How to tell if a cat will get along with other cats?

[MEgirl]

We are thinking of getting a second cat. Apollo was a rescue from NAWT. We were told at the time that they wouldn't let him go to a home with another cat despite (or maybe because) having come from a home with many cats. That, however, was over a year ago. How do the rescue centres determine whether a cat will get along with others.

Can we risk bringing another cat in to the house?

It depends on the cat.

If you decided on a cat that you thought would be suitable and brought him/ her home- you would need to check with the rescue that they would be happy to accept the cat back if the cats didn't settle together.

Ime a male and a female would work well together as opposed to a male/male where they might see the other male as competition.

There's no way of 'knowing' unfortunately.

Did they sey why they did not want him to share a home? Some cats do not appreciate sharing.

It's impossible to know with cats. Cats don't naturally seek out the company of other cats. You can be lucky though, but it's a case of trial and error.

I have 3 cats, 2 females & 1 male. The male barely tolerates 1 of the females & is ok with the other female, but it's very much on his terms. My 2 females have to be kept apart, so 1 female lives in one part of the house & the other female lives in another part with the male and I go between the 2 parts of the house. I've tried everything to encourage friendship between the 2 females, but they're not having any of it!

As Pleasant says - make sure the rescue allows you to take the cat back, if your resident cat doesn't tolerate a new friend, which would be sad in itself.

Good luck.

Thanks. Will have to think on it.

We recently got a new kitten and she IS now getting on with our existing 3 year old cat, but it took a bit of work.

Have a look at the Cats Protection website, where there are guidelines on how to introduce a new cat. We followed their advice and it seemed to work.

Basically a cat's primary sense is smell, so you need to get them used to the smell of the new cat. We kept them in separate rooms at the beginning so they couldn't kill each other, and put an old towel in each cat's bed which was swapped over each morning. That way, they got used to the smell in a non-threatening way.

It took our old cat a week and a half to accept the new kitten, which was quicker than I was expecting. Most mornings they would sniff each other and then start growling and hissing, at which point I would separate them, but one day instead of growling the cat started licking the kitten's face.

They are now friends. They sleep in the same bed. They still sometimes have spats, but they are basically on good terms.

In years gone by we have had only cats both rescues and both disliked other cats, we could tell this from their behaviour when outside, hissing and fighting the neighbours. There is no way we could have introduced a second cat.

This time we adopted a pair of sisters. They have a love hate relationship.

You might be lucky. (That's a 'might'.) In my experience, many cats - most cats even - prefer to live as singletons with their humans.