Cats, they are so cute, especially kittens! And sometimes, when you see a funny creature, it’s hard to resist taking a new friend.
Or this scenario: you go, you go, and he sits. On the street, in the entrance, at the door. He’s so unhappy, he’s hungry, and he’s looking at you like that... Well, how can you pass by? And it’s okay that you already have a pet, let there be a second (third, fourth...), together it’s more fun. Okay, stop! This is where there may be a problem.
Why? Yes, because cats are not people, and not even dogs, and you cannot expect human relationships from them, or even canine ones! And changes in the home environment can become a source of constant stress for them, and with it a number of behavioral and medical problems.
Cat behavior
Rudyard Kipling once wrote a story about “a cat that walks by itself,” where he revealed the independent nature of this creature. In fact, cats are social animals; close relationships can be established between them, but this sociality of theirs is a relatively young phenomenon (on the scale of evolution, of course) and unique.
The most “comfortable” group consists of related females - mothers, grandmothers, sisters and daughters, living together and providing protection and care to the kittens within the group.
In nature, the size of a “cat society” is limited by the amount of necessary resources that are protected from strangers. Other contacts are kept to a minimum and distance is maintained between individuals. To scare away a stranger, signals of physical aggression (visual, vocal, olfactory) are used; the matter can end in a fight. But within their own group, cats are more frightening of each other, and collisions are, as a rule, insignificant.
Cats do not need cooperation and hierarchy to access important life resources, and therefore dominance is not established. Conflicts between them do not go away on their own, and if a fight has already begun, expect some damage. The defeated person must leave the territory.
What can happen if everything is not ok?
If tension arises between members of a home group, or resources within a territory become depleted and depleted, cats either try to avoid each other, using available means of communication to increase distance between themselves, or adapt to the situation and avoid conflicts by suppressing natural instincts. If one cat fails to adapt, chronic stress can develop, causing behavioral problems and problems for the owner, such as poor hygiene (urinating outside the litter box) or a stress-related disease (idiopathic cystitis).
Some cats are content with normal behaviors such as grooming, sleeping, and eating, but they spend too much time and effort trying to calm themselves in a stressful situation. A cat that has a bright, bold personality and enjoys relative freedom of movement can move beyond a confined space and explore additional territory with richer resources to satisfy its needs.
Cat independence
Survival for cats is a “private matter” for everyone; the instinct of self-preservation is the main one here. In addition, these are “territorial animals”, jealously guarding their living space.
All cats easily adapt to a solitary existence. But! But this does not mean that they always avoid the company of other cats. And they sometimes have a need for communication.
Cats with a high need for contact form social groups (“circles of friends”). It’s wonderful when these kinds of animals are brought into your home. BUT! But if there is no compatibility between the old and new pet, then in the end we will have a highly stressful situation, for both animals (as well as for the owner).
Why do some cats get along well with each other, while others do not? Who knows? It would seem, what difference does it make between them, well, a cat and a cat?.. So go figure, they have their own likes and dislikes. And this will have to be taken into account.
Recognition of social groups
You can determine whether pets belong to one group or another by tracking which cats spend more time together - they sleep next to each other, play and eat together, lick each other, “hello” with their noses. Conversely, it is possible to determine the degree of hostility between groups: cats demonstrate aggression towards others, leave the room when an unpleasant “person” enters, or measure each other with destructive glances. In order not to confuse groups and “household members,” you should write in a column the names of all members of the general group, and then draw multi-colored arrows that will help you understand the intricacies of the “intra-clan” structure.
For example: cat A licks cat B, therefore the arrow from A to B indicates friendly relations between these animals. Once the relationships between all members of the group have been established using diagrams, you can begin to resolve other issues, such as dividing the common territory, distributing resources, etc., so that there are no conflicts.
Relationship
Let’s immediately agree that we will talk about castrated animals, since in non-castrated animals all social relationships are replaced by sexual ones.
