I am all in favour of having more than one cat. My Titti was 4 when we found an abandoned kitten, noone wanted him because he was black so we kept him. They lived together for 14 years and when she died he became quite depressed. Only a few months later we found a 4 month old kitten Maya and took her home. He hissed once (she did most of the hissing) but the following day I surprised them sleeping next to each other. She was a bit of a pest but that gave him a new lease of life.

Some time later my sister and her 2 male adult cats came to live with us for a while. One of them and my male cat disliked each other at first sight but after a couple of days decided to mostly ignore each other (there were a couple of fights but nothing serious, once I had the two of them and another on my lap simultaneously). Prema (a very young kitten who lost a leg in an accident) joined the group a year later, so for a while I had 5 of them in the house and to be really honest I had a lot more fun (especially at dinner time)than problems. They all had their preferences but if one of them wanted to play could always find someone willing to to do so (leaving my poor old one in peace if he wanted to sleep).

My sister was with us for well over a year and has since then moved and also adopted a young female. She also had no major problems with the introduction.

I always tried to have a couple of days at home when I introduced a new cat into the household so I could spend some time with them. I personally found that giving lots of attention and praise to the "first cats"(it's so easy to concentrate to much on the new addition especially if it's a young kitten) helped. Perhaps it's my imagination but this way they don't feel left out or that I care less about them.

I never regretted taking any of them in, especially because they were all badly in need of someone to love them, now I will never have less than 3. I hope this helps.

[ July 10, 2001: Message edited by: Gio ]