Not As A Affectionate Once There Was A Second Cat

Hey All,

First ill give the

TL;DR:

Adopted two cats at the same time but they didnt know each other. 3 years old and 8 months old at the time. 3 year old was classified as a "Personal Assistant" by the shelter meaning he wants to be around you no matter what you are doing. Was true when we first brought him home but once the 8 month old came out of her shell he stopped being a "Personal Assistant" we would like this behavior to come back. What can we try?

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New to the forum and have an issue that me an my wife are kind of at a loss on how to try and fix it. This is going to be a longer post so strap in.

Back in February my Wife and I decide to adopt, long story short we came home with two cats. Finn a brown tabby who is about 3.5 years old now and Marcelline who is a grey tabby who just turned 1 last week.

Finn attracted us because in his profile provided by the shelter he was called a "Personal Assistant" which meant he wanted to be around you no matter what you were doing. We found this to be true, he acclimated very quickly to the new home and I remember the 2nd or 3rd night after we brought them home I was sitting in my recliner on my laptop and he just kept going from armrest to armrest all up in my business and it was great!

Marcelline was much harder to bring around. We separated her from her sisters and she had ALOT of separation anxiety. The shelter required that she be adopted with another cat because of her timidness. The first week we had her she refused to eat and we had to syringe feed her. Being that this was the first cats my wife and I have ever owned on our own this was very hard for all of us. We had Marcy secluded to the bathroom so she could hopefully become more comfortable. One night we had the bathroom door open and she say Finn and her whole demeanor changed. She actually came out of her hidey hole on her own and slowly started to explore. We were ecstatic to say the least.

Anyways introductions start to happen and she tries to be friendly with finn and rub up on him and he hisses at her (which is the only time we have ever heard him hiss, he is a very very mild mannered cat) and we reprimanded him for it (by clapping loudly) because we just wanted her to come out of her shell and start eating. We think this may have been a mistake.

Ok so flash forward 4 months to now. Marcy loves us and is super cuddly. She sleeps between me and my wife and loves hogging the bed. The cats seem to get along together, she likes to cuddle with him and he lets her. They groom each other and play fight and there is never any hissing or growling or anything. This all sounds great right! well here comes our issue.

Ever since Marcy started coming around and out of her bathroom Finn is no longer this "Personal Assistant" He has never liked being held or picked up so we try to never do that, but now he never gets up in our business like we would like. We want him around and want him to follow us around. Now he does hide or anything like that, and he lets us pet him, but he is not nearly as affectionate as when we first brought him home. The shelter said he was great with other cats and what have you so its frustrating.

Part of the issue we think is Marcy was very used to rubbing up on her sisters (as we call what she does "Shoulder checking" because she is trying to rub on finn it looks like she is shoulder checking him) Finn absolutely hates this. He will nip at her head to try and get her to stop, and I have to tell her to leave him alone, especially when its wet food feeding time because she tries to rub on him alot and it clearly bothers him. She also tends to bully him out of his resting spots. Like if he is in the window perch she will go lay with him or start "playing" because she knows he will get up and leave. And she does this to him alot. We feel like we made a huge mistake by not letting him hiss at her.

Like I said they seem to get along great otherwise. They will chase each other around the apartment a couple times a day sometimes with him starting it. She will pounce on his tail and after she does he likes to flick it around to try and entice her to keep doing it.

So my question is, is there anything we can do to try and get that "Personal Assistant" back?

Ive also attached some pictures of them together.

I want to add since I cannot edit my post. We think we messed up by not letting him hiss because we feel like he won't stand up for himself now so she walks all over him. And this is what we would like to change. How do we get him to stand up for himself so he hopefully goes back to the way he was.

Hello and welcome to TCS.
Finn and Marcy are adorable, and look like they are best buds.

Sorry you've lost your "personal assistant", but having your cats get along so well, is a very good thing, as cats that don't get along, can develop behavioral issues, which you do not want.

Here's an article on 14 Cat Experts Reveal: How To Get A Cat To Like Me which might have some tips on how to get Finn to pay more attention to you.

Wow, adorable pictures! Your cats look like they really love each other, I (and I'm sure a lot of other people here!) wish my cats would be best buds like yours are, you're super fortunate.

Honestly I'm not sure if your two issues are correlated. I don't think Finn not standing up for himself would make him less attached to you. In fact I've found that telling a cat not to hiss doesn't actually make the cat not hiss -- it makes the cat not hiss when you're around. If Finn was genuinely irritated with Marcy, he definitely wouldn't be as snuggly and playful with her like you're saying!

I'm experiencing the same thing -- my cat, also named Finn, was so, so attached to me before I got my kitten Anya. He'd follow me around, always want to be on me, he was like my shadow. After I got the kitten, he's still friendly but he's much more aloof and not as clingy. I miss having a cat who loves climbing all over me, but I think getting him a friend has made him more confident and less desperate for my attention. You might just not be your cat's only friend anymore, which is great! Your cat is happy, which is never a bad thing You could always try to have special play sessions with Finn or do some other fun activity like training him or walking him outside on the harness if you feel like you're not getting enough time with your buddy.

rubysmama Thank you for the link I will definitely do some reading on that!

littlecatt Thank you for your reply. I never thought of it that way. I guess we really are blessed to have cats that get along as well as these two, considering that hadn't met before we adopted them. And that's a really interesting way to look at it. That now that he has a friend he doesn't have that constant need for attention. He is pretty confident and outgoing as he is the first to explore when we brought him home and when we had to board them recently he was the one who left their condo to explore when the staff allowed him too. But again thank you, it makes us feel better thinking about it that way. Because he does seem happy. He is always out and about, when he's not sleeping his tale is always up and pointed towards him in the friendly position. So like you said although he may not be up in our business as we would like he does seem very happy.

We have 3 cats, Sinbad, Tempest and Belit. We initially adopted 2, Sinbad and Tempest. But decided for various reasons to get a third later on.

Sinbad took to me right away. Literally the day after we brought him home, he curled up on me while I was sleeping and he was inseparable after that. Followed me around the house, slept with me at night, etc. Then we brought Belit home.

He took to her right away. THey were cuddling and grooming each other within a week. BUT he was no longer affectionate with me. He stopped sleeping with me at night and when I napped, and didn't follow me around nay more. I was very sad. My poor husband had to deal with me moping about it all the time. I missed my snugglebeast.

It took about a year, but he did eventually return to his adorable affectionate self. So have hope! I think it just takes time for the cat to return to full confidence.

We got our first cat at 12 weeks and he was all over us between kitten enthusiasm and "aggression" and just loving being loved. After 2 months or so, we got the second cat and the first guy was both more affectionate to us but also very focused on the intruder. He's just gotten over the invasion after about 10 to 12 months.

It is still a similar pattern thought - still very affectionate and attentive until the other guy catches his interest.

He's got a new playmate. When the new cat smell wears off he should come back to you a little. Probably not the same as before though.

Exact same thing happened to me. When we got Maggie, Demi became obsessed with his new sister. He wants to be with her all the time. He loves having a buddy. But if he thinks I'm doing something exciting, he'll come back over to me. You just have to find out what interests him and steal his attention back.