The most important thing in keeping multiple cats is their compatibility. Just because cats live under the same roof does not always mean that they belong to the same social group. And if they are forced to divide the territory, they need certain conditions:
- possibility of privacy
- free access to vital resources - food, water, toilet
- the ability to escape potential stress
Otherwise, without complete freedom of movement around the house, the four-legged inhabitants are constantly exposed to a little stress. The result is either obvious aggression or less obvious manifestations: moving in the wrong places, changing behavior, and the emergence of health problems.
Don’t be fooled if all your pets eat calmly nearby. Cats are willing to be together during feeding, since eating is so important for them that they are able to temporarily suppress hostility towards their neighbor.
To reduce stress, cats often use avoidance, for example, they are not in the same room at the same time, they approach food bowls in turns, etc.
Even when cats tolerate being around people quite well, it should be remembered that they are loners and will not necessarily use a shared toilet. There should be several trays (ideally = number of cats + 1) and they should be positioned in such a way that it suits all(!) direct users (determined experimentally).
Keeping multiple cats in the house
Keeping multiple cats in a home is a complex behavioral challenge. The more popular cats become as companion animals, the more families own them and the more multi-cat homes appear. These changes do not come without challenges for cats and their owners.
And these are not only possible behavioral problems caused by the difficulties of coexistence of several cats in the house, but also a number of medical problems with which people turn to a veterinarian, and the appearance of which is facilitated by social stress. Studying the natural behavior of felines can help us understand why changes in the home environment and family composition can be potential sources of stress for the domestic cat.
KEY POINTS
- Lately, more and more people are keeping cats in their homes, but the growing popularity of these animals does not mean that there are no problems in their relationships with their owners.
- Cats are social animals, but their social behavior is very different from that of humans and dogs. However, owners often expect cats to act like humans.
- The main thing for keeping several cats under one roof is their social compatibility.
- By studying the natural behavior of cats, we can understand why changes in the home environment and family composition are potential sources of stress for the domestic cat.
SOCIAL BEHAVIOR OF FELIDS
Cats have long been considered asocial creatures; the image of “a cat that walks by itself” is revealed in a story by Rudyard Kipling. It was believed that cats met only for mating; outside the breeding season, they were considered solitary animals.
When groups of cats were discovered, they were thought to be aggregations of independent individuals, like animals around a watering hole. However, scientific studies of relationships in the cat population have shown that cats are in fact social animals, and that there are close relationships within the group. Typically, groups of cats consist primarily of females related to each other. Mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters and daughters live together in a common territory, providing protection to the kittens within the group through their physical presence, shared care, and provision of shared antibodies.
Males often find themselves outside the group if there is already one adult cat in it, which mates with most of the females in its territory, while the remaining males are decisively expelled from the group’s territory.
Let us consider the dependence of hostility reactions in the behavior of cats on the population structure
Although cats are social animals, sociality is a relatively recent evolutionary development in their behavior. In the wild, group size is limited by the amount of resources available, so there is no competition within the group. Hostility toward intruders protects resources and can therefore be considered a highly adaptive behavior.
Contacts with strangers are minimal, communication is aimed at maintaining distance between individuals. To keep strangers away, olfactory, vocal and visual communication means are used, but if the proximity of strangers is too close, aggression towards them can be significant.
Within a social group, instances of overt physical aggression are rare and minor, and aggressive signals are used to avoid actual physical confrontation if possible.
Survival for cats is a “private matter” of each animal, and self-preservation is a priority for them. In a cat community, there is no need for cooperation to gain better access to vital resources, which means there is no need for a hierarchical structure either.
One of the consequences of this is that the concept of changing social roles is alien to cat culture, therefore behavioral strategies aimed at establishing dominance are not found in the interaction of cats with each other and in the interaction of a cat and a person. The last-minute extinction of conflict, so characteristic of dogs, is impossible in the cat community.
Cats' aggression towards each other always results in some kind of damage once the threshold of physical confrontation is crossed. The low importance of social relationships for survival weakens the instinct to repair relationships in cats after conflict, and after an act of aggression, the defeated one is usually expected to leave the territory.
