Can two females get along?

Recently I adopted a super playful , energetic , pretty easy going, well behaved awesome 8 year old. I'm also interested in adopting another female, she is 2 years old, in the shy side but very affectionate. I feed a feral male every night for about year and feel like girls would be less bothered by his presence than a male would. Also have always had girl cats and feel more comfortable with them. I hear 2 girls are much harder to get to get along. Is this always the case? Am I asking for trouble? I adore this cat and want to get her out of there. If it can't work though and worse case scenario have to separate them. I'm keeping the older one because she would have a harder time getting adopted and I've already built a relationship with her.

Unfortunately, most of the time 2 females will NOT be friends.

I found myself in the same position, although Krissy my first came to me when she was 4 hours old, and my love.

The love I have for her opened my eyes to the entire cat world and overpopulation, homeless, etc. so I started with homeless and tnr'ing, and started a non profit cat rescue group.

However, before I started the group, I regularly was and still do care for feral colonies in town who I have tnr'd.

That's when my Simone came to me.

She was so special, and I took her home, I loved her and was keeping her.

I found out the hard way about having 2 girls in the home..........................................!!

They are NOT friends and will never be. It literally took 2 years until they finally would even tolerate each other. What a nightmare.

They were tough, but it is very, very common in females.

Females dominate males, and want to be the top cat in the home, most girls have this, occasionally one will not, but don't hold your breath......nearly all of them have this doninant trait and it's in their genetics! No getting around it in other words.

I've found the same thing. Male cats can be great buddies, but with female cats the best you can hope for is that they tolerate each other. This is true even with mother/daughter or sisters.

That doesn't mean you should totally rule out adopting the second female cat though. You'll just have to go through a very slow and careful introduction and be prepared to give each cat her own room to prevent fighting.

Susy and The Mu were 1 and 3 years old when they first met. They hated each other for the first year, but they'll now share a sofa or my bed together. I wouldn't say they are friends, but they don't fight any more.

I'm not sure about this. I think it mostly comes down to individual personalities. I had an older female with a younger male and she disliked him. But then we got a young intact female and she was friendly with her. Especially after the young female had a litter of kittens the older female would check on her and keep the boy at bay. Now that I think of it, the younger female would rough-up the male and I think the older female got a kick out of that.

Thank you to everyone for sharing experiences. I adopted the younger girl cat . They both have URI. The adoption counselor told me I have to keep new one in separate room 2 weeks. They said to very slowly and gradually introduce them. When I let young one out to make sure older one is in a second room. They also want the new one to stay in own room in case she has something they didn't know about.
When time comes will felaway and soft paws help?

Feliiway definitely helps. Some cats seem to be affected by it more than others, but it helps calm them all down. I've heard that Composure treats are good too. I've never tried soft paws, but it's a good idea.

Congratulations on your new cat. I'm happy to hear she got a new home.

Good luck with the introductions. Keep us posted.

Thanks for all the answers. The younger new one seems extremely stressed. She hasn't eaten or drank anything 3.5 days. She Also has a bit of a URI. Just sneezes sometimes. I'm using a product similar to feliway, not sure if it's helping she will hiss at her is. Reflection. She's so sweet to me but will hiss at door if cat is near.

My Isla would hiss and screech if the others came anywhere near her. Ears down, the whole dramatic works. We thought the others were killing her, but no she was just a drama queen. We separated them for a week. Finally, we just put them all together and told her to deal with it. Took her a few months, but she is part of the family with no issues.


"I do not want to play now!"

 She and my other female play together sometimes and she grooms some of the boys at times. 

Congrats on the new kitty and good luck! 

Thank you cruisescouter for some hope.had more hope she new little one actually ate a little for first time.
This is getting more stressful worrying about her eating. The other plays harder than I have ever seen and must have swallowed a mouse tail. Older one has been dry heaving but was doing that before mouse tail went missing but seems like getting worse. Both have mild URI symptoms Older one has occasional sneezing so does little. Dr says wait 3 weeks for virus to run course. Maybe big mama has obstruction as well or needs antibiotics. call older big mama and young one lil mamA , because they Are nameless. Was hoping to wait to take older to vet but maybe have to doomed. She plays hard , eats well , but is obese and seems to have ongoing constipation problems. Little seems to hVe no issues but sneeze sometimes and anorexia probably from cold and anxiety .

