Hi everyone,
Please find below a guest from Sabine a German friends of ours. 🙂
I’m Sabine from Germany. First of all I want to say that my english is not perfect so sorry for that 🙂
We have three cats :
Linus, male cat born 09.01.2005 Karthäuser mix dark grey
Ewa Magic, female cat born 30.05.2011 BSH lilac cream
Merlin, male cat born 30.05.2011 BSH (birth name Emmerson Lake) lilac
Ewa and Merlin are siblings.
When I met my boyfriend Mark in 2010 he already had Linus living with him when I moved in. After a while of time we thought that it could be better for Linus to give him a best budy so he is not so alone when we are at work. Linus was a very smooth and gentle male cat, so we decided that a BSH would be the best choice. We found the Breeder `cuddlyking`and visited them to look at the new kittens.
When we arrived there was a little male cat, Emmerson Lake (now Merlin) which came to me, lay down in my arms and took a nap. So it was definitely clear…this is Linus new Buddy. We gave him the name Merlin because his fur is like the beard of Merlin the magician. The breeder told us that Merlin has a special connection to his sister Ewa Magic. We should get to know that when we wanted to take Merlin with us home.
We placed the Box in the Living room and cuddled all the other kitten…but Ewa was missing. When the breeder wanted to take Merlin to the box we saw that Ewa was sitting IN the box, and every try to remove her ended in crying so sadly. She did not want to leave her brother!
So it was a fact that we would take both!
When we came home Linus looked at the Box and was not really amused about the new guests.
In the beginning there was a lot of hissing and growling but that’s kind of normal. Merlin resits these attacks but Ewa was so scared that Linus had found a victim…. We tried everything …giving treats together…playing together … but nothing changed Linus opinion that Ewa is not welcome. He attacked her everytime he saw her. There were so many fights and we did not know what to do. We wer totally overwhelmed what to do because Linus behavior was so different from the cat that we knew.
Our dream of a perfect family with 3 satisfied cats was destroyed. We could not sleep a single night because we were scared about new attacks.
Then there was a TV show in german TV it is called `3 Engel für Tiere` . In this show they presented problematic animal households and they tried to help. so I sent an email desperate as I was. And a female psychologist for cats answered that she would come and try to help us.
She looked after us for a year with clicker training, new come together, therapy and so on….but in the end nothing changed Linus opinion. He simply does not like Ewa. He attacks her everytime he sees her.
So we had to make a decision…. One of them had to find a new home or we divide our apartment in 2 territories. And so we did. Additionally we built an exploring cage outside to make them feel more comfortable by exploring Gras and birds in a safe environment. We did not want to give somebody away.
Sometimes it is a little bit exhausting for us because you always have to be carefull if the door is closed so Ewa and Linus do not meet each other …but …ok everybody feels comfy with the situation. Merlin and Ewa cuddle and groom each other so nobody is alone.
Linus simply is a human cat. He does not like other cats so much. Only Mark and me. He feels comfy with lying on our chests, talking to us and getting some cuddles. When he was a kitten he was in a bad household he had flees and was in a bad condition until Mark rescued him. He loves humans. He never learned Cat talk between cats. After that long journey about some years we know all that.
What I want to say is, that it is so important to think over what kind of cat do I have. So many come togetheres are going wrong because the humans do not know the real needs of their cats.
Puhhh…such a long text … did not know that when I started to write.
Actually I wanted to say that Linus looks like a twin of that dark grey cat on the table of a berlin cat café. But I hope you all enjoyed the story.
I have not done multi-cat households. But it’s amusing to hear how they work or how you make them work with success! Cheers,H
🙂 yes but this one was an especially amazing story
Maybe Linus would have been happier on his own with his humans and plenty of toys and different things to keep him amused during the day.
Possibly but at least this way everyone got to stay. 🙂
Well done to you for coming up with a solution!
Thanks on behalf of our guest author ^^
what a stunning story and such gorgeous cats! and such a kind solution to the problem. amazing. heartwarming.
Thank you on behalf of our guest author 🙂
Thank you for sharing your cats’ stories. It is too bad they can not communicate their needs to us. Sometimes our needs and our independent gentle cats are not the same! We found that out!
Yes if only they could tell us. 🙁
It’s so sad that Linus didn’t like Ewa. He found his household disrupted. But at least you found a good compromise. I found my TinyAnnie would prefer to be only cat but I already adopted what I hope would be her buddy. They are friends now but I should have left well enough alone.
Yes our guest author did well in making it work! Hope your two will get on well.
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