(08-21-2015, 01:51 PM)mabatbai Wrote: Hello! I was thinking about getting another cat(end of sept.). From a shelter of course. However the bigger shelter around here has an AOGO. And my sister would like to get one too. My dad wants to get two at one time since it is AOGO. We have one cat already and I don't want there to be a lot of more stress with TWO new cats instead of just one new cat. What do you guys think? One cat or two? Would getting two at one time be a lot more stress instead of one? I'd get adults too...
I don't know what AOGO is, so I can't respond to that, but I know that adding a new cat is stressful to the one being added, as well as to the ones you already have.
Adding two at a time could be a problem, I'm afraid, not so much for the ones you're adding since, if they are shelter cats, they are pretty much used to new faces. It could be a problem for your current cats, though.
Of course that depends on a lot of things. If your current cats also came from a shelter, it won't be the first time they've experienced a new cat.
I added a new cat, which had formerly been a feral that I had been feeding for years. I was moving, so we decided to take her with us. I had two cats who about twelve at the time, and who were sisters. That new cat lived to be more than twenty-two, and the sisters still treated her like an outsider. They did call a truce, however; I didn't have to deal with actual fights, but they were awfully rude to her. When I took her in, I didn't know she was pregnant, though. She had four beautiful kittens, one of which I kept, and the regular cats accepted her daughter as if she was their own. Much to the mom's discomfort, they helped raise that cat.
The two sisters are twenty-five now. About a year ago, we took in a kitten. The sisters were furious. They didn't try to harm her but they went out of their way to make sure that kitten couldn't be anywhere that they could reach without being hissed at. Fortunately for her, the old ones don't do a lot of high climbing anymore so the kitten claimed the upper grounds.
After a few months, the older ones accepted her, by degrees, and now they love her. One of the twenty-five year-olds has rediscovered play, as she plays with that younger cat all the time. They fight sometimes, but no more than the sisters fight with one another, and they mostly get along great.
