The information below is to help you care for your cat. Anyone is welcome to submit an article for publication on the site after it is reviewed by my staff. Use the Contact page to submit your article/s. Of course proper credit goes to the author and you’ll see your name “in print”!
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- Should I declaw my cat?
- What is a good starter kit for my new cat?
- What is safe to give to my cat?
What foods are safe? What medicines do I avoid? What plants are safe to have around the house?
Before you run out and buy the first adorable kitten you see, or go to the shelter to adopt that cat who desperately needs a home, consider a few things first.
Owning a cat is a life long commitment. They can live up to 20 or more years, that’s as long as most human children stay home from birth to the time they move out and live on their own. Many people take careful consideration in starting a human family and the adoption or purchase of a cat should also be taken into careful consideration.
Cute little Fluffy will grow into an adult cat who is going to need annual inoculations, spayed or neutered at around 6 - 9 months of age. and veterinary care if it become ill or injured. You cannot get free veterinary care for your cat so you must consider the costs of regular care. This does not come cheap. You should consider your vet a fairly expensive private doctor!
There may be some charities that can help you with costs so a search in your area is suggested.
If you plan on taking frequent vacations (or even the not so frequent) you will have to consider what to do with Fluffy while you are gone. Boarding kennels that specialize in cats is ideal and you should interview many before you even consider going away and boarding your cat. This way, you know the facility, know where it is , how much it costs and the rules they require you to follow before you board with them. Some require special vaccines for the safety of the cattery as well as your cat’s safe health.
ALL cats require grooming but long haired cats require brushing every day. This is somewhat time consuming but necessary none the less. Shorts haired cats benefit from the quick once over with the brush and comb but the long haired cat needs at least 15 to 20 minutes daily.
This prevents the long coat from matting, stimulates blood flow in the skin which in turn promotes a healthy glossy coat.
Long hair cats, if groomed regularly will NEVER need to have their hair clipped at the groomer. In fact, Wanda’s Pet World frowns upon such practices. Long haired cats are designed to regulate their body temperature even in the hottest climates as long as the coat is clean, smooth and matt free.
Consider the initial cost of litter boxes, litter, food and water bowls, scratching posts to protect your furniture and to stimulate healthy nails and activity in your cat.
Also consider the potential bad ramifications of giving a cat as a gift. Christmas is by far the busiest time of year for animal shelters world wide. Sometimes the person you surprise with a gift of a live animal doesn’t always wind up happy with such a gift for a myriad of reasons.
Shelters wind up with more unwanted gift pets each holiday season. So, please keep this in mind when seeking a cat for a gift.
Now if you are not put off by the moral responsibility and the financial expenses involved with cat ownership, now is the time to decide what type and breed of cat is right for you. Do you want the responsibility and challenges of a kitten or would an adult suit you more? Purebred or mixed breed? Buy from a breeder or adopt from a shelter or breed rescue?
First a word of warning. The most obvious place to find your new dream pet is the local pet shop. I strongly advise against this. Although the local pet store is a fine place to purchase supplies for your pet, often times pets of any species sold in these stores are not the ideal animal in regard to health and temperament.
Most likely these animals have been taken away from the mother too early and may be offered for sale when they are not even old enough to be wormed or vaccinated. This makes them very vulnerable to all sorts of infection, disease and illness often times resulting in large veterinary bills and even death. Sadly many pet shop pets come from puppy and kitten mills too.
Pedigree kittens are even more suspect of being from a kitten mill. Kitten mill animals are the result of greedy breeders mass producing low quality stock for a fast profit. Often times these animals have phony papers, genetic defects not easily detected until such animal has grown various other inherited medical problems.
No reputable cat breeder would even consider selling their kittens to a pet shop.
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Pedigree or non-pedigree, kitten or adult, rescue or bought from a breeder, longhair, or shorthair, coat color and pattern. Which to choose?
If owning a cat is your ideal choice of pet, the possibilities are almost endless.
Remember, your final choice of a cat is a life long commitment that you need to consider very seriously.
There are lots of resources on this site that you can use to decide what kind of cat is right for you.
Our Cat Registries page is a wealth of information with links to sites that can give you the most information on the attributes of every registered breed of cat.
Looking to adopt instead of buying? There are many resources for you here as well. Consider the local animal shelter. You can also do a search and find breed rescues that have taken in purebred cats and adopts them out. Again, check the cat registries for associated breeders that also double as breed rescue liasons.
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There are many places you can find your dream cat. Again keep in mind what you are expecting and this will help guide you to the right place.
Contacting a local breeder will get you your pedigree cat. Many breeders will make you answer a questionnaire and make sure you are willing to follow certain guidelines before they let their cat or kitten go to you. The CFA is an excellent resource to finding your local breeder(s).
Many breeders also do rescue of their own stock that has come back. Sometimes you can get kittens or full grown cats that have already been spayed or neutered saving you some money!
Then there are shelters and local rescue groups. The Adoption Center page has links to all sorts of shelter and pet finder links for you.
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Finding an unwanted pet is pretty easy. Millions of dogs and cats are dumped in shelters across the world daily. Many never knowing a loving home because they are doomed to death. There are no kill shelters as well. There are things you need to prepare yourself for if you want to adopt an unwanted pet such as having a little more patience when training your shelter pet, understanding and sometimes absorbing health problems that have either gone undetected or stress developed once you bring the new adopted cat home. All of course is easily remedied with patience and persistence!