Hope they feel better soon. I also did playtime together for a little bit each day after the sniffing under the door days, which helped. They need to determine who is dominant. Sometimes it could be worse to separate them so see how they might be together for little intervals. When I brought in Mr. Bobbins he would howl until I united him with the rest of the brood. (At that time we had Osha who was 1, Cleo 16 (RIP) and Charlie 15 (RIP))

You might need to try different foods. Our tuxedo boy gets "special" feedings because he is so persnickety about what and where he eats. Now he is back to his glorious man weight! 

 

cruisescouter thanks again for writing. So now the little ones cold has gotten worse, it's the same one they all had at the shelter. It was starting (the sneezing)before I adopted her. She was surrounded by sneezing sick cats so it was inevitable seems like. She is not handling the cold or her new living situation And new cat roommate as well as the older one did. I'm very impressed with how well the older one has handled the new cat with how terrified she is. The little one might need more help with the cold. She just not eating or drinking enough. Her eye is getting squinty with discharge and she seems to be having a harder time with congestion. The older one never lost her appetite too much so I was able to add a lot of extra water to her food . The younger one is more of a challenge not sure what to do. I used to syringe feed my last cat when she had lymphoma. Should I wait to do this for this cat?

I would think about a visit to the vet at this point and they might be able to get her an antibiotic to clear up the kitty cold. If you wait it could turn into something more severe.

I would also try a few different kinds of food, maybe ones with more sauce. If she is really bad get some Science diet AD and see if she will eat that, and if not water it down. A syringe would be the last resort. 

She needs to be healthy first and then you can work on the integration. Once then I would put them together and see what happens. As long as there is no blood all is good! I wish I had a video of Isla and how she reacted when it came to the others. It sounded like a full blown cat fight was going on, and it was just her screeching. 

cruisescouter A vet from shelter called me back and left a voicemail while I was at work and he said the type of illness all these cats are getting is viral and antibiotics won't necessarily help unless a secondary bacterial infection develops. He said that if she continues to not eat and drink then she may have to come back for a little stay until she gets better. I feel like that is going to be even more stressful for her. I almost want to just take her to my vet and run into a vet tech and they can give her fast fluids like theyve done for my old cat in past. Maybe I could syringe feed her a little baby food myself if it comes didn't to it or maybe a tech could do that too. Either way though it's a trip to vet. I feel like this is all too much for her right now and will slow down on opening the door for her until she actually asks me to. She never really wants to come out but gets too nervous with door open. now the other one wants to stay in a room too probably because she is not sure the other one is hiding somewhere. Now they both are scared of each other. The older cat has been amazing though, she's really handling this better than I thought. I feel so bad I did this to her and the other one.

I had always had a male and female cat Lily was my first cat I then got Merlin shortly after they had a great ten year relationship together until Lily passed away , about six month later I got Tallulah as a rescue kitten and Merlin loved her straight away they both had two and half year together then my lovely old boy Merlin passed away.

So Tallulah was on her own in October 2013 I wasn't planning to get her a new male companion until the following summer as I didn't want her to be on her own as she liked the company of another cat.

I had not thought of getting another she cat but when I saw Tippi at my friends cousins house I fell for her straight away she was so cute plus my friends cousin wanted me to have her for free as she knew I had just recently lost Merlin.

The introduction of Tallulah and Tippi went great just a bit of hissing from Tallulah on the first night but after that they made friends and get on really well together .

I actually like having two she cats now it's a quitter combination Merlin could be quite vocal , but Tippi is very quite in fact she doesn't make a noise , I can see Tallulah is the boss occasionally she bats Tippi round the head , but they groom each other sit and sleep together and play together.

