ArtsAutosBooksBusinessEducationEntertainmentFamilyFashionFoodGamesGenderHealthHolidaysHomeHubPagesPersonal FinancePetsPoliticsReligionSportsTechnologyTravel

Multiple Cat: My Experience

Updated on July 28, 2013
Jasmine trying to remove Christmas collar. She hated it, I took it off.
Jasmine trying to remove Christmas collar. She hated it, I took it off. | Source

Multiple Cat Household

To write this basically I have to tell the story chronologically because, as each of 8 cats was introduced into my household, things happened. My first two cats were tiny kittens we got in a dollar store. Seriously. Two teenager were carrying around two tiny kittens and they came up to us and asked if we would take them; their mother wouldn't keep them. I knew if I didn't get them hydrated and warmed and stop the teenagers from constantly handling them they would die. The kittens were only about two-three weeks old. These were my first rescued kitten orphans but fortunately a friend who was an expert was visiting and coached me. Jasmine and Jasper got the best of care and my husband and I decided to keep them. [I hadn't rescued cats before because I used to have an allergic reaction to them - but with these two babies, the reaction wasn't there].

Jasper and Jasmine had different personalities even though their looks were almost identical. The main difference was that Jasper was more curious and observed my husband up close and personal when he was doing something in the house. We live on a busy street, that and the many other arguments for keeping cats inside resulted in us keeping them exclusively indoors.

Losing Jasper

We both cried and cried. We were on a trip and the house sitter was careless and left the back door open and Jasper got out. In no time, his curiosity took him into the road where he was hit and killed. What happened next would affect the future of our household. Jasmine became timid and afraid....not afraid of us but if a noise startled her when we were petting her, we had to be careful she didn't dig in with claws and fly away, leaving us with scratches. It became a priority never to traumatize Jasmine again. I continued to foster kittens and she was fine with them, not afraid, not irritable.

Lydia Joins Jasmine

Lydia half grown with foster
Lydia half grown with foster | Source
Lydia half grown with Jasmine
Lydia half grown with Jasmine | Source

Lydia

The first litter I had after Jasper's death, was a iitter of five found by the lake. Five is no minor challenge,...they looked healthy but were only three weeks old....it would take me forty five minutes to bottle feed the five....and then three hours later it was start all over again. Two were almost identical but Lydia had a spot on her nose.....sure enough she was the hardest to bottle feed....she stopped and started....and the only thing that seemed to work is if I looked her directly in the eye every time I fed her. For some strange reason, she was the last in the litter. All others were adopted. Now she is a gorgeous long hair cat who I adopted originally to keep Jasmine company. To this day she remembers the bottle feeding and wants eye contact when she sits on my lap.

Now We Become a Multiple Cat Household

Zeke 3 weeks
Zeke 3 weeks | Source

Zeke

Age seems to make a big difference in dominance. My first two cats are large females. When Zeke came into the household he was 2 weeks old. My older cats always understood that kittens were babies and fragile and so treated them very carefully. Jasmine and Lydia would also let the kitten get away with things that adult fosters couldn't do like cuddling up to them or sharing the food bowl. So Zeke was easily accepted and within a year was the largest cat in the house. He too was very accepting of kittens and really adult fosters too.

Boarding Cats Adopted

Max and Fiona in Living Room
Max and Fiona in Living Room | Source

Really a Multiple Cat Household: Boarding Cats Adopted

When I adopted my two boarding cats....they didn't know the other three cats because they had been kept separate. They were both really nice cats aged 4 and 6. They had lived with me for two years and the owner still hadn't decided what to do. I told her it was a time for them to have a permanent home so she surrendered them to me.

Once introduced into the household, there was never any testing of position on the part of Max, he just accepted Zeke as the dominate male. In fact, Max has such a mellow personality he has never had any friction with any cat. He's confident and stands up to other cats but has never done any fighting. My second boarding cat Fiona was a whole different story. She exuded insecurity and started to get picked on some by Zeke and Jasmine. By picked on I don't mean fights...they would bat at her or chase her some. It wasn't anything serious except I did not want her to get more insecure and develop neurotic behaviors.

So we needed to open up space so the cats could spread out. I had learned this from Jackson Galaxy on his show "My Cat From Hell." Making more space could mean shelves and it worked great.

Shelves to Open Up Space

Shelves to Make Space
Shelves to Make Space | Source

Settling In

Soon Fiona had her own spaces she claimed. She took the desk in the front bedroom. And I always fed her there. Her favorite space was next to me on the couch where I worked on the computer. Soon no other cat bothered her and once in awhile she even got sassy with some.

Max on the other had felt comfortable any where, window sill, cat tree, on the bed in spare bedroom. He particularly like laying on my husband's legs when he was in the recliner. There was never any tension between him and the other male, Zeke. They more or less ignored each other and there wasn't any dominance issue.

