Understanding our cats: Friend or foe

There has always been debate about multi-cat households; some feel they are good (‘after all, cats need company’) and some bad (‘cats walk alone!’) So what is the truth behind keeping cats in groups? Top cat behaviourist Vicky Halls explains.

Let’s begin by learning from the wild.  Cats have historically been described as asocial (antisocial) creatures, but more recent studies of feral free-living groups h

They are indeed social creatures that can develop close bonds with each other, despite having no biological need to develop social relationships to survive.  Feral colonies, formed predominantly of related females and their offspring, congregate in areas where humans have created plentiful opportunities to eat.  The amount of food available and the quantity and quality of other significant resources in the area will greatly influence the size of the group that forms.

It is important to remember that the capacity to be social is a relatively recent development in evolutionary terms so it is not inevitable that all cats will love each other.  In order to achieve harmony, the environment and social circumstances have to be just right. Even established groups actively resist intrusions from outsiders, using feline communication (scent, vocal and postural) largely aimed at avoiding strangers and maintaining a safe distance.

Complex relationships

Relationships within groups that have been studied are complex, with stronger bonds between some cats and less direct social contact with others – this may in part be influenced by how related they are, their age and their gender, for example.  Within each colony subgroups of two or more cats exist that spend a lot of time together and show genuine signs of friendship.  They rub and groom each other, enabling the scent of the two cats to be mixed and the communal odour of the colony to be maintained. It is this recognised group scent that binds them together.  The females cooperatively rear the kittens in the colony and, as the males reach adolescence, they normally leave or remain on the outskirts of the group.  Fighting is rare within a colony unless the resources are scarce.

However, these cats develop neither a social survival strategy nor a pack mentality and they continue to be self-reliant, solitary hunters.  It is important for us to remember that some cats choose social contact with their own kind, many will avoid it (given the choice), all cats are capable of living alone and most cats will adapt to a solitary existence.

Happy housemates?

So how can we learn from our understanding about social life in a colony and apply it to our own multi-cat households, full of companion cats rather than ferals?

We selectively breed for individuals that are social with humans and more likely to be tolerant of their own species, however, this alone is insufficient to guarantee harmony.  We still need to fulfil fundamental criteria that mimic more closely what might occur naturally, that is, two family members brought up together in an environment that contains resources that are sufficiently plentiful to avoid competition, and where the population of ‘outsider’ cats is low within the territory and surrounding area. If this is taken as the basic building block of a functional and content multi-cat household then you can, in theory, add a series of ‘risk factors’ that increase the likelihood of problems occurring at some stage.

Risk factors:

The following are elements that could jeopardise a harmonious household:

• Selecting incompatible family members (for example: pairing a highly confident and assertive individual with a shy and timid sibling)
• Selecting more than two family members, putting pressure on the environment to meet their needs for resources (these include feeding and watering areas, beds, litter trays, high perches, scratch posts, hidden locations and entry/exit points)
• Selecting non-family members that have not been brought up together
• Adding to an established group by introducing a new cat or kitten (the more this is done, the higher the risk factor)
• Choosing to have multiple cats in an area already densely populated with cats
• Keeping cats indoors with brief supervised access outdoors
• Keeping cats indoors exclusively
• Having insufficient resources creating a sense of scarcity and the need for competition.

What does it look when it all goes wrong?

Most multi-cat households are exposed to at least one, if not more, of these risk factors and yet often the impact remains unrecognised. The group is often judged to be content because the cats don’t fight and ‘appear perfectly happy.’ This is where, you could argue, the self-reliant nature of the cat doesn’t act in its favour, as humans just don’t see or appreciate the subtle signs of stress in one or more of their cats.  These include, but are not limited to, the following:

•    Feigned sleep – resting as if asleep to avoid facing the consequences of any interaction
•    Hiding for the same reason, to escape conflict and danger
•    Dependency on owners or withdrawal (dependent on personality type) as a consequence of the anxiety caused by social tension      between cats
•    Defensive aggression towards people or cats due to a state of constant arousal in anticipation of an attack
•    Extreme vigilance and heightened startle response, for the same reason
•    Lack of play behaviour – leisure activities are out when a cat feels in danger
•    Lip licking (tongue to nose) and exaggerated swallowing – a big giveaway that the cat is not as relaxed as you might think
•    Excessive facial rubbing to attempt to self-comfort in difficult social situations
•    Excessive scratching on furniture and other surfaces as a marking behaviour and signal to others
•    Displacement activity (repetitive out-of-context behaviour, such as over-grooming) in an attempt to self-soothe
•    Redirected aggression – fighting with an ‘innocent victim’ when the true source of danger is out of reach
•    Ambivalent behaviour (approaching/withdraw, conflicting signals occurring almost simultaneously), the message here being that    the cat is in a state of complete emotional confusion
•    Urine marking (spraying), a means of communicating to others to avoid contact and a behaviour that appears to have a calming      effect on the sprayer
•    Urine or faeces deposited in unacceptable locations in the house – stress is often associated with elimination in places other        than acceptable latrine sites.

• < Prev
• Next >