So I had a cat when I was much younger and I loved it. It died sadly, and my sister immediately implored my mother for a dog, so we've had nothing but dogs since.
But now that I am out on my own, and my roommate who is allergic to cats is moving out in a month, I want to get my own!
I haven't done an incredible amount of research, though I know I likely want to start with a kitten, attempt to train it to use the toilet, and have one that doesn't shed quite so much hair if possible. I also apparently don't want to declaw it, do want to neuter/spade it, and potentially am willing to get two kittens so they have a playmate/friend when I'm not home.
I hear animal shelters are generally a good place, avoiding petco like the plague.
So how much am I looking at spending for this? How much will a shelter charge for shots and everything? What all do I need to buy? Will cat food be ridiculously expensive or something? Any good resources to read up on?
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Overall adoption fees + vet visit + buying food/other stuff you're looking at around $200-300 initial expense. I do recommend getting two cats as they are generally much more happy I've found.
High quality cat food is not THAT much more expensive but will save you a lot in vet bills in the long run. Finding a good local pet store would be the place to start there. Wellness, EVO, Orijen, and other brands you can look up online are well reviewed. Wet food is better than dry food but I understand if it's a convenience issue.
I know it's not that common, but it doesn't seem too difficult to do, at least according to this lady: http://www.karawynn.net/mishacat/toilet.html
And it'd be mega convenient.
Just don't get your hopes up about having a cat that shits in the same toilet as you. Also, rule toilet-sword fights out of the picture.
Oh I'm not counting on it working. I'll still have a litter box and everything, but given it doesn't seem too difficult to try, may as well. I'm fully ready to have a cat and deal with a litter box the normal way if necessary.
I don't know if it's universal, but my local PetCo works with local shelters to adopt out cats. I think the small mall pet stores are the ones that have reputations as puppy mills and the like.
My shelter made me promise not to let my cat outdoors, but if you do, that's another set of shots. I think those also require periodic boosters. Not sure how much it costs.
I think the short list of what to buy is food and water bowls, food, kitty litter box(es), a scoop, kitty carrier(s) and kitty litter. A can of spray/foam carpet cleaner would be good. Get some recommendations for a vet.
Optionals include some mats for the bowls and litter boxes (I just use newspaper around the litter box), collars and tags, brushes, cat toothbrush(es) + toothpaste, guillotine-style claw trimmers, scratching post(s). My cats really like the electric water fountains for pets, especially when they were on a dry food diet, but apparently some cats get plastic allergies? Dunno. Also, some sticky lint rollers.
I've switched to a canned food diet for my cats, but it's a lot more expensive -- probably about $140/month for two cats (one of which is a big fat pig), instead of, like, $40. A cheap plastic bin and chip clip are handy if you're doing dry food.
My brother toilet trained his cat, although there were some hiccups along the way. I had no luck with mine, partly because I was unwilling to throw away the old litter box and the cats would find it and poop in it even without litter in it. I basically gave up.
While Petco and Petsmart don't sell cats and dogs on their own, some shelters do operate out of the stores on the weekends or on a full time basis. I volunteer for a feline rescue shelter that has a small offsite location in a Petsmart store (that's where I've been volunteering off and on since 2002). Do visit shelters but don't be afraid to visit a Petco or Petsmart if a reputable shelter operates out of there
Also be prepared for the financial burden. Castle already touched on this a little but kittens are generally more expensive than adults. At my shelter, kittens run for $200 while 1+ year olds are $125 (except for seniors and special needs cats). This includes shots, neuter/spay, microchips, and the like but if you have the money, go for it
I highly recommend looking up your local rescue organizations. They usually have a pretty wide array of ages, types, and behaviors, and you're just being a good person in general. Most orgs often have weekends at Petco type stores these days where you can go and do some behavioral test drives with their rescues.
I can't speak for cost. I have two, and I don't really notice their impact much. I usually pick up the most monstrous mid-range dry cat food back they have. You'll find that each cat is different regarding food as well. Put it this way, it's a ton cheaper than a dog, especially factoring in the rare vet visit (immunization is another thing you'll never to make a personal decision on - some people multi-vaccinate each year, some just vac for FIV and let the cat ride when they reach adulthood). I think the cat startup cost from the rescue itself was in the 75-125 range for all the shots, bells, whistles, cruise control, etc...
Oh, and I've recently switched from standard cat litter to this "natural" sawdust stuff. It requires its own specialized litter box and scooper, but damn if it's not pretty clean and odorless (and cheaper) compared to standard clay.
Pretty much every shelter will sell you a cat with shots and spayed/neutered.
Walk into their cat room and wait for one to basically come up to you and say "Hey. I'd like to be adopted, please".
Pets pick you sometimes.
Good luck!
However, if you really insist on 2 kittens I'm sure there's always some available.
Stuff:
1. The shelter will probably charge about $100 max for the cat, some are about $50 I think. It likely already has all its shots, depending on the age of the cat.
2. You will want to set aside about $200 for basic vet care for shots per year. That is a little generous.
3. You will need to add a couple thousand to your personal emergency fund to support a large vet bill in case the cat (a kitten more likely) eats something stupid, does something stupid, etc.
