A FAMILY OF CATS

Managing a Multi-Cat Household

by Joelle Steele

If you come from a large family you are probably well aware of all the problems associated with so many people living together under the same roof, all trying to get their different needs met. All those personalities, sharing a limited amount of space, try not to step on one another's toes, but inevitably end up doing just that. A family of cats is pretty much the same.

GETTING ACQUAINTED

Introducing a new cat is the most important stage of managing a multi-cat household. We all know that each cat has his own special needs and his own unique preferences. When you take two or more such individuals and put them together, you can expect that some will hit it off instantly, some will ignore each other entirely, some will maintain an aloof disinterest in each other, and yet others will fight tooth and nail to establish dominance in the home. And, any cat may be as sweet as pie with one cat and nasty and surly with another. They may maintain these behavioral patterns until their dying day or they may change them altogether over a period of time.

I have had a total of 18 cats in my life, two still with me. Everything that cat writers say about introducing a new cat to the household sounds reasonable. But I have never found it to be necessary. I have adopted kittens as young as 1-1/2 weeks and adults as old as 16, males and females. I have had as many as five cats at a time. I have also taken care of other people's cats in my home. I have lived with cats since I was 3 years old, and as I write this, I'm 73. I don't put my furry newbies in a separate area or room with their own food and litter box for 24 or 48 hours or however long cat experts say is correct. I simply bring them into the main part of the house, show them the food dishes, take them to the garage and show them the pet doors and the litter boxes. And that's it. I have never had any cat conflicts. Just lots of curiosity and that's it.

GETTING ALONG

Even under the best of circumstances and with the most patience and reassurance, not everybody will get along with everybody all of the time. Occasional hisses or growls, an occasional paw slap, are not that unusual in a multi-cat household. You may love them all, but you can be sure that at least two of your cats might only be capable of mutual tolerance. It happens in the best of families, although I only once had two cats who didn't fight but we're buddy-buddy either.

My friend Brenda's cats get along for the most part, particularly the three which are closest in age to one another. Her oldest cat Floss rules the roost and is not very friendly to the other cats. But, one of her younger cats, a three year old male named Taco, seems to really like Floss. He washes her and sleeps next to her and he seems to be the only one who she will tolerate in such close proximity. My seventeen year old Twinkle shared a similar relationship with my five year old Timmy. My seven year old "middle child" Muffin, got along well with Timmy but was only cordial to Twinkle.

INDOOR/OUTDOOR

One of the problems with multi-cat households is the wide age range. It is rare that all cats will be the same age or even very close in age, and elderly cats need to be kept indoors as do injured or sick felines. Those youngsters who are still healthy and able-bodied will want to go outside if that is their usual habit, and keeping some cats in and allowing others to come and go outdoors is not always easy. Since I don't really like my cats to be outdoors, I opt for indoor-only.

Being indoors is certainly the safest and they are likely to live a lot longer that way. But, if you believe they should be free to roam, you will need to look for ways to segregate the indoor inhabitants from the outdoor enthusiasts. One way to do this is to close off a room or a portion of your house where there is an outside door and let your outdoor cats come and go outdoors through a pet door. The rest of the family can stay in the other part of the house, safe from the dangers of the great outdoors.

In some cases, having a pet door in an overly high location will prevent an older or infirmed cat from exiting. My friend Sandy has a blind cat and an arthritic cat who she wants to keep indoors but she has three other cats who like to go outside. Her solution was to install a pet door in the wall above her washing machine. Her two disabled cats cannot make the jump or locate the opening, and she has a little ramp leading to the pet door on the outside of the house for the convenience of her cats who can.

NO TRESPASSING

Some cat owners don't want their cats in certain rooms of the house. My neighbor John is a professional artist who doesn't like his cats to be in his studio because he uses an airbrush which requires him to wear a respirator and goggles and he doesn't want his cats to be exposed to anything to which he wouldn't want himself exposed. Also, he frequently leaves paints and other toxic solutions around and doesn't want his cats to walk in them and pick up the chemicals on their feet or leave their fur clinging to his unfinished works. His solution was to install a screen door in addition to the wooden door. When he is working with the airbrush he closes the wooden door and when he wants to be in touch with the rest of the house, he shuts only the screen door. I don't work with toxic paints, but I also added an indoor screen door to my art studio.

Other areas which are most often kept off bounds are nurseries, home offices, dining rooms, and hobby rooms. Most people I know use screen doors so that air and heat can circulate freely. Sometimes a screen is out of place. For example, my friend Jill has a very ornate antique dining room table which she loves to show off to visitors. For years she tried in vain to train her four cats to stay off the table. Her solution was to have French doors installed between the dining room and living room so that the table is clearly visible but also cat-proof. Jill's husband is a model railroad buff who screened off half of their two car garage where his train set up is kept, to prevent the cats from playing with his miniature hobby items.

LITTER BOXES

Brenda's indoor cats are picky about their litter boxes. Her twelve year old female Floss refuses to use the litter that clumps. She also refuses to use the box in the garage. Her eight year old male Carlisle once refused to use either of the two cat boxes because he prefers a very thin layer of litter and does not like the hard clays with deodorant in them. Her late cat Mitsy would use the box in the garage, but at night when the garage door was closed, would urinate and defecate at the garage door rather than use the box in the bathroom. Brenda's other three cats go in whatever box they are nearest too, expressing no preference for any particular kind of litter or box location.

