I have a nearly 4 year old neutered female cat. I have been thinking about adopting another cat, but I fear they won’t get along. Current cat is not really social, rarely likes being touched, instead requires attention: playtime, being near (but far enough), etc.
What are your experiences with second cats? Are there age / gender combinations which are the safest?
Edit: thanks for all the replies! Forgot to mention that she is an indoor cat.
There are already some super valuable comments on here, and I’m half commenting as a way to save this thread for myself for later.
I wanted to say that for adopting a kitten, the current recommendation is to adopt two kittens to avoid “single kitten syndrome” (aka an unruly/loud/needy cat.)
Which was not something I knew of ~12 years ago when I got my single cat as a kitten. And she is very needy and very loud (less annoying in older age but still.)
However, I haven’t adopted a second cat to be her friend because we also now have a high energy dog and another new animal would just be too much for us.
When it’s time for our next cat, my plan is to go to the shelter and sit down in the cat room and take home whoever curls up in my lap first (current kitty prefers “proximity snuggles” to true snuggling.) So probably adopting an older cat rather than a kitten. And probably also sticking with just one unless the shelter says the kitty has bonded with a friend (and adopting a bonded pair would be amazing.)
But if we ever get kittens again, I’ll definitely get two. Better off letting them terrorize each other in the middle of the night rather than me 😁