Multi-cat households often experience chronic social stress that owners fail to recognise. Evidence-based resource management and conflict detection significantly improves welfare for cats living together.
Multi-cat households are one of the most significant and under-recognised sources of chronic welfare problems in companion animals. Domestic cats are territorial and many do not naturally affiliate with other cats, yet millions are kept in close proximity in shared spaces. Social stress between incompatible cats often manifests in subtle ways — covert aggression, resource blocking, and avoidance — that owners fail to recognise as indicators of welfare problems. Health consequences of chronic stress include feline idiopathic cystitis, reduced immune function, and overgrooming. Evidence-based management requires sufficient resources distributed in multiple locations, vertical space and refuges, and sometimes separation of genuinely incompatible individuals.