Gay couple's cat changed loyalty from one to the other and the loser is bummed

One member of a gay couple is bummed out because one of their cats has change loyalties from him to his partner. He doesn't know why. There was a time when this cat spent a lot of time sitting on his lap and snuggling up to him when he went to bed. He greet him when he came back from work. At that time his boyfriend wasn't living with him and when his boyfriend (BF) tried to curl up with this cat, the cat rejected the BF and went back to him.

Gay couple's cat changed loyalty from one to the other and the loser is bummed. Image: MikeB

Now his boyfriend is living with him things have changed and the reason is this in my view. He says that:

"My boyfriend doesn't work from home, but works substantially less than I do, so he's home all day with them and I'm home in the evenings."

That must be the reason, surely? His boyfriend now lives with him and is at home a lot more than he is and therefore he has the time to bond with this cat who has changed loyalties.

I don't think that there can be any other reasonable reason. They share the work in terms of maintaining the cat so there's no big difference there. The difference is in the amount of contact with this cat. This is obviously vital to forming a trusting relationship.

He did nothing wrong. It is just that cats take a somewhat mercenary approach to whom they appear to be friends with. I don't think it is so much about friendship but about the cat getting what they can out of the relationship which means sitting on the boyfriend's lap and keeping warm. And the reassurances of a cuddle. And being fed when asked. All these interactions add up to bond building.

And while that is being created, it is bound to loosen the bond between him which existed before his boyfriend moved in.

On that basis, the lesson of the story is that you can't really create a great friendship and relationship with a cat companion if you are out at work all day and then after work you go to the pub for a drink and come home at 10 o'clock in the evening. That's just not going to work in my opinion.

In fact, it will stress out the cat if there is nobody else living in the property. They'll be alone all the time. That's bound to be stressful. I can remember my ex-wife doing exactly that. When we were married, we had two cats and I took the female and she took the male on divorce which was a bad idea-in retrospect. I think one of us (me!) should have taken both of them as they were siblings and they got along.

She lived in a flat and she was the kind of person who would go out in the evening drinking and smoking. She'd leave the boy cat in her flat all day and all evening until late I suspect. Pretty bad. She wondered why he defecated on her bed! No surprise there. He was stressed and he was scent marking to try and reassure himself. Her bed was a 'scent soaker' in Jackson Galaxy's words. It smelt of her. That was the place to deposit his faeces as it merged their scents.

It is common sense but you have got to be around and I don't think a domestic cat should be left alone for more than half a day at a time which is a tough rule I agree but it doesn't work properly unless you are there for them.