Bosco is the youngest addition to our ménagerie. I had wanted to get a black male while Tootsie and Thalia were still young enough to accept another cat. I couldn’t find the right one. In my search, I discovered Bengals and it was love at first sight. Bosco, a young male with a laid-back disposition arrived at the end of May 2023 at the age of 7 months.
Already then, he was bigger than the other two who regarded him with a certain amount of wariness. Within a week, Thalia was comfortable enough to be in the same space without having a hissy fit. Tootsie on the other hand spent some time several weeks being an equal opportunity hisser.
”Hissing and growling is normal,” said Pau, the breeder. “Just make sure that they don’t get into a real fight, otherwise the bad memory will stay and you will have to start all over again.”
And so, I put my peace-building skills into practice, monitoring interactions and intervening when things seemed to escalate beyond the acceptable.
After two months, things are entering into a phase of normalisation. The cats have redefined their spaces to allow the other cat in and tensions have subsided considerably.
Every now and then, Bosco tries to charge Tootsie for fun - particularly when she is contemplating the garden from behind the curtain - and gets hissed at. And every now and then, Tootsie takes a swipe at Bosco when she walks by or simply hisses at both cats, but overall the cats tolerate each other. One day they will play together - patience, patience, patience. They will do it when they are ready for it, not when I want it to happen.
Life lesson: You don’t need to love each other to be in the same space.
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