IMHO young, active cats should always come at least in pairs. They are usually each others' favorite toy!
Make sure that you can afford medical care for two cats, though. For a kitten, that usually means multiple visits to the vet for shots and dewormings, plus or minus ear mite treatments, flea meds, etc, followed by spaying or neutering at six months old. If you're going to get a cat declawed, better to do it at the same anesthesia. (If a cat will have a happy healthy home for twenty years if it's declawed and won't if it isn't, I'm happy to declaw; too many unwanted cats getting euthanized to not fill every spot possible!) We use a fentanyl pain patch and a laser surgical unit, so they're not painful when declawed, but doing it right like that is more expensive too....
When you introduce them, put the new cat in one room with the door shut for a while, and let them hear and smell each other under the door without actually seeing each other for a couple days. Feed the old cat treats outside the new cat's door to make for happy associations. Then swap them for a little while, so the new cat can check out the place unmolested and the old one can check out the new one's scent etc. Swap them back overnight, and when you finally make the full introduction have a broom or big fluffy towel handy just in *case* you do have to break up a fight.
That said, most of the time cats figure out how to at least tolerate each other and at best play-fight joyfully!
I have three cats, plus one dog who's smaller than two of the cats, and the biggest, the 'first-born', has made it clear he thinks we're about a tenth of a pet too many at this point, but they all get along pretty well. ;-) |
