Can two male cats live in peace in one home?

[derrickthecat]

Recently a neighbour cat started stocking us. He appeared at the back door, watching and always being present. Our cat Derrick didn't like him and always fought. Both were wounded for months. (Both are fixed cats)

So we decided to change our attitude and "like" this cat. We let him come in and now the dislike of our cat Derrick was even stronger. But we like both cats, and welcome both. What to do?

 

[bastetservant]

Yes and no. I've had 2 male cats live in peace in the past. But one was willing to be submissive to the other.

The 2 neutered males I have now are often in conflict. But it is not very serious as they don't hurt each other. They get along most of the time and can often be found napping on the same bed, but not cuddling.

Still, their attitude keeps me from taking in another male cat.

Seems like a lot of people here have several male cats. Maybe it depends on what age they were when they were neutered. Or maybe it is all due to temperament or personality.

Neither of my boys will allow the other to be dominant. And they are very jealous of each other.

Really, the dominant cat at my house seems to be Lily - and she is under 8 lbs. It's all the power of her personality

I've read about ways to work on between cat aggression. I think it mostly involves getting them to associate positive things with each other (meals,treats,play,etc.).

Robin

 

[yosemite]

It shouldn't make a difference if they are both male as long as they are both neutered.

Often, it is a matter of introducing them properly. The link below will give you some information on how to do this. You may have to separate them and start all over from the beginning I would think.


http://www.thecatsite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=67321

 

[yayi]

I don't really agree about welcoming your neighbor's cat (or do you mean a neighborhood stray?) to avoid a fight between your Derrick and the cat. That cat is trespassing in Derrick's territory. I mean, does Derrick go off and pick fights?
I would continue discouraging the intruder from hanging around your property. Or if he is a stray, follow the advise in the mentioned link on introductions and adopt the newcomer.

 

[sk_pacer]

I have three neutered males in the house until it warms up, then two will go back out. I had no chance to do slow intros, Jack and Tippy just ran inside one bitterly cold day and that was that. Quite often, the boys and Blue are in a cat heap on the bed, but for some reason, Da Magpie loathes Tippy - no fighting, just noise, from her. Maybe he appears faceless to her as she has never seen a cat that wasn't something and white or his curled tail bothers her.....I dunno....but she loves Jack. I do NOT recommend throwing cats together but this was a bit different - they all knew each other through the open windows in summer, so this was just the next step in normal intros.

 

[gailc]

I have two neutered male cats.

Bender the newbie who we've had for two years is quite a dominant cat. Bakker never was that way. But they both are jealous of each others at times. But the sleep and play together. Bender would probably been a good one cat household but he appeared as a stray a couple of years ago. He doesn't get along with the two girls as well as Bakker has.

 

[ducman69]

Its usually the girls you hear about being more moody.

A self-respecting kitty, at least an adult one, is going to have their own territory though, so some stranger waltzing in is usually perceived as a threat whenever in doubt.

So with neutered males, no worries, but care needs to be taken with intros for any gender stranger.

 

[Winchester]

We had three males in the house at one time. Hydrox was our old guy. And then BooBoo and Spike were brothers....they got along well, but they were born together and grew up together. Spike went to the Bridge one week before their first birthday.

Several years ago, we decided to bring in Da-Pumpkin Boy. He was a little stray orange tiger kitten, about four months old, that DH found where he works. So he brought Pumpkin home, took him to the vet for a check-up and to get "de-balled". Pumpkin came home the next day.

We went through hell! (sorry) Pumpkin was a big kitten and, eventually, he would grow into a big cat. And we think BooBoo knew that. Plus BooBoo was domineering. He terrorized that boy and made his life terrible for months and months. It was that bad that the only time Pumpkin could actually play was when we were home to keep an eye on things. When we went to work, we would shut BooBoo, Whisper, and Ms. Pepe in the bedroom, and keep Bootser, Banshee, and Pumpkin in the rest of the house. At least that way, Pumpkin was able to have some peace. I would sit on the couch and cry because I didn't think it was ever going to work out.

And then one morning, I was in the computer room. Pumpkin raced back the hallway with BooBoo hot on his tail. Suddenly Pumpkin stopped dead, took a breath (I could actually hear him), turned around, reared up on his hind legs, and started to box BooBoo's ears! Boo was so surprised, he ran back out of the hallway. Once Pumpkin realized what he did, he went into the bedroom and hid under the bed for about an hour.

But you know what? That was that! From that point on, Boo left Pumpkin alone. We have pictures of them sitting side by side, looking out the glass doors in the kitchen. They were never buddies, but Boo learned to tolerate Pumpkin being around. And Pumpkin really didn't care one way or the other...he just wanted Boo to leave him alone.

Pumpkin developed leukemia when he was about 3 years old. And we lost our boy.

Meanwhile, we've never even tried to bring another male into the house. Always females and always little kittens. Boo is now the only male of our six cats and we think BooBoo enjoys "his" harem.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that, with a LOT of patience and a LOT of perserverance, maybe your two boys will eventually learn to tolerate each other. They may not ever be best friends, but they'll work it out.

 

[adymarie]

Of our 5 cats 4 are neutered males. All are strictly indoor cats. They all get along really well, except occcasionaly Brutus decides to do a "smack done" on the others. But he is an equal opportunity bully he also smack our female Ninja. It can work it just needs patience and supervision at the start.

Good luck

 

[forensic]

We have three neutered males, all indoors. They have spats, but it's all in play and they get on fine. Surprisingly the fully declawed cat (not by us, he came from the shelter that way) rules the roost over the two fully clawed cats.

 

[frankthetank]

We have 6 male cats, all indoor, all neutered. Aside from the fact that the two youngest chase one of the older boys and he doesn't like it, they all get along really really well. If you plan to welcome both cats into your home, you need to try slow introductions to get them used to each other. When we brought in our newest cats, we did slow introductions...in the beginning there was some hissing, chasing & mild "fighting" but nothing major and they all are happy. A lot of the times, 2 or 3 of the males will sleep near each other also. Good luck!

 

[kit e cat]

10 cats. 7 males. 3 females. 1 male lives exclusively in my bedroom because he's special

. One other male is on prozac daily because of spraying. Otherwise, everyone gets along just fine. The one who sprays never fought with any of the other cats, I suspect he started spraying because the neighbors (unneutered) cat was spraying the front door. I'm not saying they're all best friends, but they have their cliques, and they don't fight. Which is as good as it gets with a 10 cat household.

 

[nekochan]

I had 4 male cats in one home with no problems, I have 3 males and 2 females now but the males I have now are all from the same litter... One of my good friends also had 4 males, 2 were littermates but the other two were unrelated and they all got along fine.