Solitary cats?

Question
Hi,

We have a 3 year old male cat whom we adopted around 9 months old. When we got him from the rescue we were told that he is a "single" cat and doesn't get along well with others. He even had a bio sister at the shelter but they couldn't go together because he was just too anti-cat-social. (He is NOT anti-people-social. He's often very lap-catty and he always has to know what's going on with us, following us around etc.) That "single-cat" order was and is fine with us and we don't actively desire another pet. But when we got him, someone was home with him pretty much all day every day for the first two years. Then we left him in our house with a lovely cat-sitter for two months while we went overseas. He was incredibly traumatized by our leaving and 9 months later is still much more agitated, nervous than he used to be. And now both of us work full-time. We are still home with him quite often but there are days he's alone 8+ hours at a time. Which makes me wonder if he wouldn't like company from another cat. Sometimes I think that would make his alone-days nicer but also if and when we have to leave him for longish periods of times again, might make him feel less abandoned.

But maybe that's stupid. Are there cats who just simply hate all other cats? I obviously don't want to traumatize him MORE by bringing him a "friend" and I don't want to traumatize another cat by having our cat beat up on him. And I don't want either of them peeing to mark their territory (which our cat did all summer while we were gone, but has since stopped). Is there a way to find out if he might like a kitty-friend?

Thanks!
Megan

Answer
Megan,

Yes, there are cats that just do not tolerate other cats.  However, his problem may or may not be that he hates other cats, but that his early life experience was traumatic and he associates the trauma with his siblings. This can be a problem for rescue kitties.

I expect, he looks at you as surrogate parents and not being with him for protracted periods of time may cause symptoms of separation anxiety. It is not clear that a companion cat would help or hinder these symptoms.  I would not worry about the 8 hours plus situation as cats tend to sleep a lot when nothing is going on.  It may be leaving a TV or radio on all the time may be all he needs for the daily separations.

If you want to try another cat, it would have to be a kitten and the kitten would have to be introduced properly, even so, your established cat might not accept the kitten and his behavior towards you could change.  Normally, cats do not exhibit human emotions, but jealously seems to be something humans and cats have in common.  If you did try a kitten and, after many months it did not work out, now what?

If you are interested in a cat introduction protocol, please let me know.

Best regards... Norm.