INDEPENDENCE OF CATS
The weak dependence on social contacts is evidenced by the ability of cats to survive alone, and all cats are capable, by necessity or by choice, of existing in a social vacuum. This does not mean that all cats will avoid the company of other cats or humans, but they can take it or leave it, and most cats will easily adapt to a solitary existence. However, there is individual variability in the level of need for social contact among cats.
Cats with a moderate need for relationships live primarily outside of social groups, while cats with a higher need for social interactions are part of social groups (see figure). Such cats with high levels of social needs are probably better suited to being kept indoors, but while there are social relationships in the cat world, it is important for people to recognize that these are of a different format than the relationships of fully social creatures such as humans or dogs.
To determine how many social groups there are in a home, the owner needs to write the names of the cats on a piece of paper and draw arrows connecting the cats that rub and lick each other. If there are no arrows connecting any cats, then they can be considered to belong to different social groups. For example, out of five cats in a house, three belong to the same social group, while the other two form a separate group.
Feline social relationships are characterized by low intensity but high frequency interactions, which is why cats often approach their owners and other cats and send vocal signals in their direction.
Social relationships between people, in contrast, are characterized by high intensity and low frequency of interactions, and therefore the owner's expectations for the cat's interaction with him or with other cats in his home may be unrealistic.
One of the possible results of such misunderstanding between species is that the owner attributes to the cat his needs for communication with his own kind and gets several cats. In a situation where the cats in question are related to each other, social interactions can occur in a favorable manner, but if social compatibility is not well thought out, then the resulting situation can be highly stressful for the animals.
MAINTAINING SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS IN CATS
The most important thing in a multi-cat household is their social compatibility. Cats can coexist under the same roof, which does not necessarily mean they belong to the same social group. The most ethologically healthy groups are formed by siblings, but even so, if cats are forced to share territory, they strictly require certain conditions, which include:
- free and immediate access to important resources whenever they need it;
- the opportunity to retire;
- an opportunity to avoid potential stress.
These basic requirements of cats are not met in many homes, leaving them under constant mild stress in multi-cat homes.
This manifests itself in obvious aggression, but there may also be less obvious manifestations and problems associated with free movement around the house.
As a result, cats often begin to eliminate their natural needs in inappropriate places. In homes where the main “symptom” of incompatibility is avoidance, the lack of social harmony may go unnoticed for a long time. In some cases, tension is not noticed until health problems arise or behavioral problems become apparent.
CONSEQUENCES OF LIMITED ACCESS TO RESOURCES
Cats from different social groups do not share resources, yet in the home they are expected to have common places to rest, feed and drink, even if their social behavior indicates that they view each other more as just neighbors than as family members. This could have far-reaching consequences.
One scenario that causes the misconception that multiple cats in a home are doing well is the cats' willingness to be together during feeding times. This closeness is often taken as a sign that all is well in the cat's community, but it is important to remember that food is a vital resource and characteristic behaviors are often suppressed to gain access to food. Cats will temporarily stop fighting while they are eating, but relationships between them may become even more tense the rest of the time, and avoidance becomes a common way of being.
Some owners will point out the fact that they never see all the cats in the same room at the same time except at feeding time, and even though all the cats arrive when the food bowls are put out, there is often a noticeable reluctance of some of them to remain in the room. room to finish eating, and they come and go over the next few hours in turns to access the food more comfortably.
One day, the owner begins to notice that one cat may constantly leave the feeding area when others arrive, or retreat from the bowl and avoid eye contact while other cats are eating.
This behavior is sometimes misunderstood as hierarchical, but cats are not actually fully social animals and do not live in hierarchical societies. Instead, they use avoidance to reduce the risk of overt tension leading to physical confrontation, which in turn can be life-threatening.
