Each situation is different so I'll answer according to my personal preference and experience.
If I were to get another bengal, I'd get it sooner rather than later. It would be easier to socialise them both while young, as opposed to having an older cat, set in it's ways, habbits, territory etc. We have four bengals, all share the same dad, the silvers have one mum, the browns another mum. They were in separate cages at the breeders, but when we put the deposit down they were already 16 weeks old, and the breeder put them all in one cage together until we picked them up a month later. Consequently, they are all happy together today, they eat, groom, sleep, play, fight together, with no real problems to speak of.
How much extra work? Well, it's twice the vets bills, you'll have to keep two eyes on them, instead of just one, you might get through scratching posts a little faster, and of course food, but really, the biggest change is going from 0 to 1, once you have 1, x more is just the same stuff, just slightly more often and more cost. As for playing, two cats plus a dog, (maybe depending on involvement) would probably play with eachother and keep themselves amused mostly. Our four are nuts, borderline insane, but that's exactly what we expected and planned for. If one or two of ours doesn't want to play, they'll just jump on one of the 10 cat shelves or two cat trees and watch his brothers.
The dog part, I wouldn't worry about. We are socialising our four with my mothers poodle, and so far it's all good, mind, Titan weighs more than the poodle. Cats and dogs will do either one of three things, 1) fight. 2) be neutral. 3) be best friends. It sounds as though your dog is placid and accepting the bengal, so I'd like to think that's a good sign if you decided to add another bengal to the mix. If indeed you feel you need to.
|