[cmrdporcupine]

Cats have friend cats? I'm surprised. This seems like the exception rather than the rule. Seems to me like most cats prefer a life without other cats around... with human caretakers and all the comforts they provide... kept all to themselves.

In my almost-50 years I think I've only met "cats with cat friends" a handful of times. Even when we had a pair of sibling cats that "liked" each other, when one of them died the other actually seemed "happier" after, which is kind of sad and dark.

[devmor]

In nature, cats form colonies where they take communal care of the young, old and infirm. One of the core behaviors of cats is hunting and providing for colony members who are too weak to do so.

Cats being "solitary" animals is largely a misunderstanding of cat behavior towards humans due to cat affection being expressed differently than dog affection.

[nerdjon]

I have had cats nearly my entire life. I love dogs but I am a cat person. All of the cats in my life have been loving social pets.

I hate when the idea that cats can't bond, isn't loving, all of the stereotypes of cats are thrown around. Because they are just wrong.

I do think a fair amount of it is not knowing how to properly socialize a kitten. But even a socialized cat will never be as affectionate as a dog. Or at least not the way a dog shows it.

But I have 2 cats, they will sometimes sleep in different rooms and sometimes cuddle up basically on top of each other. They almost every night will sleep in my bed or at the very least will sleep on the cat tree next to me.

I have noticed that when I have had to take one of my cats for an extended stay at the vet the other is noticeably... different. I don't want to assign an emotion since their emotions are different. But he is not himself. This often starts when I put one cat in a carrier.

They seem to know when I am in a mood and really need that affection.

But I also acknowledge that a cat isn't for everyone. Some people need that constant unquestionable affection that a dog gives you. Cats are more subtle.

[cmrdporcupine]

The thing is, I like both dogs and cats and I really like our cat. But I've only ever had failures in situations where I tried to introduce additional cats into a solitary cat situation. Which is sad, because I'd actually kind of like to have a second cat here. The only time we had any luck with two cats was when there were two from the same litter.

I know some people accomplish this, but it honestly seems like the exception rather than the rule.

(EDIT: I should mention that our cat came from a shelter where she lived with a pile of other kittens. But her response to other cats now is... GTFO here)

[X0Refraction]

It takes a long time to introduce a new cat, we have 3 indoor cats all introduced one at a time. It took around a month for both the second and third cat to be completely accepted.

The approach we took was to keep the new cat in a separate room for the first few days to allow them to begin to get used to the new scent. We would then swap blankets to give them further time to get used to each other's scents. Then we'd open the door and allow them to interact under supervision for short periods and then we gradually increased the time they could interact each day.

I'm not sure this would work if you had outdoor cats. We didn't actually intend to get the third cat, but we ended up taking him in as our friend's original cat refused to acclimate to the point that he was spending all but 20 mins a day outside of the house and so they needed a good home for their new cat.

[UncleMeat]

> It takes a long time to introduce a new cat, we have 3 indoor cats all introduced one at a time.

Yep.

> It took around a month for both the second and third cat to be completely accepted.

Oh boy that's nothing. I think we were like 10 months. They still don't get along flawlessly but it is now tolerable. We did precisely the recommended steps (scent swapping, separate spaces, associating each other with food, play nearby each other).

[animal531]

It's funny if you think about it, in a certain way cats are very much like people. Those that are poorly raised or socially isolated when young have issues later on to adapt to having others around, whereas if they've been brought up properly (and maintain that through practice) then it's a lot easier for them to make new connections later in life.

It's probably true for a lot of other animals as well.

[dragonwriter]

> But I've only ever had failures in situations where I tried to introduce additional cats into a solitary cat situation.

Cat colonies, as I understand, tend to follow the the eighth rule of Fight Club, which can make introductions seem unsuccessful even when they may not be.

[technothrasher]

> In nature, cats form colonies where they take communal care of the young, old and infirm.

Yup. I spent several years working with feral cat colonies throughout central Massachusetts in a TNR program, and they are quite similar in their social structure to lions, less like other more solitary cat species. The colonies at their core tend to be groups of related females, with adult males roaming between a few different groups of females. Neutered males tend to act more like females and stay with a particular colony. Given the artificial food supply the "crazy cat ladies" provide, you will see colonies of unrelated individuals, but if there are multiple food sources readily available the colonies will tend to fracture by maternal line.

[bmj]

It's been interesting to see local shelters realize this, and create colony rooms for cats that have been properly socialized. It keeps the cats out of smaller cages, and likely simplifies the care and feeding of the cats in the colony.

