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I highly recommend adopting a brother and sister together whenever possible!

It’s fairly unusual, in my experience, for unrelated cats to become as close as littermates are. I’ve had it happen only twice. The first time was with Lil Miss Afraid (feral sister of Red #2) and a naturally nurturing boy named Jaspurr, who took her under his wing after Red #2 went to his new home. Those two were close until his death in 2009.

For the first time I had only one cat, Lil Miss. Fearing that she would lose her will to live without Jaspurr, I put out the word that I could adopt a male rescue cat. Unfortunately the first cat that needed rescuing was a female, and as it turned out, Lil Miss and Arie-L could NOT get along.

So I kept looking for a suitable male cat and soon found Oliver. He was a victim of the 2008 mortgage crisis. His family had to move without him, so they rehomed him with the neighbor, Fran.

However, Fran was allergic to cats so Oliver had to live outside, much to his displeasure. It soon became clear that he needed a proper home that would allow him to be indoors, and that’s how Oliver came to live with me, Lil Miss, and Arie-L.

He didn’t get along with either of my girl kitties. That was odd, because I could tell he was practically the reincarnation of Jaspurr. He had the same nurturing streak.

This proved 100% right when I adopted Izzy a few years later. I already had my customary 3 cats and didn’t want to upset the balance that had always worked so well — 2 girls and 1 boy. But these 3 were always at each other’s throats. When I saw Izzy in the cage at a local cat shelter, my heart melted. She was dancing around, a tiny thing only 12 weeks old. The instant I held her she snuggled in under my chin. Was this what we needed to bring harmony?

I brought Izzy home and kept her sequestered in my bedroom for a several weeks before introducing her to the other cats. First, I brought in Oliver. He, normally so sweet, hissed loudly at the kitten and scared her. She got the same aggressive reception when meeting Arie-L and Lil Miss.

However, after that bad first meeting, Oliver did take Izzy under his wing. She won him over easily. Lil Miss and Arie-L eventually accepted her too. But a year or so later Lil Miss went to be with Jaspurr under the big maple tree. My original bonded pair…

Just before she passed, I wound up adopting Hans-L and Gret-L, who had been rescued with their sister Casper and then abandoned. I nursed them back to health for 2 months while fully believing I would find them a new home. If not, I would have 6 cats and that was a big number to me.

I eventually caved because I’m such a sucker for bonded pairs, and the kittens were so respectful of the other cats when I finally brought them from the porch room to live in “the big house.” Hans-L immediately became submissive to Oliver, who really wasn’t that much of an alpha cat anyway. They got along from the start. Gret-L was practically a reincarnation of Lil Miss, which was funny, considering that Hans-L looked identical to Lil Miss’s brother, Red #2.

The photo here shows how interchangeable bonded pairs can be. Unrelated males getting along so well is an especially beautiful thing to witness in the pet world, and does my heart good.

To be continued…