Our best cats when I was a kid were the strays that came to our house and announced they were moving in. We usually had 3 cats at a time, with very low turnover. My first cat as an adult was a 3-year old stray in St. Louis who had been left behind when tenants moved out. It took a while to get him to trust me, but he'd come to my kitchen door every evening and let me clean up the fight wounds on his ears. I named him Nick, for Hemingway's Nick Adams.
He was a brawler, with a neck like a linebacker: shoulders attached directly to head. Testicles that would have fueled a midsized dog. He traded those in for a soft warm place and regular meals. We shared days for about 10 years, and he aged into a Jimmy Carter character--gracious, peaceable, a modest user of his authority. Nick had an unusually large vocabulary for a cat, and I miss our conversations.
Nick shared his life with Esme (named from Salinger), whom I also adopted in St. Louis, Alan Greenspan, whom I rescued from a bad home, Vip the crazy Vizsla puppy, and, after they moved in, my wife and her cats. One of her cats is a natural dominant, but he never fazed or ever really challenged Nick. Nick's authority was so natural that he felt no need to defend it.
I predict that your young cats will naturally bow to this big guy's status. If either of them is male, get him neutered before he gets any political ambitions and there won't be any challenges. Your big guy, with all he's experienced, will probably float above it all like Nick did.
Enjoy the family that is accreting around you. Best wishes to all.
Nice looking dessert in that other post, too!