It's also a great way to pick a few cats to bring home. My local shelter will just let you into the room, and you can hang out and decide which ones (and how many) you'll bring home.

[cmrdporcupine]

This is how we "chose" our cat. My wife and daughter sat down in the room of kittens and picked the one that came over and started snuggling and playing. It chose us.

She's such a mellow "no f's given" cat. Lives in a house with two border collies and doesn't take any crap from them and lies around totally chill all day long. I suspect this might be due to her socialization at the animal shelter.

[devmor]

My local area also has several outdoor colonies that are managed (Neutered, health checkups, etc) because they realized that leaving fixed feral cats in place and taking care of them prevents other feral cats from taking their place and breeding further.

[cmrdporcupine]

"hunting and providing for colony members who are too weak to do so."

Is that why my cat dropped a dead vole on our doorstep last week? Is she sad that we're deprived of such essentials? :-)

[jdougan]

"You poor incompetent kitten."

[goodpoint]

Many species are more social and cooperative that people think.

I wonder if seeing nature as more ferocious, competitive and individualistic that it really is comes from psychological projection.

[nonstickcoating]

I recommend Kropotkin's book about Mutual Aid regarding this topic. Disregarding his obvious political affiliation he is one of the first critics of the then-emerging social-darwinist readings of animal behaviour with regards to Evolution and therefore deals with this topic quite extensively.

He was a zoologist apart from all the other topics he had time to deal in because of his noble heritage. Here is the wikipedia article [0] since I do not know how HN regards links to e.g. libgen.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kropotkin

[throwanem]

That'd make him one of the last of the old-line ethologists, before the dark interregnum of the behaviorist scum began - I respect Kropotkin considerably more now than I did five minutes ago. Perhaps I'll read him after all.

[gquiniou]

feral cats tend to form colonies but wild cats are solitary, like the european wildcat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wildcat

[amyjess]

Housecats are descended from the African wildcat, not the European one. The African wildcat forms colonies just like housecats.

Much of the myth that cats are naturally solitary creatures comes from people studying the behaviors of the European wildcat and attributing them to housecats, which is wrong because that's not what housecats are descended from.

[cm2012]

Here's a picture of all our cats snuggling, 6/7 are best buds with one loner. And the longer still follows around the other cats just doesn't do the puppy pile thing.

https://ibb.co/c2TgWSK

https://ibb.co/pfnYjSW

https://ibb.co/9W5jCVh

https://ibb.co/gJbKTkC

[jart]

I guess it depends on the cat. Mine is like that. She was a stray. I found her in my backyard one day. I took her in. I groomed her. I enriched her with toys, food, love, and all the luxuries a modern cat could want. So naturally she goes on the prowl each night marking territory making sure none of the other stray cats in the neighborhood get adopted too.

[lukas099]

Cats are weird. My mom's cat fights will all the neighbor cats except one, whom she just started hanging out with one day. I suppose it's possible they are long-lost siblings or something.

[cmrdporcupine]

I mean, I'm being downvoted, whatever, but this is what I mean. Their social model is entirely different than ours. Or dogs. There are other cats they learn to tolerate, or even cooperate with. But it's not clear that it's "friendly?"

I know such friend relationships can exist with them, I just rarely have seen it.

[lovehashbrowns]

A lot of people get one cat and they get used to being alone. People who get more than one cat generally get them from the same litter.

But cats are social animals and will absolutely bond with each other. Even cats not from the same litter will bond with other cats. Usually it takes a careful and patient introduction, which people don't realize. All they'll do is put the two cats in the same room, observe them fight, and come to the conclusion that their cat just wants to be alone. But that probably isn't the case at all.

[Sharlin]

Like many other animal (including human) behaviors, cats bond the easiest when young. Littermates, obviously, but unrelated cats as well. Second easiest is to bond an adult cat with a kitten. Introducing two adult cats to each other? It can take time and skill (doing it gradually is the key!), and depending on their individual personalities, they may become best friends, or only scarcely learn to tolerate each other.

[DFHippie]

We used to have two male cats adopted together as kittens from the local humane society. One was timid and mostly stayed home. The other preferred to be outside. They loved each other, though, and the indoor cat would wait at the top of the stairs for the other to come home.

The bolder cat was hit by a car one morning and died. His adoptive brother never fully gave up waiting for him at the top of the stairs. As far as he knew his brother just hadn't come home yet. It was quite sad. It wasn't long after that that he went outside for the last time and never came back.