Even when the cats in the house belong to the same social group and tolerate the neighborhood quite well, it is necessary to pay attention to the fact that the cats are loners, and feeding is not a joint process for them. This means that even cats that have developed social relationships will prefer to eat separately. It is important to provide sufficient feeding areas in the home that allow cats to eat without making any eye contact with their cats.
While tension is often ignored when it comes to accessing food, the water bowl is not considered a resource important enough by many cats to justify being in close proximity to other cats. The problem is that cats' motivation to drink is very low. With their natural diet, water consumption occurs simultaneously with the absorption of food, and the need to drink additionally is insignificant.
At home, feeding low-moisture foods can lead to problems if access to water is limited. Inadequate fluid intake can have extremely serious health consequences and be a significant risk factor for conditions such as interstitial cystitis.
In homes where cats are occasionally diagnosed with lower urinary tract disease, it is always important to inquire about the relationships between the cats and whether social incompatibility is limiting access to water. Other factors to consider relate to how cats drink, whether multiple drinking spots are needed to encourage cats to drink water.
Cats will naturally avoid water sources near their prey to reduce the risk of ingesting water contaminated with urine, feces, blood or viscera.
Unfortunately, at home this natural behavior is often ignored, and bowls of water and food are placed next to each other. This tendency increases if there are multiple cats in the home, and the owner needs to be concerned about how to arrange multiple feeding and drinking areas so that the bowls are less disruptive to the people living in the house.
It is also worth paying attention to the properties of the drinking container itself to reduce the risk of water contamination. Materials such as metal, glass and ceramics are much better than plastic.
In addition, you need to pay attention to the depth and width of the bowl, and choose one so that the cat can see the surface of the water. The tendency to be wary of poorly visible water sources is related to cats' instinct to avoid possible trouble and correlates with the observation of many owners that the sound and sight of running water attracts cats.
Assuming that cats from different social groups share a litter box can lead to soiling problems in the home.
It is important to remember that limited ability to go to the toilet outside the home can also be associated with these problems. The problem of lack of privacy when visiting the toilet can sometimes be solved by using a covered tray, but each case should be considered individually.
Using several small litter boxes can create a "breakout" effect and make your cat less reluctant to use the litter box.
Therefore, it is necessary to experiment with cat litter until the owner finds an option that suits the needs of all cats in the house. This could include increasing the number of litter boxes or increasing the number of places they are placed so that cats can use the litter box without being seen by members of another social group.
It is important for a cat to make full use of space, including its vertical component, this helps control stress and plays a significant role in maintaining normal physical activity. If social tension in the home limits your cat's ability to move freely, this can lead to a significant decrease in his mobility and an increased risk of obesity.
Providing adequate resting areas, along with opportunities for aerobic activity and play, for all cats is a critical aspect of proper multi-cat household design.
CONCLUSION
Cats are social animals, but their social behavior is very different from that of humans and dogs. In their natural environment, they will live in small groups of related individuals and avoid contact with other cats. It follows that it may not be comfortable for cats to live at home, sharing the main territory with unrelated individuals.
However, by studying the natural behavior of cats and changing environmental conditions accordingly, we can provide ethological solutions and organize life in a multi-cat household in a way that minimizes stress for our four-legged friends.
The two most useful rules when keeping multiple cats are selecting compatible individuals and limiting the number of cats in the house to a socially acceptable level.
As the popularity of cats grows, it is tempting for cat lovers to keep more and more of them. Knowledge of a cat's behavioral needs and the possible stress caused by living in an unsuitable social group is necessary to limit the number of animals to a level that suits the cats themselves. There is no hard and fast rule about the ideal number of cats in a household, as it depends on the social compatibility of the individuals and the physical space to allocate resources appropriately.
If the owner is persistent in his desire to increase the number of cats in the house, it is very important to pay close attention to the first weeks of the cat's life with the new owner. The newly arrived animal must be provided with sufficient resources to ensure that its arrival does not put any pressure on the capabilities of the cats already living there. Free access to all vital resources at any time for all animals will increase the possibility of successful coexistence of several cats under one roof.
