‘Do cats have any friends?’

[Icepops]

Asks 5 year old dd. We have own cat she she’s worried he doesn’t have any cat friends (!) I told her he does but we don’t see them s they only meet in the fields

But it got me thinking, do cats socialize with other cats in the neighborhood at all? I have no idea where ours goes but I wondered if cats do socialize or if they just spend time outside alone?

My two cats spend most of their time ignoring each other and sitting in different parts of the house, but sometimes one will wash the other and sometimes they sleep curled up together. Friendship cat style...

One of these is not my cat...

My cat and next doors cat are friends. Our cat is slightly hen pecked by her but he likes seeing her and chirrups by the French doors to go out if she's in our garden. They sit about together and sometimes play and stalk each other round the bushes. They are funny to watch.
I've never really known cats to like each other like they do!

Yes of course - the inspiration for “Top Cat” - his mates were Benny the Ball, Choo Choo, Brian etc .... dig it out on YouTube for her!

One of my cats has friends, a couple of little young cats who come round and cry near the back door until he goes out to play with them. The other is a grumpy sod and doesn't want friends.

Your DD is so cute OP. She is your cat’s friend!

I have a bonded pair of sisters. At least they were closely bonded, now if one is with me on the sofa the other comes over and rolls her eyes like FFS I never get a turn with the human. So I think once they were sisters and friends and now they are just sisters 😂. But friends with me.

Cats have some cats they hate slightly less than others.

I watched a documentary about cats once, they were stray and lived on a little fishing island. There was a mum cat of a small but mobile kitten but the mum was hungry and needed to leave the kitten to go and get food. She 'asked' a friend cat to 'babysit' her kitten while she got food and came back. It was all explained on the documentary that the friend cat was probably well know to the mum, maybe a sister and the cats did seem to have an understanding.

Only one of these cats is mine - the other hangs around most days!

Growing up we had quite a few cats, at one point we had 6 at the same time, none were littermates but they all paired up and had a best friend that they would snuggle up with and play with. I only have one cat and he seems to have another neighbourhood cat friend. He's quite ambivalent about next doors cat and there is one particular cat on our road that he does not like at all

This just became my new favourite thread

My cat hated all other cats. Fabulous boy, much missed.

Our Queen Cat is good friends with one of the dogs. They nap together and potter around the garden together. You find one you tend to find the other.

We used to have Queen Cat and her brother who she adored. Then a third cat who Queen Cat hated (it was mutual). When Brother cat died tragically we brought his little body into the house so the other animals could look at him and understand he had died (and not just vanished). Queen Cat was devastated and lay down next to his body. Third Cat walked up, sniffed our poor little dead cat then went over to Queen Cat and held her down with a paw and proceeded to wash Queen Cat's face thoroughly and gently all over. From that point on the two of them were inseparable. (Then about 3 years later Third Cat - who was my most precious darling- was hit by a car. I've never really gotten over it. ).

My cat has a wee chum who calls round for him and they wander off together or just sit in the garden. Another cat who lost his wee pal wants to be friends but they hate him. Feel sorry for fluffy cat but he glaiket n tried to force his friendship on my laddie by hanging about pitifully by our door.

Aww how sweet. Ds used to worry about our cat not having friends too

We were just discussing earlier if our cat is friends with the neighbours cat I think he would like to be friends with our cat but he isn’t so keen. He seems just happy me being around and to a lesser extent ds

Our cat definitely prefers humans and I often catch him watching other cats out of the window with a look of utter contempt on his face

Dogs have friends. Cats have staff.

My boy has 3 girlfriends he visits daily. He has been found asleep in two of their beds at opposite ends of the estate. He also visits another house to get his belly rubbed. I've retrieved him from another two homes. One of the homes the lady cant have a cat due to her copd so it's a substitute. He doesn't like other male cats. Thankfully neutered.

My girl cat doesn't really have cat friends but is very protective of her much bigger brother but will tolerate the nearest of his girlfriends without a fuss. After the initial hiss, she has gone in and lay on her sofa for cuddles.

I swear they are not cuddle deprived.

Previous cat did have 4 friends (male and female) who he would spend his days with on a local trampoline just chilling and catching any sun before coming home for feeding

We have 3 cats - sisters. They absolutely adore each other. They either need to be together or with a human otherwise we have huge wailing and howling

Your daughter sounds lovely. I love it when kids ask questions like that. ❤️

One of our old cats used to play with a fox at night. The fox would ‘call’ for him and he’d go out to the fox. Sometimes they’d just sit together but sometimes they’d chase each other, swapping who the one chasing was. Very cute...but not sure how ‘normal’ that is. 😬 He was a very friendly cat and used to sit on our doormat with one of the neighbours cats. They were definitely friends as they used to groom each other. Again, very cute.

My cat has a friend who knocks for him to come out most days, but I think their friendship is quite toxic. They want to hang out together but seems to spend their time being pissed with each other and fight.

My childhood cat had a friend. They’d go into each others’ houses and run up and down the stairs. He went off looking for her when her family moved away. All cats I’ve had since have hated other cats including their siblings.

Yes, all of our cats have friends. But they aren't friends in the same way humans and dogs are. They play with each other and hang out in the same vicinity, but they like to hunt alone and have lots of 'me' time. One of our previous cats had a little 'gang' that he would lead around the gardens etc. He was very sociable.

My mum and dad's cat has a couple of little cat friends who come round to call for her.

My cat is a vile bad tempered creature full of loathing for every other living thing on the planet. Another cat is always in our garden taunting her and they have the most terrifying scraps - the noises our little tiny girl comes out with are insane.
She also hates adults, so we rarely get to stroke or love her, except, weirdly, at night, when she creeps onto my pillow and puts her face right next to mine and falls asleep.
We think she must have been very poorly treated so just let her be herself (and have lots of plasters handy...)

My departed Bengal had two friends, one of whom would call for him if he was in for the night & another whose garden he was allowed in to try and liberate the tortoise from his shell.