Life With Two Cats

August 8, 2017

I’ve officially made it – I have become a crazy cat lady. So I thought for International Cat Day, I would write a little post about our life now we have a new fur baby.

If you know me personally, you’ll know that I have already been a crazy cat lady since the day we brought Simba home – to me, he has been like a fluffy child – but now, I feel like being 27 with two cats has definitely reached a new level of craziness…

Jordan and I had been toying with the idea of adopting another cat for a while, but we had never found the right time to do some research into what we wanted and what would be best for Simba.

After we moved out of my parents with him, I felt as though our house would definitely benefit from more cat toys all over the floor, double the cost in cat food, and bits of litter strewn all over the carpet… I kid… but I definitely thought that a little brother or sister for Simba would be a welcome addition to our little family.

If you know anything about cats, you will probably know that they are quite volatile animals. Simba has been the only cat for the last three years, and at times can come across as quite spoilt (yes, I’m still talking about my cat…) but he can also be the sweetest and cuddliest boy when he wants to be. He can be an affectionate cat, but always on his terms, but he always likes to be close to us and runs to the door when we get home, which I find quite sweet.

With me having a few days off between finishing my last job and starting my new one, we thought that this would be the perfect time to get him a sibling. When I was coming up to the end of my notice, I started getting in touch with local animal shelters to see if they had any kittens that needed rehoming. We decided to get a kitten instead of an older cat after speaking to vet who advised that this would be the best route to go down.

In my head, I thought that an older boy cat would get on better with a girl kitten, but apparently, this isn’t the case; if anything, boys will get on better with boy kittens. I contacted the RSPCA in Macclesfield who said that they didn’t have any kittens in their branch, but one of their volunteers had just taken in a litter of kittens which had three left, but they hadn’t been to have their injections yet.

I spoke to the volunteer on the phone in the morning, and when Jordan had finished work, we drove over to her house to meet the little bundles of joy. I found this way so much easier to do because going into an actual animal sanctuary would have been too hard for me and I definitely would have left with more than one.

We met the three kittens, who were all adorable and so playful when we arrived. The volunteer told us that she wasn’t sure which were girls, and which were boys because they hadn’t been to the vet, which the centre had warned us about. We had to make a really hard decision as to which one to take, but there was one in particular who had been clambering all over us since we arrived, so we chose that one.

The car journey back was quite hard because there were lots of cries coming from the carrier and we had to pull over a couple of times to open it. From the squeals being quite high pitched, we assumed that it was a female kitten, and chose the name Luna when we got home.

We had made up our spare room for the new arrival, equipped with new blankets, a new bed, boxes (if you have a cat, you’ll know) fresh litter and lots of new toys for the little angel. We kept Simba completely separate and took it, in turn, to sit with the kitten, whilst the other entertained our resident cat.

One afternoon, I took Luna to the vets myself, to be told that we had, in fact, adopted a male kitten, which took me by surprise, as I had it in my head that he was a girl – but after speaking to Jordan, we decided to keep the name – plus, I’m claiming that it’s short for Lunatic, which he definitely can be…

 

Simba was intrigued as to what was behind the door, but he mostly got on with his normal perusal of the house, plus Luna was quite a quiet kitten, which helped. We swapped their blankets and toys over the course of 3-4 days so the scents could mix, and fed them on either side of the door – all of which we had read on various different websites. We also took Luna out of the room he was kept in and let Simba roam around it so he would recognise the scent of his new brother.

After a weekend of leaving Luna for longer periods of time by himself to play, we thought it was about time to introduce the two. If you are ever going to be introducing two cats, make sure that you do as much research as possible, but also have in the back of your head that every experience will be different.

Luckily (I say that flippantly…) our shower door came off when we moved in, and we had it lying about in the garage to eventually get put back on, but it came in handy for their first meeting. I’d read a lot of things saying that if there’s hissing and swiping from the resident cat that it’s completely normal because they see the kitten as an ‘intruder’ to their space, but Simba was more intrigued by him: We were also worried that Luna would be scared of him because he’s such a big cat but he just wanted to meet him properly.

After a few more meetings through the shower door, we let them meet face to face by holding Luna and letting Simba sniff him. They were really good together and didn’t hiss or fight and just wanted to get to know each other, which was the biggest weight off my shoulders ever because it could have gone completely the other way.

For the first few days of having them together, I spent a lot of time with them both in the house to make sure there were no fights, and on the first few days of me going back to work, we kept them separate until we got home.

Over the first weekend of them having met, we decided to take the plunge and leave them in the house alone to do whatever they pleased and have done ever since. Although we have no idea what goes on when we’re not there, they are usually asleep on the bed together when we get in.

Simba has always been a chilled cat, but Luna definitely keeps him on his toes (or paws…) and they play a lot together, which makes my heart melt because it’s so cute! There have been a few times when we’ve had to separate them because Luna has so much energy and Simba just likes to relax now and again, but apart from that, they’ve really got on well and even groom each other when they get up in the morning. They have very different personalities, but I think that is why they have got on so well.

If you’re ever going to introduce two cats, my advice would be to a) make sure the first cat is up to date with their injections b) do some research into what would be best for that particular breed c) read up as much as you possibly can.

And obviously, have as much fun as you can with it. It can be stressful at first, but getting a second cat was such a good decision and I am so happy we went through with it!

xx

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One response to “Life With Two Cats”

  1. I missed this post! Aw how cute, I'm glad the little fur babies are getting along. Luna is such a cutie (Simba is cute but spoilt haha) xxx

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