Hello bengals lovers !! I need your opinion and feedback, my bengals Calvin and Hobbes are amazing I love them, they are about 8 months old now and seem very relaxed compared to what you read about. my work is starting to pick up quite abit. I’m worried that they won’t get enough attention. I’m not the type of person to keep the pets and be selfish when someone could give them a better living experience.

My work schedule has been more demanding then I expected, in case this happened I wanted to have 2 of them to keep each other company so they wouldn’t get behavior problems

Roughly On average I’m going to be gone from 11am-10pm some days might be home sooner but on average I want to assume I’ll be gone for this time for the sake of your opinion.

since I’ve been gone majority of the day I want to give them attention. I have been playing with them abit when I get home to make sure they feel loved then I got straight to bed.

My work does calm down after the summer and Will have a more flexible schedule and will be home more.

My solution to this is

1. Buy a cat wheel to give them more exercise and something to do while I’m gone
2. Take them for a quick walk in the morning and in the evening when I get home.
3. Play with them longer at night to tucker them out
4. Also thought of those new like video chat treat toy machines lol

I’m open to suggestions and want to do what’s best for Calvin and Hobbes, I don’t want to be selfish and keep them just to have them, if it’s better to give them to a family I will.

Would love to hear your feedback and experiences and questions for me!

Thank you

Hi there and welcome to the forum. It sounds like you've given this a fair bit of thought.
Have Calvin and Hobbs given you any indication that they are suffering with you being gone for 11 hours a day? Any behavioural issues? Aggressive tendencies? Odd behaviour when you're home?
If not, you could be worrying over nothing. They have each other for company and will be sleeping for at least some part of the time you are at work.

So long as you have plenty of things to stimulate them while you're gone they should, in theory, be fine. I'd be more worried if there was only one left at home for that long.

All of your solutions seem great - do all of them
Also, if you don't already have them, make sure you have at least a couple of tall cat trees for them to play on.

I just bought a cat wheel for Bryan last month (took me a while to cave and buy one because they're quite expensive in Australia - $425 with shipping). Only took him 3 days to start using it without needing to be "treated". He loves it and now uses it every day. It's somewhat amusing on occasions though as he will sit on it and cry until I go and watch him use it - like a child saying "look at what I can do Mum". He does use it without us watching though as I hear him on it when I'm elsewhere in the house.
Another option if you're really worried could be to get a friend, family member or cat sitter to pop in and play with them during their "active" times - if you know when that is.
I'm assuming you have an automatic cat feeder or free feed them dry food during this time too?

If you are truly in love with them and they don't seem to be suffering, I don't see any reason to re-home them.

I agree with Tracy. It doesn't seem to be a problem now, and doesn't really have to be in the future. You're not gone that many more hours than I am. Really, I think the only question is whether you are committed to keeping them. If you are waffling now, and think you may be waffling in the future, whether it's because of guilt or because you need to focus on other things in your life, or for whatever other reason, then it's probably best to rehome them now, while they're young. I think the most important thing for them is having someone who will commit 100% to them through thick and thin, especially in their adult and senior years, much more so than someone who has a few more hours of free time throughout the week.

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The little monsters 3

My job has very irregular/long hours as well. I can be gone from 7 a.m. till 8 p.m. 2 or 3 days a week. When Diablo was my only baby, I felt guilty, like you, and he would be so hyper when I arrived home. I decided to add Star to our family, in order to keep him company and busy during the day. For us, it was the perfect solution and has worked like a charm!

I can be off work for 4- 5 days. So, I just make sure to give them as much love and attention as I possibly can when I am home. We are like the three musketeers!

Thank you so much for the replies ! Just wanted to make sure I wasn’t the only one, I’ll be taking care of them no matter what, I think it was just the guilt. They do have each other and they play a lot, when they play I never noticed it’s abit aggressive. Not sure if that’s normally they are cats with fangs and claws lol, making a habit of trimming there nails so there not sharp and won’t hurt each other while “playing” thanks for all the feedback!

Come on now. Really? There is absolutely NO reason to think you have to give your bengals away! For goodness sakes!!! You have two of them and they will keep each other company. You have offered great suggestions yourself, so do them. A cat wheel can be great, except mine wants to use it at 2 a.m. The only problem with walking them is if you do them together, they will go off in different directions with you in the middle. Play with them extensively as much as you can! I worked a job with a bengal -- I was gone 11 hours a day and had absolutely NO issues whatsoever! Now I'm retired and home all the time and still no problems. Please don't overthink your situation. Calvin and Hobbes will be JUST FINE! Trust me!