Sarah Heath Chester Ethology Centre, UK (Veterinary Focus 2010-01)
Golden Rule
With an increase in the number of pets, none of them should be disadvantaged either in resources or in the attention of the owner! All cats should participate in outdoor play, receive good nutrition, hygienic care and a kind word.
The most important thing when keeping several cats is, firstly , the selection of animals that are compatible with each other and, secondly , limiting their number to a level that ensures a good quality of life.
There is no hard and fast rule about the ideal number of cats in a home. You can keep several without any problems (the author has seven :-)), but you can get a big headache with two. It all depends on the social compatibility of the pets, living space, physical and material capabilities of the owner - everything that provides cats with a decent existence.
House plan
When deciding on the placement of individual groups of the cat community, a two-dimensional diagram of the house may be useful. First, you need to spend some time observing which rooms the representatives of one or another faction prefer to be in, and where they try not to look. If resources are concentrated in limited spaces, cats from different groups will be forced to meet in “common” areas. Thus, areas of potential conflicts arise, which should be clearly marked on the schematic map.
How can I help you?
The cats we meet are under a lot of stress. For the former tenant - from the encroachment of a stranger on his territory, for the new one - from the mass of alien sounds, smells, unfamiliar surroundings, hostility of the “owner” of the house. What to do? How to reconcile the irreconcilable?
Doctor Time Yes, it is time that polishes the relationship between a new pet and old-timers, turning initial rejection into compatibility - either into peaceful coexistence or friendship.
For some it takes a couple of days, for others a couple of weeks, and for others months. There is no need to artificially try to combine the wards, trying to speed up the process of addiction. Cats will adapt to living together on their own. Just give them time. Pharmacology Modern veterinary pharmacology also helps to facilitate the process of addiction. These are sedatives such as “Cat Bayun”, “Fitex”, “Stop-stress”. But the main bet, perhaps, should be made on the miraculous “Feliway” - a diffuser that evaporates into the air synthetic phermones of “cat happiness”, which notify the cat that in fact everything is fine and normalize its behavior. Royal Canin Calm veterinary diet is specially designed to facilitate adaptation to change and overcome stressful situations.
Its additional components (peptide α-casozepine, L-tryptophan) regulate the activity of the central nervous system and affect the state of arousal, sleep and appetite of the cat. Little tricks There are different ways to ease the tension between pets, for example, lightly smear their faces with something tasty to cause pleasant sensations in the enemy, stroke each one in turn with one hand, etc. And when the passions of the first days have subsided a little, you can try to lure both sides into a game, inviting them to run after a candy wrapper on a string, a spot from a laser pointer, or another toy. You see, in the heat of the attack, timid signs of a truce will appear.
So, after the arrival of a new tenant, three scenarios are possible:
Why multiple cats are good
For the owner Because cats are creatures with interesting characters and habits, cute, cuddly, funny, and they are also wonderful friends who add bright colors to our lives. And the more pleasant friends you have, the better.
For cats Long live your playmate, sleepmate, and just companionship! Down with boredom and fat swimming! It’s so great to rush around the apartment with someone (and even at night!), sleep cuddled up to a warm side, and eating in company adds to your appetite! And a friend will help you lick the fur in places where you can’t reach it yourself.
In other words, keeping cats together strengthens their physical, mental and emotional well-being.
Advice: if you plan to keep several pets at once, then the best option would be to take kittens from the same litter - 100% guarantee of compatibility. It's hard not to get along with someone you know from the womb :-)!
Quarantine
If you adopted a kitten from the street, or are not sure that it is completely healthy, be sure to show the baby to the veterinarian first. And for the first 10 days, observe quarantine and do not introduce animals. If your new pet is sick and the disease manifests itself, quarantine will help prevent you from infecting the animal already living with you. All my animals were taken from the street, I did not have the opportunity to keep each new one in a separate room, but I was lucky, everyone was healthy. But I don’t advise you to take that risk.
