Will An Outgoing Cat Become Shy Later?

[macncheeserocks]

Hi there! I am posting this for my aunt, who adopted a 2-year-old male cat about 7 months ago. The cat was calm and a bit shy. He enjoy's my aunt's petting but does not let her hold him for long (which is completely fine). I visited him a few times myself, and I noticed that he sometimes plays with rubber balls or plastic springs, but spent most of his time looking outside the window or napping. I definitely adore him! Anyhoo, my aunt adopted another 4-month kitten recently. The kitten is ... a kitten, I mean he is very energetic and outgoing, and he climbs on your shoulder after meeting you for 2 minutes. Now my aunt is bit worried that once she introduce the cats (probably after two weeks or so, they live in separate rooms now) and let them spend days and nights together, the outgoing kitten might be affected by the shy cat and lose his outgoing personality. She asked me about it, but unfortunately I just got my cat and do not have much experience to know about this. Anyone has similar situation? Will the kitten become shy as well since he lives with a shy cat?

 

[jen]

There is literally no way to do anything more than guess here. A cats behavior and attitude has so much to do with the environment in which they are raised. There are a million different factors, what one cat reacts negatively or positively to can be so drastically different even from littermates.

 

[FeebysOwner]

Hi. The outgoing kitty might not necessarily become shy, but if they get along very well, they might rely on each other a bit more than their human. But, you never know, it could go the other way too, and the outgoing kitty gets the shy kitty to be more outgoing - again, assuming they end up getting along very well. The younger kitty will also mellow with some age, making him seem more 'shy' in ways.

Bottom line, as stated above, you just never know!!

 

[sivyaleah]

Kittens are usually very outgoing in general so it's hard to tell what their eventual personality will be. And as each month goes by and the kitten gets older they will naturally start to become a bit calmer, especially once they are spayed/neutered. But they certainly will be rather high energy for at least a year or more.

Add in that it's normal for adult cats to spend more time napping than younger cats to it can appear that an older cat is less energetic than a younger one.

A 2 year old, however, really should be a lot more playful still. I wonder if your Aunt is spending time playing with her cat, giving him/her enough mental and physical stimulation. What you view as shy, might actually be boredom. Maybe the older cat needs some new toys, more playtime.

If anything, I'd think the kitten might perk the older cat up if they wind up getting along ok. The kitten is going to want to play ALL the time pretty much and if your Aunt isn't up to doing that, having another cat as a friend will be really helpful.

I know for us right now, we're making sure to give our new kitten a LOT of playtime because our older cat and her haven't become besties yet - they are still in the getting to know you stage - and the kitten needs to get that energy out of her so she doesn't overwhelm our older resident cat.