Do we really need to answer this question?
Unfortunately, we do. You may hear of the occasional crazy “hoarder” revealed on the news – people who live with a hundred cats hidden in their house (and hopefully nowhere near your neighborhood). Sadly for the cats, the m.o. of your cat lovin’, urine-smelling, disheveled animal hoarder is quite sad. Most hoarders are unmarried and live alone (and you thought it was hard to find a date with just two cats!). Hoarders also come in all different socioeconomic backgrounds and typically are over sixty years of age. To top it off, over three-fourths of hoarders are females, once again giving the single, white female a bad rep. In 69 percent of hoarding cases, animal urine and feces was found accumulated in living areas. If you think that’s bad, know that more than one in four hoarders’ bed are also soiled with animal crap - makes you not want to date and lie with one, I suppose. Sadly, 80 percent of reported cases had dead or sick animals present in the house, and 60 percent of the time hoarders didn’t acknowledge the problem. Finally, cats seem to be the overall species “loser” in these cases – over 65 percent of cases of animal hoarding involved cats, although some also hoard small dogs and rabbits.
While this book is unlikely to be in a hoarder’s library, we as veterinarians usually recommend no more than four to five cats. Sometimes I offend my fellow veterinarians, technicians, and friends when I tell them my cut-off for crazy is six cats. After that, you’re somewhat of a lunatic. Of course, if you ask ten different vets, you may get ten different answers. That said, until those nine other vets write an opinionated book about it, I still recommend no more than four or five cats per household. Animal behavior specialists often see more problems in multi-cat households. Having too many cats may result in urination problems (i.e., not in the litter box!), inter-cat fighting and attacking, and difficulty in monitoring general health. For example, checking the litter box to see if one cat has a urinary tract infection is more difficult when you have six cats. Second, though I love my house and my pets, I prefer not to have pee in the corners of my carpeted basement - but hey, that’s just me.
So how many cats should you get? I have to say that I enjoyed having a one cat household – Seamus was more friendly and affectionate to humans (more to the point, me!) as an only child. Since adopting Echo, I’ve seen less of Seamus. Now they just want to play together (constantly). I’ve been officially demoted to the source of food and to litter box duty. Now my two cats play, wrestle, and chase each other and generally prefer to do this around my head at three a.m. while I’m trying to sleep. The good news is that Seamus’ quality of life, social skills, and exercise level have improved. Unfortunately, I sleep less as a result. Luckily, I get my feline revenge by waking them up randomly at two p.m. (“Wakey, wakey!”) while they are resting in a sunbeam taking a catnap (“I’m sorry, were you sleeping?”). That said, two cats, one dog, and lots of backyard rabbits and birds are plenty for me in my 700-square-foot house…
Material from It's a Cat's World... You Just Live In It, available at Amazon.com. More information available at www.drjustinelee.com. Copyright © 2008 Justine Lee Veterinary Consulting, LLC.