Last week, a good friend of mine had to put down his 19-year old calico cat. He knows his other tortoiseshell cat is mourning, but doesn’t know how to help her handle her grief. Adopt another cat immediately? Spend extra time with her? Pretend everything’s okay?
He asked for my advice, but I’m at a loss as to anything helpful…
Spend extra time with. That’d be my choice. But you don’t say whether tortie is young or old, and that matters. If she’s young, I probably get another. If she’s old, I would not, and just go the “extra time” route.
Here’s how one turtle handled it.
The surviving cat is 8… so sort of middle-aged.
I would definitely get another cat. My pug, Georgia, was born into a houseful of pugs. She loved ruling the roost and dominating the whole lot of them. Most were sold and we had to put down her mother and aunt, meaning she went from top dog to only dog. She nearly grieved herself to death and drove us nuts, wanting constant attention. So…several months later, we brought home Grace, the half-Rottie, half-pit, rescued from a dog-fighting ring. Georgia instantly had a purpose again, and Grace (50 lbs.) doesn’t believe she can go outside without Georgia (17 lbs.). She might get lost or something.
When Lenny died, Squiggy was pretty forlorn. I had to spend extra time with him. What brought a tear to my eye was that I was only putting down one bowl of food, Squiggy’s, and rather than gobble everything up like usual, he was leaving food for Lenny. For awhile, I had to keep putting Lenny’s food bowl down too, so Squiggy would eat his full meal.
It took a couple of months for Squiggy to get used to being the only cat. He’s pretty much back to his usual self, but a slightly ballsier version because he’s figured out he must be the boss cat now.
When I was growing up, we always got another cat fairly soon so that the survivor wouldn’t be lonely. If there isn’t someone in the house all day, it can get pretty quiet for a lone cat who’s been used to having a friend around.
Two of my cats (Buttercup and Cutie) were constant companions. They’d play-fight and make out all the time. When Cutie got diabetes and was put down, Buttercup spend weeks wandering the house meowing for him. We just spent more time with her, cuddled her, etc. until she realised that humans were her only companions.