To ask if your pets are "friends"?

[anotherbloomingusername]

Thanks to the internet, I've seen so many cute photos of people's cats cuddled up together or someone's kitten curled up on their sleeping dog. My pets have never really done this. (Although my cat did used to sleep on top of the hamster cage, I wasn't sure his motives were entirely pure...)

When I've had two cats, they would happily chill in the same room or have a mad scamper after breakfast, but never outright cuddles. And although I've usually found that at least one cat will accompany the dog on his walks and they rub up against each him in greeting, they don't lie down together.

Does anyone have pets who are "besties"? How did it happen?

Our cats all get on and cuddle we have a rescued brother and sister and a cat we got off somebody we know , we also have two foster cats now.
The three we have had longest cuddle up and play with eachother. The brother and sister often thunder down the stairs at terrifying speeds charging at eachother. They do fight but it is usually a play fight getting out of hand. The foster cats are settling in they get on with the other cats but hate the dog.

One of our cats has a very close bond with the dog he cuddles and snuggles in his fur the dog licks him a lot and I tell him to stop but the cat goes back for more. The cats are the boss I have caught them taking food out of our chow/husky cross collies mouth.The same cat also sticks his head in the dogs mouth, terrifies me!

We had some rats when I was young and they used to happily sleep on our great dane.

Mine definitely are not friends.
Dog would very much like to be friends, but has a strong chase urge which pisses the cat off (understandably!)
I put these pics together a while ago to show my mum.
In all the photos I have of them both, the cat is glaring at the dog, who is completely oblivious to her dislike!

Cat and dog are buddies in the house - sleep together, cuddle up together, etc

However, the minute the cat steps over the doorstep the dog seems to suddenly realise that his buddy is actually a cat, and that 'proper' dogs are supposed to chase cats then WW3 erupts

My rats aren't friends even within their 'groups'. Our big boy and his bigger brother fought constantly before Bigger died a few weeks back but they were usually cuddling by the end of the day. If our big boy sneaks up to the girls cage whilst we're distracted we know because we hear our alpha girl and her sister hissing at him and they try to swipe at him through the bars whilst one of our rescues bares all at him whilst foofing because she's a horny bitch

We have a lone boy who just goes all defensive any time a rat comes near him, he thinks he's human you see But that's fine because the others just attack him on sight these days And our alpha girl doesn't like the baby girl because baby thinks she's boss and tries to power-groom alpha. The girls have an almost bare cage at the moment to try encourage them to snuggle together instead of on separate hammocks. It's working, until they aren't sleepy!

I love my rats :D

My cats were best friends and half siblings. They adored one another for 18 years till one died last month, the other is bereft.
When we had dogs cats and dogs would pile into one basket in a glorious furry heap.

Dogs are all friends, except for the odd falling out.

DDog 3 and DCat 1 are really good friends - always greet each other happily, etc. The cats (3 of those, too) don't dislike any of the dogs, though DCat3 sometimes swipes DDog3 as he's a bit bouncy and pisses her right off.

They'll all sleep happily lined up next to one another too.

I have 3 cats. 2 siblings and one a couple of months older. They were all amazing friends until one of the siblings went to the vets and stayed at my parents house to recover for a few weeks. When he came back none sibling cat wasn't having anything to do with him. I was so sad for them I love seeing my cats play and sleep together.

My cats are brother and sister. They don't really play together but they do sleep curled up together, it's really cute! However, it only lasts until the girl winds her brother up and then world war 3 erupts!

We have to unrelated male, neutered cats. They mostly tolerate each other but when hungry get into almighty hissing, yowling scraps where they turn to concrete at each other.

Occasionally they will sit on the same settee together.

Once in a while, longhaired cat will lick shorthaired cat (shorthaired cat can't get his head round licking long fur) but it always leads to him going for the jugular within ten seconds.

Sometimes they join forces to rip open any items of food we may have left out

My 18 year old tom-cat adores, and is adored by our 17 year old queen (half his size, twice the attitude... and the 18 year old has more than enough of that to power a small village, himself!). They regularly curl up together, groom each other, and now that the 18 year old is losing his marbles somewhat (he sits in the bath during the small hours of a morning and yodels loudly - because the acoustics mean the sound carries - until someone yells where they are, at which point he'll pootle off and sleep on top of their heads until the alarms go off! He was diagnosed as having feline dementia maybe 4 or 5 years ago, but he's happy - until the middle of the night, when he forgets how to find one of us!) the queen will follow him around and make sure he's okay.

Our 10 year old cat, however, is a complete loner. To the point where, if you suggest that he might like to interact with someone/another of his own species, he gives the most withering of looks, which sort of suggests that you'd asked him to put the bins out, or something.

Our 8 year old cat, meanwhile, is in love with our 9 year old dog. Seriously in love with. The poor dog cannot go for more than half a day without the cat trying to groom him, present himself, lie on top of him, curl up on top of his head, generally flirt with him... and the dog is more than a little terrified by the attention. The love affair is a new "thing", though. Only started happening about a year ago. And whilst it's fairly amusing to watch unfold, I do feel quite sorry for the (thankfully a complete wuss who is healthily terrified of the cats and their machinations) dog. Because if he doesn't flirt back, then the 8 year old will smack him about his chops and stalk off in a strop... until all is forgiven and the dog is the best thing ever again!