Brenda wound up putting a box in the bathroom with a very thin layer of non-deodorized hard clay to please Floss and Carlisle. The garage houses a jumbo size box with the sandy clumping litter. And, before Mitsy passed away, Brenda installed a pet door on the door to the garage.

You almost need to be a detective at times to find out what everyone wants. Then you still have to find ways to please them all in a practical way. Some cats don't like deep boxes, some don't like hoods over their boxes, some cats want a night light in the bathroom, some will not use the same box that a particular other feline family member frequents, and some will not use a box in a particular location because it is cold, too far from where they usually hang out, too close to the food, too hard to get to, or in the pathway of another cat. Most multi-cat homes have at least two litter boxes.

SLEEPING

Cats usually sleep where they feel safest and most secure. This could be anywhere from the top of the refrigerator to your favorite bed pillow. If you are lucky, they may even sleep on that big soft pillow you made just for them, or they may even curl up in the little kitty condo you bought. But, if all your cats are not madly in love with each other, they will most assuredly not want to hang out together. Two sections of your kitty condo may be vacant, not because they don't like those two sections, but because they don't like the neighborhood -- the neighbor who occupies the remaining section to be exact. The important thing is to make sure that there are enough available kitty condos and big fluffy pillows for everyone, in several places. Or, you can just let them sleep on the bed with you like I do, or put an blanket over the sofa for them to sleep on.

Sandy's cats Wally and Butch do not get along very well, and Sasha who gets along with Wally, does not get along with Butch. Wherever Butch is sleeping, Wally and Sasha will be nowhere in sight, and Butch's favorite place is in the kitty condo in the living room. Sasha and Wally slept on the bed most of the time and Sandy prefers that her cats not share her bed. She got a second kitty condo and put it in the bedroom. Problem solved. Even when Butch decides to sleep in the bedroom condo, Sasha and Wally can still sleep in the one in the living room.

MEAL TIME

It would seem that feeding a group of cats should not be all that difficult. Just put down a few bowls of food and let them have a go at it. Not so. If there is one place where cats can best demonstrate their individuality, it's at the dinner table.

My own cats are a perfect example. Timmy would eat anything that wasn't nailed down, didn't care where he was fed, liked everything, and everything seemed to agree with him. Muffin was a little on the plump side, had a tendency to heavy tooth tarter, would not eat out of anything except one particular bowl, would not eat on the floor, would not eat when the other cats were around, and only liked a handful of the many foods I offered her over the years. Twinkle, was born with very few teeth, so she couldn't eat dry food very well. She ate at least six or seven times a day, and threws if the food was not warm.

Fortunately, I worked out a system. I fed Muffin on the kitchen window ledge and gave her dry food formulated for less active cats. If she chose to eat it after everyone else was finished eating, that was her choice. I gave Twinkle canned food and left the can covered and sitting on the stove so that the gas pilots kept it warm all day. Since I have almost always worked at home at least part of the time, I put a little more in her dish whenever she headed for the dish. If I put out all her food at once, Timmy would usually end up eating whatever she didn't eat at her first sitting. I fed him the regular diet dry food which I left out for him to nibble on throughout the day. Since it's on the floor, Muffin won't touch it.

Bob and Diane have eleven cats. Two have food allergies and one is diabetic. They feed their cats who require special diets in a separate location from the others. They never leave food out for snacking during the day and all their cats have learned that if they do not eat their food within thirty minutes that the bowls will mysteriously disappear and will not return for several hours. According to Diane, this scheduled feeding was very difficult for the cats to accept the first week they did it, but now after two years, their cats rarely voice any complaints. Bob makes sure they all get fed by rounding them up at meal times to the sound of a bell they are conditioned to respond to. This way, no one misses a meal because they were asleep or outside when dinner was served.

ATTENTION

The hardest thing to manage in a multi-cat household, is giving equal attention to all your feline family members. Can you ever really give them equal amounts of love and affection? Probably not all at one time or every single day. But, you can make sure that you talk to all of them every day and that you pet them and play with each of them every day.

I am on a daily routine with my cats. So is my friend Jill. We both make a habit of greeting our cats individually each morning, cuddling them, playing with them, checking them out to be sure they are not showing any signs of sickness or infirmity, and just enjoying their company. Jill goes through a similar routine each evening. With me working from home most of the time, I see my feline companions all the time since they usually hang out wherever I am. I pet them and talk to them as they walk across my desk or over my drawing board, busily checking out my progress. If I feel like one of them, usually Muffin, is not aggressively seeking my affection, I seek out that cat and make sure they get a good dose of cuddling.

Of course, the minute I sit down on the sofa each evening to relax, someone is going to get in my lap and stay there as long as they possibly can. It's first come, first served in that case. But, for those who end up on the back of the sofa, or on the seat beside me, I still manage to extend a hand to stroke them and scratch their chins. There can be an awful lot of love in a multi-cat household!