There are so many animals that only want a loving home and you can facilitate that. Some animals in the shelters are not the ideal pet due to abuse or have been abandoned and become frightened. But with patience and love they can be ideal. All they need is a chance. Every one of the 40 + cats I’ve owned over my lifetime have been adopted and not one was a problem!
Again I am going to direct you to the Adoption Center page for finding a homeless pet in your area.
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The cat may be one of the easiest animals to train! They will naturally go to the litter box if you make it easily accessible and the cat knows where it is. Cats never have accidents and need housebreaking like dogs do.
If you experience your cat soiling outside the box, this is a good indication that the cat is not feeling well or something is wrong. Sometimes a trip to the vet is the best way to eliminate any major heath issue by catching it fast.
Another thing to consider is the placement of the cat’s litter box. Never put the box where you want the cat to eat. Nobody likes to eat their meals in the bathroom! A quiet, private place is ideal. Often people will place the cat’s box in a utility room with whirring machines, hissing motors from heating units and washers and frankly, cat’s will not like this situation. Many cats will actually become afraid of the box if startled by unnatural & sometimes sudden noises thus giving you a new job of having to convince Kitty that the box is OK after all.
Hooded boxes can also be a problem for some cats. Cats don’t like to feel trapped and especially when going to the litter box. If they get startled they often feel they won’t be able to escape fast and thus will sometimes soil outside the box in protest.
Another factor to consider is that a large cat will not be able to ‘sit upright’ in there to do it’s ‘business’. And then there is the smell. The hooded type boxes can and often do hold in a good deal of the odor and frankly, I wouldn’t blame a cat for not wanting to go in there.
Give your cat plenty of toys and a bed of it’s own. We have several beds scattered all over the house where our cats like to sleep. This keeps the shedding restricted to their bed and is easily cleaned as it is in one area.
We keep toys in a basket on the floor. Our cats love to ‘go shopping’ in their toy basket and it’s equally fun to watch them ‘go shopping’ for the right toy!
A water bottle works great for keeping your cat off objects like counters and table tops. One shot behind the ear will usually do the trick. You can also simply pick the cat up, no words, and simply put him down on the floor. Do this until the day comes when he doesn’t even try. He will learn.
Make sure you have lots of things to scratch on. By keeping scratching posts of all different sizes and textures your cat will not harm your furniture.
You can keep your cats claws trimmed and we’ll have a lesson on that soon.
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Should you declaw your cat? The question is why do you want to declaw your cat?
Here at Wanda’s Pet World you will never see me advocate declawing or any other inhumane procedure to any animal to make the life of the human easier.
The most common issue people have for declawing their cat is that the cat scratches the furniture. As I mentioned above, you can train your cat to not scratch furniture and ruin any of your belongings as long as you are willing to devote time and genuine effort into training your cat. Trimming nails and providing scratching posts will aid you in training and provide the necessary means for your cat to do what comes naturally, scratch and claw and mark their territory. Declawing a cat to make your life easier is plain wrong in our opinion.
We feel the procedure is terribly painful and cruel. Many cats who are not declawed properly have problems with their feet contrary to what many veterinarians will tell you.
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Keeping a cat is not hard. You really don’t need too many items to keep Kitty healthy and happy.
Quality cat food. I recommend a combination of dry kibble and canned food. You can discuss feeding in depth on our free forum.
Other things needed for a happy Kitty is a bed of it’s own, scratching posts and a variety of toys. Scratching posts should have a variety of surfaces to scratch, like wood, sisal rope and carpet.
Having a scratching post or two around the house will help keep Kitty’s mind off your furniture and promote good scratching habits.
I have never had a cat destroy or even scratch my furniture as long as I’ve kept cats. As long as you provide stimulation, Kitty will be happy to leave your stuff alone.
Food and water bowls in an easily accessible area are a must.
Cats can have reactions called Cat Acne to certain types of plastic bowls so we highly suggest a metal or ceramic/glass bowl for your cat.
Some cats prefer to sleep and eat on a high place but if you get a kitten, it is easy to train it to sleep where you want it to as well as eat and drink on the floor.
You will also need a litter box. They come in a variety of sizes and prices. From the plain pan to the fancy kind that cleans itself!
I personally use the self cleaning box for my 5 cats and I absolutely love it. Some cats don’t take too well to these as they can be quite noisy and if the timing is right kitty can be startled by the rake when kitty’s doing their ‘business’!
But Kitty is pretty easy when it comes to ‘housebreaking’! Unlike dogs, cats will readily with very little guidance go to a pan with litter in it for doing their ‘business’.
There is the rare occasion that kitty will go outside the pan. This can be from a variety of reasons. Anything from hanging their rear ends off the edge the wrong way to soiling far from the pan indicating there may be a medical reason to worry about.
Cats don’t normally go outside the pan and have ‘accident’s’ like a dog would normally have. There usually is no ‘training period’ involved in this and cats will go outside the box in unusual places to indicate something is not well with him or her.
So as you can see there isn’t too much involved in expense and items for getting Kitty home and settled in.
But be careful! The stores are full of adorable and fun items that you won’t be able to resist when it comes time to spoil your cat.
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~ by Joan A Walker ©
~ by Joan A Walker ©
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