They do have there own spots I've noticed which they tend to occupy throughout the day independently of each other and they seem to have worked out a rota to share me both tend to come to me individually for affection.

Before with a male and female they both wanted me at the same time.

This new relationship I've got with my girls I really like , of course I know I am lucky it's worked out , but I really like living with just girls now

I agree with @zoneout  that it's an individual personality thing. I have 2 females. They are definitely related, they look so much alike that I had to get 2 different colored collars to tell them apart at first . They were found together as strays where they were more than likely dumped or abandoned by a backyard breeder. I believe they are sisters but whether they are littermates or not is anyone's guess. 

Anyway, they get along fine. They play together, chase each other, wrestle, etc. Neither has ever used claws on the other and neither has ever bitten the other. I also believe that they care about each other. I was home one Monday afternoon after taking my daughter to a dr appt and they were both playing on the cat tree. Sophie was playing with one of the fuzzy toys that are on an elastic cord that hang from the platforms. Somehow, the cord got wrapped around her right front foot and she became scared and agitated within seconds. Lilith was on the platform across from her and saw this. She became upset as well, she arched her back and started hissing at her sister's "attacker". I heard her and thought they were squabbling until I walked over and saw that Sophie's foot was tangled in the cord. I grabbed the cord and pulled down on it to get some slack around her foot. Lilith's back was still arched and she was clearly very upset. Sophie was crying. I cut the cord and released her foot. She jumped down and ran to one of her hiding spots. As soon as her Sophie's foot was visibly free, Lilith immediately calmed down and she followed her sister. Fortunately, I was in the room with them about 4 feet away when she got tangled up so her foot was only wrapped up for about 30 seconds or so. After they calmed down, they were irritated at me for cutting the toy off the tree. 

Lilith was ready to do battle with that cord to protect her sister.   

If the vet says to wait it out then I would do so, but just make sure she is eating and drinking. Have you introduced them to each other yet? Usually the older cat has the issue. We tried to do the 5-10 minute introductions and it got up no where. You might want to just open up the home when you are home and let them sort out the issues for an hour or so. Baby steps! You will know the difference between a REAL issue and just them sorting issues. 

We introduced a female kitten to a nearly-1-year-old female cat and they're getting along fine (it did take a few days for the older one to accept the intruding ball of fur).

They play together, they eat together (though the youngest one does appear to be  a lot more protective of her food, but never with true signs of aggression), they groom each other, the oldest will always come and check it out when the youngest one is whining.

It's super cute, actually. The oldest one had an irritated eye not too long ago and really was not too pleased about that. The youngest noticed this and just spent 2 days constantly grooming the older one. And when the youngest one ate something bad and had to vomit a bit, the oldest one came to check up on her while she was vomiting in the litter box and started licking her.

So yea, it probably depends on the personalities of the cats in question, and possibly also the way they're introduced. This here is a picture of our cats about 6 days after first introducing them:

Wow those two are adorable! @chalupa  will you post your two ladies? I made this collage for my friend last night. Everyone except the white cat with big eyes on the far left are living with us now. Charlie passed a few years ago, but she wanted him included. 

Isla Birdie is the princess white cat with the black nose

Mr. Oliver Bobbins is the perfect tuxedo

Lady Osha is the happy playful girl

Professor Maxwell Leonardo underfoot is our newest addition and adores Mr. Bobbins.

cruisescouter said:

 
Isla Birdie is the princess white cat with the black nose

Mr. Oliver Bobbins is the perfect tuxedo

Lady Osha is the happy playful girl

Professor Maxwell Leonardo underfoot is our newest addition and adores Mr. Bobbins.

Click to expand...

Those are some impressive names, more like titles than names actually.

My colony cats are all called things like Grandma Fu,  Cousin Yuki or Great Aunt Molly. I liked to think of them as one big family of hill billies. 

I would get some L-Lysine for both of your cats. If the youngest won't eat or drink then see if you can assist feed her. If either of my cats go 24 hours without eating, they get the syringe.