When I was a kid I had a cat and a dog who ignored each other. If you put them next to each other face to face they would simply turn their heads and each would pretend the other didn’t exsist.
Now I saw the thread where the could were cuddling each other, or sleeping in a great big ball of cat.
So the question to cat owners who have multiple cats, do you have cats that just ignore each other. I don’t mean ones that hate each other but just pretend like the other cat doesn’t matter.
Just like Humans, but not quite.
Pack mentality, you’re all part of the same family/pack. But you’re lower on the totem pole, you’re a beta.
Nowhere to go, no chance to leave. You can either fight constantly, and get hurt and in trouble with the alphas (your humans), or you can ignore the fuck out of each other.
Now only if we humans could teach squabling siblings how to do this trick.
Our cats are now ignorers, with the occasional squabble thrown in for good measure.
Interestingly, I find that every time we move, they get more tolerant of each other. When we first brought Her into His house, they HATED each other. Lots of hissing, spitting, yowling and grappling. A year later (still seeing the same behavior), we moved into a new place and suddenly it was more tolerant, but only about halfway to peaceful. They began to tolerate lying on opposite diagonal corners of the queen sized bed at the same time by engaging a very strong SEP field and Ignore filters. Still some hissing and swat or two, but no more yowling or grappling. In our third apartment together, they’ll sometimes lie so close that the tips of their tails touch! No cute cuddly cat pile, but also maybe one hissing episode a *month *now. I figure one more move and they’ll be bffs.
Our cats are ignore/spat cats as well. Two tomcats, one is nine years older than the other. Last night, though, they were both sleeping next to me on the couch and as they squirmed and got comfy they actually ended up entangling their back paws and tails, until the younger one figured it out and fastidiously curled up into a smaller ball. Silly cats. I’m thinking of trying some Feliway to see if I can get them to be a little more interactive.
My older cat, Ariel, has been a cranky old fart for as long as we’ve had her. She barely tolerates us, and that’s mostly because we’re the Providers of Food… on a good day, she might deign to sit on someone’s lap for about 5 minutes, but that’s the most affection she can manage to show for any living creature.
We weren’t all that surprised that she didn’t take too well to Morgan when we first brought her home. It took the better part of a year to get them to coexist peacefully, which seems to involve mostly ignoring each other (though they will occasionally play-fight and chase each other around the house for fun). Ariel won’t tolerate contact from Morgan beyond a quick lick on the face.
Thankfully Morgan is both incredibly affectionate and astoundingly tolerant (and also more than a little bit stupid), so she doesn’t seem to mind one bit. She constantly cuddles with us, and I’m sure that if we were to add another cat to the household who was a cuddler, she’d happily contribute to kitty piles.
We have many cats. They interact with each other in pairs, that is, groups of exactly two. We never see three or more interacting. If two are interacting and a third moves in, one of the original two will move out.
Of all the possible pairings, what we see most often is occasional mild acknowledgement, typically sniffing noses, usually with a somewhat raised tail (which is a friendly sign). A few of the pairs will curl up together to sleep, especially when it’s chilly. Sometimes we see squabbles, occasionally vigorous and noisy fights. We rarely see them walk past one another in apparent mutual ignorance.
I used to have two cats that had a 6-year age difference. They never played together or groomed each other or had anything to do with each other, other than eating the same food and using the same litter box. The kitten liked to sleep in one of the closets. When he was six, he got cancer, and eventually died. The older cat would sit outside that closet, just staring inside, apparently waiting for the kitten to come out. I had no idea he even cared about the kitten. A few months later, he died too.
I have four cats. Only one (Isabel) will snuggle with two of the others, but the fourth is left out.
Hanna and Isabel. Manny and Isabel. Manny and Hanna do not snuggle with each other, but they don’t totally ignore each other. Abby, my fourth cat, ignores all the rest.
The dog ignores the cats totally. Isabel loves him. She tries to snuggle with him, but to him, cats don’t exist.
We got Josie the kitten partly so that our other cat Freckles would have a companion. It didn’t work out as planned. Josie wants to play with Freckles and is constantly attacking her; Freckles responds by growling, hissing and then trying to pretend she isn’t there. I feel sorry for both of them.
I had a feeling Freckles wasn’t going to take well to a kitten. We hoped her mothering instinct would kick in eventually, but it doesn’t look like it will ever happen.
I have two boy cats, about 8 months apart. We got Mischief because Gary didn’t like to be alone, and we spend a weekend a month or so away. It worked out great. The first night Mischief came home, there was some squabbling, but once Gary had established who was boss, they fell asleep together, and they’ve been BFFs ever since. They play together, sleep together, and occasionally get sufficiently into grooming each other that we joke about having the world’s gayest cats. Seriously, there are times that they are straight-up making out. I tell them to get a room. 
Our two cats . . . well. My cat is an ignorer. He doesn’t like other animals, but he won’t go out of his way to pick fights, and he’s got no objection to curling up on opposite ends of the couch. He just pretty much pretends the other cat’s not there.
My husband’s cat is a playful bastard; if my crochety boy was less crochety, there would probably be catpiles and cuddling and so on. Husband’s cat will try to play with mine, who isn’t really clear on the concept. My cat will take a swipe at him and then flee to higher ground, and that’s about the extent of their interaction.