The 10 year old cat gets on quite well with the 18 and 17 year old cats, and seems to enjoy tormenting the dog (will sit by food bowls with three chunks of cat-meat in, just watching the dog squirm in pleading anticipation... until one of us moves him!). The 8 year old cat doesn't even feature on the 10 year old's radar. The 8 year old cat is tolerated by the 18 and 17 year old cats (although if he's still hungry, they'll step back and let him finish their food out of their bowls, I've noticed, so there's some sort of affection there).

Apart from the 8 year old cat, the dog is so far beneath feline contempt that he's a non-entity... but the dog's best friend is my 11 year old DS, so it all works out in the end.

I got my first kitten before I was married - just me and him in a large flat.

We moved to a house with a huge garden when DH and I got married and he ruled the roost. We were the only ones with a cat the cul-de-sac - others had dogs. Anyway, when my cat was 8 yrs old, a neighbour had bought a kitten for his DD without the permission of the DW. She demanded that the kitten was taken back but the neighbour decided he would just throw her in the river that ran at the bottom of our garden. I spotted him ..... I said that if my 8 year old would accept her, I would give the kitten a home. I asked him to give me 2 hours.

I placed the kitten on the armchair that 8 yr old cat was sitting in..... and he groomed her immediately, then snuggled her down and wrapped himself round her so she was inside a cocoon of his tummy and legs. The neighbour returned in 2 hours and I brought him into the lounge to see the 2 of them snuggled up. [And then gave him a lecture about pets not being toys etc.....]

They were inseparable from that day! If he needed a kitten-free hour or so, he picked her by her scruff and put her into HIS bed (she did have her own bed). He taught her to play and hunt and how to come back to the house at the shake of Munchies. We should have called that kitten shadow because that was what she became - the little shadow to the big cat.

Our two cats loathe each other. They will now be in the same room but that's taken 18 months .

My friends are my tarantulas and they would kill me if they were big enough - or if I was smaller 🕷

The cats are friends, but in a sort of standoffish, 'do I really have to live here?' way they're not hugely cuddly and will only do things on their terms, but I like that 🐈

My two cats are friends. Cool cat thinks that geeky cat does not wash himself properly and will frequently pin him down and groom him, then they curl up together. I love it when I come down at nighttime and they are all cuddled up.

Geeky cat is probably our pug's best friend. They play together for ages even though pug bites geeky cat's ears, that is until GC has had enough and takes over pug's basket while he hovers around biting his lip and looking anxious - hilarious.

When we had guinea pigs, big GP and one of my other dogs were besties. They liked each other on first sight and used to touch noses all the time.

I've had some that were and some that weren't - all individuals so they were friendly with some and not others :-) we've had dogs and cats that slept together and others that hated each other ..... Currently have a dog that is clearly liked by one cat, and he likes her, the other cats are not that keen on dogs, they tolerate him but don't like him.

the dog is so far beneath feline contempt that he's a non-entity

I have two guinea pigs who are brothers and have always been together. They love each other. The submissive one frequently nudges the dominant one for grooming/cuddles, the dominant one very rarely used to allow the submissive one to groom him but would never reciprocate, and they only used to snuggle to sleep if they were cold. However at nearly 3 years of age the dominant one seems to be going soft!! He grooms the sub one every now and then, it's so sweet. They have always hated being apart though and even though they don't snuggle that much and when were younger never did unless really cold, they often would sleep right up next to each other just not touching. If I take one out of the cage to my lap the other one sits and glares at you watching you don't hurt his brother. If you let one out the cage to walk about the room the other one will walk around the cage bars following him and the submissive in particular gets very distressed if apart for longer than 10 minutes or so even if his brother is in view. So they are obviously kept together almost always and clearly love each other. :)

Ddog took the birth of DD far better than the arrival of Dkitten.

I don't think I'll be forgiven anytime soon.

My two cats are sisters & don't get on well at all. When they were kittens, they shared a basket. Now they ignore each other mostly although occasionally sniff each other's faces. One tends to clout the other round the chops just because she feels like it.

In the garden they work more as a team than in the house, seeing off next door's annoying and persistent git of a cat when it invades their space.

I had a dog and two cats and they hated each other.

I then got a kitten with a screw loose. The little thing was a firecracker and used to beat the shit out of the dog. The dog tried his usual scare tactics but the kitten just took no notice. Eventually the kitten decided the dog bed was a comfy place to sleep and moved in. The kitten would sleep stretched out in the middle of the bed and the dog would be gripping the side trying not to fall out.

So in a way yeah, they slept together.

Eventually the kitten lost a fight with a car when he was a couple of years old. Lived fast, died young, bless him.

DCat1 and DDog are besties, they groom each other, play together and snuggle up. DCat2 struggles to tolerate them both, and and of her human slaves for that matter

My two greyhounds are best friends . They curl up on each other like ying and yang ( no room for me on the sofa though ) , and because big dog is not clever enough to climb the stairs , the little one will come and get me if he needs to go out in the night. We had small hound first, and after losing our first hound , she started getting really nervy . Until I rang our greyhound rescue lady in despair and she turned up on our doorstep ten minutes later with big dog . He walked through the front door , she lit up like a Christmas tree , and they've been partners in crime ever since .

My pets love each other very much...