Should I get a kitten, cat(s) or neither?

[TheMentalMentalLoad]

Hello lovely MNers.

I am in a quandary and need advice. I’ve owned cats before, mostly from kitten age but not every time and they’ve always (eventually) lived happily alongside my dog at the time. (I’m on my 3rd dog).

im considering rescuing a kitten, pair of kittens or a bonded pair of slightly older cats. My concern is that I have guinea pigs that live indoors in the spare room. The door to their room is open most of the day as I work at home and chat to them each time I go upstairs.

I also encourage birds to my garden and really enjoy watching them from my office window each day.

would I be mad to add cat(s) back into my home?

A lot of guinea pig enclosures have no lid - does yours? Because that does sound like a risk

It doesn’t currently however I do have a lid I can put over them. It’s a C&C cage so can be configured to suit and i bought the lid part due to the dog but she isn’t interested in them (other than trying to eat their poo).

You could add either but would have to be much more vigilant around the gps. Also a dog might not accept a new cat. I have an old male cat and an older dog and they rub along just fine. However we lost our old female cat this year and I was thinking about getting a young female rescue, but the other animals may not accept her. So it might be better to wait until then are, sadly, no longer part of the equation.

You’d have to be absolutely rock solid certain that the cat would never meet the guinea pigs, which would mean keeping that door closed all the time & that seems sad.

Even if the door was open & the lid was on, I’d have thought having a cat looking through the bars & jumping on top would be terrifying.

Your only option would be to get an older dopey rescue like a Persian. Who was not bothered about birds or small animals.
My older rescues haven't caught a bird between then since I've had them and I don't think they've even tried. They did find a baby mouse but I think in honesty it just turned up in front of them rather than the other way around.
I don't know about guinea pigs and what they would do with that. I don't think mine would go for them (they broadly ignore the many squirrels in my garden but these are London squirrels who take no shit from cats). But you'd need a rescue cat that you can "test" or that has history of living with other animals badically

I don't think it's fair to have rodents and cats in the same house. Even if they are separated, they'll smell one another. The guinea pigs will be tense because they'll know there's a predator about, and the cats will be frustrated because there's a tasty meal running about in the spare room that they can't get to!

I've had cats living happily alongside a dog, and birds in the garden will always be taking their chances with cats and other predators, but I wouldn't have predators and their prey under the same roof in a permanent arrangement.

If you do go ahead, I would suggest a pair of adult cats rather than kittens. For starters, they are much harder for the rescues to home - many new cat owners forget that a kitten will be a kitten for maybe a year, they will still have an adult cat for the next 15-20 years.

Also, with older cats especially ones who have had a home previously, there's a better chance the rescue will have a decent idea about temperament. The sweetest kitten can turn out to be a horror when they grow up & vice versa, but once a cat reaches about a year to 18 months it's personality will have settled into where it will be for life.

DSis managed to have both large and small dogs, parrots, and rodents both large and small as well as cats for years with no "accidents" with the dogs or cats killing the other pets. Same with my cousin who has a small holding and used to live on a farm. The only cat she needed to "persuade" not to chase the hens was a stray who'd been that way for at least a few years, and even him she managed to stop chasing loose yard fowl.

I dont think its nice at all to have guinea pigs with predators. Why would you do that?

I had a lot of small animals in my house growing up. We had cats and also had gerbils, hamsters, guinea pigs, rabbits. None of them are or killed each other.

I don't think you could continue with your current set up- sorry. You can't really keep the door open/lid off. Door open at all would be a judgement call on the cats actions. Guinea pigs are so prone to heart attacks caused by shock.

The birds - how much do you like seeing the birds over how much do you like having a cat? Would you consider a catio?

If you go for it, I'd consider young adult cats that have been fostered with a dog. It's tricky having a menagerie.