Multipy Multiple Cat

Darcy and Blaze
Darcy and Blaze | Source

Multiple Cat Household: 7 Cats

I am not sure of the exact timing of this. But I had fostered Blaze, the beautiful red swirled tabby from three months of age. Unfortunately at that age he was quite feral. In the picture above you see the bars of a cat condo. That's how badly he would show at adoption events, huddled in a corner afraid. I used to have to corner him and grab him to go in a carrier to adoption events. He never tried to scratch or bite but no one at events wanted a scared cat. This went on for most of a year. I told the rescue, enough.....he is happy at my house....he gets along with all the other cats...he is no trouble ....let me adopt him. Lydia and Jasmine both treated him like a kitten and liked him. And well the dominant male Zeke who was huge by this time became his best big brother.

Blaze Fitting in Multiple Cat Household

On left, Zeke, on right, Blaze
On left, Zeke, on right, Blaze | Source

Darcy Makes 7

Meanwhile there was a large male black cat in another foster home. He had a very rough beginning with us.....he was living feral at a farm, about 12 weeks old, being fed.....we were unable to catch him. The farmer caught him 1 week later but not until he been attacked by another cat and had a bad head would. The wound would heal but the kitten had to be kept in a condo in seclusion in case he had contracted rabies from the bite. His was name Darcy and he was quarantined for a month, then given all his shots and neutered. After this experience he was more afraid of people than ever. For four months he hid from the foster family except to eat in the kitchen twice a day. After eating, he would be gone upstairs hiding.

I asked the rescue if I could work with him since he was making no progress and I worked at home all day and had the time. So the cat was moved to my house. For months he hid under the bed, sticking his body half way out to eat. He never bothered the other cats and quickly made friends with Blaze, my other semi-feral cat.

While both these male cats have made great progress in accepting affection from me and my husband, even seeking it out, their basic personalities have remained timid. I think it would be very tricky to have three large males in a multiple cat household but it works in mine because the two younger males are timid. I do not foresee that they will ever challenge Zeke's dominance and I believe they will always see Lydia and Jasmine as mother figures. One really happy thing that happened, is that Max the mellow cat, brings them out to wrestle in the living room. Also both Blaze and Darcy now sit on the couch with me and let me pet them.

Darcy Makes Friends

Blaze and Darcy, on cat tree, if I had tried to touch them they would have been gone and hidden again
Blaze and Darcy, on cat tree, if I had tried to touch them they would have been gone and hidden again | Source

Last But Not Least

Truth be told some cats cannot integrate into a multiple cat household. Here is Cio Cio the last addition to my household. See my other hub about her and aggression: http://hildaspann.hubpages.com/hub/Cat-Aggression-My-Experience

Cio Cio San came to me at about 7 months of age...she had lived and fended for herself at all of 5 pounds for three months out of doors dealing with other strays. She learned that if she acted nasty and aggressive that usually the big old cat ran away. Interesting that it was confident Zeke, who decided to make friends and started asking to go into my bedroom where I kept Cio Cio secluded. I tried her in the general population but she picked on Jasmine, my first and most neurotic cat who didn't need the hassle. So I bring her out in the population but only if she is tethered or if she is in the thundershirt.

We Were Lucky: Multiple Cat House

I don't recommend anyone taking on 8 cats unless you are dealing with sibling groups or have a really large house with separate areas for groups of cats. One of the things that made things work in my situation, was that the cats coming in were less than a year old and came in one at a time. They were perceived by the older cats as kittens and not a threat. Also it was fortunate that the second, third, and fourth male cat were not dominant in any way. In addition I was fortunate with my first male, Zeke. His dominance is based on confidence not aggression. He really has no need to posture or prove himself. I believe that if his dominance was based on any sense of threat there would have been constant conflict in my household.

Can't Integrate Last Cat

Cio Cio not integrated
Cio Cio not integrated | Source
working

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy

Show Details
Necessary
HubPages Device IDThis is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons.
LoginThis is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service.
Google RecaptchaThis is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy)
AkismetThis is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Traffic PixelThis is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized.
Amazon Web ServicesThis is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy)
CloudflareThis is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy)
Google Hosted LibrariesJavascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy)
Features
Google Custom SearchThis is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy)
Google MapsSome articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
Google ChartsThis is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)
Google AdSense Host APIThis service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Google YouTubeSome articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
VimeoSome articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
PaypalThis is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook LoginYou can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
MavenThis supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)
Marketing
Google AdSenseThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Google DoubleClickGoogle provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Index ExchangeThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
SovrnThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook AdsThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Unified Ad MarketplaceThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
AppNexusThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
OpenxThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Rubicon ProjectThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
TripleLiftThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Say MediaWe partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy)
Remarketing PixelsWe may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.
Conversion Tracking PixelsWe may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.
Statistics
Author Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)
ComscoreComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Tracking PixelSome articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)
ClickscoThis is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy)