Friends and foes

We are quite a peaceful lot most of the time, unless one gets into the other’s space and then well, ahem, we are famous for what are known as cat fights. While some of us get on famously, sometimes it is quite a task for a human to get two cats to like each other. Humans wonder why do some cats get along well together while others do not? To find an answer to this question, it is helpful to know something about our natural inclinations toward each other. Well, we are not, by nature, as sociable as dogs are. When resources are in short supply, as they are in the jungle, most cats have learnt to get by pretty much on their own and can do that without anybody else’s help. We cats can just sit there and look at each other sometimes even from a distance and that kind of socialising is fine for us. It totally explains what sociability in cats is like. It has been seen that in cat homes and sanctuaries where each cat is provided enough food and space, more than 50 cats can live in harmony, generally, with each doing his or her own thing, with the occasional fight or friendly moods in turn. It has been observed by cat experts that generally the females share hunting while the males look after a territory where the females live and eat out of the hunted food as their salary for guarding them from other male cats coming into their area. Sometimes there is a leader cat that everyone follows for instructions. The leader may have the best spot for sleeping or soaking up the sun — away from strange-cat-attacks, bad weather and from where you can have some fun like spotting birds or smelling some delicious food being cooked in a nearby kitchen. This favourite spot can be shared with a cat friend, not an enemy. That is a simple picture of a cat society. Just like humans, in this kind of cat community, some cats prefer to hang out with other cats, some don’t, while others are loners. Friends show their affection for each other in many little ways, such as smelling each other and rubbing their heads and bodies, or grooming each other and curling up together. People enjoy us so much that when they have only one cat, they assume that the addition of any other cat will provide more joy and also provide companionship for a single cat. Sometimes when two or three cats get along well together, it is assumed that a third cat will cause no trouble. The truth is that some cats are better kept as only cats. A group of cat friends can turn onto a war zone by just one new cat. When introducing a new cat, it should only be done gradually, first from behind closed doors but some cats will never get along. When cats are introduced, many will initially show some aloofness or hate toward each other. There may be growling and hissing, after a couple of months, things get better. We may get on just fine or even enjoy each other’s company. We may fight, but can later begin to tolerate each other. But if we choose to fight, we may have decided to always hate each other. In that case our humans need to make sure that fun things happen when the two cats are together side by side, if at all possible. Separate the cats and reintroduce them slowly, over months if necessary, in pleasant situations like feeding and playing or if nothing else works, find a home for one of the cats. As you may have guessed, it is not always possible to get two cats to live together without aggression, but you must never have imagined that cats are so similar to human beings.