LaPerm

Every morning Martha, a stately Maine coon mix, sashayed across the breakfast table and made a beeline for her favorite windowsill, shedding cat hair into the butter and flinging litter granules from her long furry tail along the way. When Mitch noticed clay particles floating in his coffee mug for the third morning in a row, he erupted. “No more cats on the kitchen table!” he bellowed-and Martha seemed to get the message. But by 7:30 the next morning, Martha’s march began anew. Short of barring her from the kitchen, Mitch wondered how he could put an end to Martha’s “surface shenanigans.”

There are benefits to having two cats, but they apply only when the two cats are well matched and have enough physical space to live together comfortably. One benefit is that the two cats provide each other with exercise, social interaction, and other forms of mental stimulation. Cats housed together have more opportunity to “be cats” by socializing and playing with each other, and this means they are less likely to be destructive or engage in other problematic behavior. For example, some single cats annoy their owners by trying to wake them during the night for play. Two cats might still wake the owner by tearing around the home, but at least the owner isn’t getting up out of bed to entertain the cat. Another benefit of two cats is that they are sometimes cleaner than a cat living by itself. Cats will groom each other’s ears and coat, often getting at places the cat can’t reach on its own!