While Bengals are their own breed of cat, there are no breed-specific reasons why Bengals won’t get along with other cats in your home. Like any other domestic cat, Bengals have playful temperaments and make great companions. However, it is important to introduce any new cats in a calm and controlled manner to promote proper and safe socialization between animals.
That’s a quick answer to the question, “do Bengal cats get along with other cats”, but what if you’d like to find out more? The rest of this article will detail how to properly introduce a new Bengal cat to your household!
Introducing Cats
Cats are creatures of habit. You likely already know this if you have a cat at home, but they don’t think too highly of change or inconsistencies! Keeping this in mind, bringing a new cat into your home is a huge disruption for the cat (or cats) you already have. So how can we smooth out this transition?
Personal Space
It’s important to let each cat have space to adjust. When your new kitty arrives at your home, keep the new and existing cats separated for a few days. They can still smell and hear each other in separate rooms, providing a slow and tempered introduction between the cats.
Any cats already living in the home have time to adjust to the idea that someone else will be joining the family while still providing them with a safe area away from the new cat, so they aren’t overwhelmed. The new cat is also given time to adjust to a new space, and keeping them in one room at a time lessens feelings of environmental stress.
You can also exchange the cat’s places to introduce them further. For example, if your new cat is temporarily staying in the bathroom with your existing cat running around the house, let your new cat into the home while your resident cat stays in the bathroom. This way, they have more exposure to each other’s scent and more opportunities to get used to the idea of another cat.
Supervised Visits
Once the cats are not reacting negatively to each other’s presence in separate rooms, you can begin the process of introducing them face to face. However, it’s important to keep these interactions controlled and positive, so you want to bring your cats together in a way that facilitates ending the interaction if it starts to go south!
You can accomplish this with cat carriers. Place one cat in the carrier and place the carrier in a room with the other cat. This way, the cats can see and smell each other more closely, but they don’t feel too exposed or threatened, as they are still physically separated. Like the room idea, you can switch which cat is in the carrier and try the exercise multiple times.
Keep these exercises brief at the beginning, and be generous with rewards! You want to keep the socialization positive for both cats so they come around to each other more quickly and easily.
If the cats react very negatively or become too stressed, take it a step back and return to keeping them in separate rooms a bit longer.
Living Together
If you’ve followed the steps up to this point and your cats aren’t stressed to be together, you can let them be in the same room without a physical barrier as long as they are supervised. However, it’s important to remember that until you are certain your cats are going to get along, you should not leave them together unsupervised.
At this stage, some disagreements are still likely. However, if your cats aren’t getting along, you should break up any altercations and separate the cats until they’ve cooled down. As with the previous step, if the face-to-face meetings aren’t going well, dial things back a bit and try again.
Two of Everything
Cats are territorial creatures, so they don’t really like to share! When you have multiple cats at home, it’s important to have multiples of all your cat supplies as well. Cats should be fed in separate dishes and have their own scratching posts and hiding spots. In the early stages, it may be beneficial to feed your cats in separate rooms to prevent disagreements over food.
As far as litter boxes go, I’d recommend one box per cat plus one extra—if you have two cats, this means three boxes. This helps prevent any litter box issues that may crop up from dirty boxes, territorial disputes, or overcrowding.
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