Hello r/pets! New to this subreddit, not new to taking care of animals. I’ve always had ‘em throughout my life and I love my babies, as I’m sure y’all love yours too and want to treat them with the most love and care possible. That being said, I’m looking for advice regarding my girlfriend and I moving in together and how to manage our pets together. I know this is a long post but I hope someone can help! She’s very concerned that it may not work given the different needs our pets have, and I hope there’s some other people out there who have had similar experience and can maybe share some advice! It’d be much appreciated.
She has 2 cats (Frank and Teddy) who are absolute angels. • Frank is literally one of the best cats I’ve met: sweet, never hisses even at other cats/animals/people, never scratches people, enjoys being picked up and loved, laid back, super neutral and loving grey tabby. One of his nicknames is “jesus cat” because there aren’t as many other cats out there that we’ve personally met that are like, as objectively good as him.
• Teddy is an orange tabby who’s more rambunctious and young, more playful, but significantly more snuggley and requires more attention in that respect as a great lap cat. Teddy also requires very expensive, completely grain free food (Nulo, he survived cancer as a kitten, there was trouble regulating his poo initially). They are both graze fed (a bowl left out with food in it at all times). Frank and Teddy play lots and get along amazingly.
My animals have a completely different situation, I have 2 cats (Oscar and Oliver) and 1 dog (Olivia).
• Oscar is an affectionate, fat, fluffy grey tabby who will overeat if not meal fed (my pets are fed once in the morning and once in the evening, about 12 hrs apart). He WILL try to eat other pet’s food if you don’t watch him. He always has an appetite, and has no “shut off valve” for when he’s full. He also had bad urinary crystals as a kitten, and after many vet visits had surgery to enlarge the urethra after prescription food wasn’t enough to help get rid of the crystals. I would prefer to keep him off of carpet because he tends to pee on carpet, regardless of how many solutions I try.
• Oliver is a quiet, lowkey, but loving black cat. He rarely finishes meals completely which makes me feel like he would prefer to be graze fed and may be better off that way, but I can’t do that because of Oscar’s overeating. Oliver’s never had health problems. Oscar and Oliver play with each other a lot and get along well.
• Olivia is an energetic, attention loving, relatively needy for a dog, small mutt (chihuahua/pom type mix, about 20lbs). She loves people and attention, but gets carried away and overexcited very easily. When she’s calm she’s a great lap dog and super snuggley, but can be a bit much other times. She also has a horrible habit of butting in when other pets are getting attention when she is not. Of course as a dog does, she always plays with the cat toys and they get promptly torn apart when the cats are not using them. Another great way to describe her would be “drama queen”, she has that sort of personality. She doesn’t bark or yap a lot, but she will whine sometimes if not getting the attention she wants (which is sometimes difficult to distinguish from her whine to go out). She could probably be graze fed as well, but again can’t because of Oscar’s overeating. She loves playing and running around outside, and sometimes Oscar and Oliver play with her, but mostly they just tolerate her. A few rare occasions I’ve seen them clean her.
My girlfriend and I both have our own 1 bedroom apartments currently, and are thinking about moving into a 2 or 3 bedroom house or apartment (preferably 3 bedroom for the extra room). Her main concerns are:
1) that her cats would have to be switched to meal fed after years of graze feeding and that they won’t adjust well 2) that her cats will have to compete for attention because of my more needy dog (Olivia responds well to commands, but it’s generally annoying that it has to be done in the first place) 3) there’d have to be 1-2 separate rooms for the cats to play in so that they’re not in danger of being torn up by Olivia 4) just generally the whole dynamic of making something like this work seems daunting and kinda intimidating
Any suggestions, advice, or input would help tons and thanks for reading this far!
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/emtnn8/girlfriend_has_2_cats_i_have_2_cats_1_dog_moving/
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