcakes 10]

when i rescued mell & mick they was both brother & sister & they did

everything together until one day mell followed my daughter to the park

& she got lost she was missing for a full week & a lovely lady who feeds the

strays found her & had seen all our lost poster plastered everywhere & brought

her back to us

but mell came back a totally different cat she was almost feral she hated mick

with a passion we tried to sort things out with them trying different methods

but nothing worked with them & they did end up getting into a real bad fight

so did end up deciding that we had to rehome mick witch broke our hearts as

we loved them both so much we did find mick a great home ware he was

going to be spoilt rotten with the agreement if it didn't work out no matter

how long dawn the line it was they was to bring him strait back but i do miss

him but some things just aren't meant to be

so they can change even after being together for a while but its quite rare i

think mells case was quite uniqe i do belive if she hadent gone missing

theywould still be best of pals now

[Rosa 10]

Sounds heartbreaking Fabcakes. But like you say you had no choice but to make that decision. You must have felt so torn.

I remember my mum having 2 cats that were rescued and they hated each other and one of them started spraying all over the house and nearly set it on fire. She rang a national rescue and asked what the best thing to do was and they said it is either the cat or your sanity and it was kind of suggested she had to rehome the cat that was spraying but instead my mum took the spraying cat to the vets and he gave diazepam to the cat and it did calm him down. But I know my mum was at her wits end. Sadly the poor cat died from a road accident a couple of years later. So awful. But after this my mum said she would never get 2 male cats again.

[fabcakes 10]

Sounds heartbreaking Fabcakes. But like you say you had no choice but to make that decision. You must have felt so torn.

I remember my mum having 2 cats that were rescued and they hated each other and one of them started spraying all over the house and nearly set it on fire. She rang a national rescue and asked what the best thing to do was and they said it is either the cat or your sanity and it was kind of suggested she had to rehome the cat that was spraying but instead my mum took the spraying cat to the vets and he gave diazepam to the cat and it did calm him down. But I know my mum was at her wits end. Sadly the poor cat died from a road accident a couple of years later. So awful. But after this my mum said she would never get 2 male cats again.

 

it was the hardest thing for me to do as i don't rehome pets like willy nilly i got them to keep for life & when i had to rehome mick it relay upset me but they couldn't pass each other without tearing into each other it was going to end up ware one of them was going to get seriously hurt so the decision had to be made i did & still do miss mick soo much he was such a funny cat he'd sleep in plastic bags & boxes & gift bags but i know he is loved now so it makes me feel better

[vwkittie 10]

I don't think I know of any Rescues that push for cats to be rehomed as pairs, unless the cats have shown behavioural dependency on each other whilst they have been in their care. Sometimes people handing over cats to rehome request that a pair stay together, & rescues will try to honour that. Rescues will take into account each cats individual needs and try to find the best home possible, whether that be as an only cat or as a pair.

However, most Rescues do rehome kittens in pairs if the owner is going to leave a kitten on its own for long periods. This usually is very sound advice, but like VW says, hers actually would have been quite happy on their own! So I guess sometimes you do get antisocial kittens who would be more than happy to remain as numero uno in his own home rather than having to share!!

 

It was Sheffield Cats Shelter who told us that if we wanted the kitten (incidentally 5month old not very young kitten) we chose we'd have to take another one as well. He wasn't even in a room with any other cats at the time

 

This was back in 2008 though.