4. If you want to feed well on a budget, get the Kirkland Costco food. If you are not so concerned, OnTheLastCastle already gave some solid brands to work with. Speaking of solid, Solid Gold offers a great wet canned food and dry as well, they are worth checking out. You need to know what the cats had at the shelter, and you have to feed that for a few weeks, gradually upping the new food. Their shit will probably stink really bad for at least 6 weeks until you get them on a really nice food and it evens out. I do recommend trying a canned wet food at least as a half can supplement per day. It will really save you in problems with urinary tract later on.
5. Use ceramic or metal dishes, cats get acne on their chin from plastic.
6. The trick to cats scratching stuff is providing appropriate areas for them to use. If you catch them scratching something else, you pick them up and move them to their appropriate area and scratch it some to get them interested. I have a 2000 sq ft home and about 10 cardboard horizontal or diagonal posts. I got them for like $2 each at ikea and I think $7 for the horizontal ones. Then we have 2 stand up posts and a cat house thing. Seems like a lot but they have never touched the furniture. They use every single one of them. I would put at least one per room (never mind the bathroom) and many in the living area. Most cats will hang out where you hang out a lot of the time. They will want to be in that area so there's no point putting their stuff in the basement.
The cardboard posts are easy to put behind the couch, in useless space behind doors, etc. You barely even notice them.
7. Don't bother buying toys, yet. You can roll a piece of paper around and it will be cute with a kitten. Kittens don't usually respond to catnip for the first while anyway, too, and lots of commercial toys use it. Beds to sleep in can be pretty pointless, too. Some cats use them but a lot don't bother and will just sleep on the couch/lap/whatever is available. My cats used one type and shunned all others, and they only use it on a wooden area in the bedroom because they don't like sleeping in the human bed.
You didn't mention this, but one decision a cat owner needs to make is whether your cat is going to be an indoor or outdoor kitty. It's a great debate amongst cat owners (shelters tend to come down on the side of indoor only), but what it really boils down to is safety versus freedom. Either way, it's good to get your kitty a collar and tags. Other factors to consider include whether the neighborhood you live in has lots of traffic or is kitty-friendly, and whether your cat is smart enough to go outside.
When one of them had a heart murmur and needed a load of tests, the insurance paid for everything (minus the excess) and we would have been in real trouble trying to find the cash to pay for it all (over £1000 by the end of it).
It's probably because 90% of the stuff you can buy at your normal grocery store is absolute garbage and not good for cats at all. I pay about $17 for a bag of cat food that lasts about 2 weeks between my two cats. The money you save in the long term from less vet bills is well worth it. And if you actually care about your cat, don't you want it to be happy and eating the best it can?
That's a tiny bit over a dollar a day. If you can afford that, you really shouldn't have cats.
Often times these cats are not given up for anything they did, their owners just wanted a "kitten" and then when something minor came up in their lives or they hadn't planned any farther than "omg kitten" they returned it to the shelter. Because people suck.
Don't feel bad about getting a kitten(s), but older cats are pretty rad.
A high-quality food will be composed primarily of named animal protein sources (as in, "turkey" or "salmon," not generic "meat" or "animal digest"), with no byproducts or fillers, plus small amounts of oils, supplemental ingredients like fruits and vegetables, and vitamins/minerals to ensure complete nutrition. A food like this is concentrated and highly digestible, which means your kitties will eat less of it, and poop less, too. It may seem more expensive up front, but because it's so much more nutritionally dense, a $15 3lb bag of dry food lasts my healthy, active adult cat for about five weeks. Good brands include Orijen, Innova Evo, Blue Buffalo, Wellness Core, and Go! Natural.
Bad food, on the other hand, can actively harm your cat. It tends to be filled with cheap shit like animal byproducts (which are literally floor scrapings, entrails, feet and necks, and even euthanized pets), and fillers like corn, wheat, and soy. Cats can't digest any significant amounts of grain - they're carnivores, which means all that corn pretty much goes straight through them, which means you're basically paying for your cat to shit 70% of its food directly into its litterbox. Worse, many cats actually have some degree of allergy or intolerance for grains, which can cause skin problems, diarrhea, vomiting, and even diabetes.
So yeah, given the negligible difference in actual cost between good food and bad food, and the potential of bad food to fuck up your cat's health for the rest of its life, it is wrong to feed your cat shit.
This also. I spend about $1.50 per day on two cats food and they are very healthy and happy.
While there certainly are people that get overzealous about food choices, that's no reason to just dismiss it without even taking a look - there are very real problems with a lot of the cheap(er) foods, like too many carbs, low-quality byproducts in place of better meat sources, more chemicals, etc.
If you really can't afford it, then that's one thing, but at least make an informed choice if you have the opportunity - and realize that the increased cost of the food may very well be made up for by fewer and less expensive vet bills, thanks to the better quality nutrition. The canned food (Wellness Core) for our cats works out to roughly $3 per day to feed both of them. Aside from what I mention below, neither of them have been to the vet for anything other than a routine checkup their entire lives (3 years and 5 years).
Pet insurance is kind of like car insurance to me - if you don't have to use it, sometimes it seems like an annoying expense, but then something comes up like the $4000 urinary blockage our guy had a year & 1/2 ago...and then it is absolutely a godsend. Totally worth the $49 per month to cover our two.
I did not realize that about those big pet stores! I'll absolutely scope around there. Though I think there are some shelters fairly close too, so I'll check those out.
Pet insurance eh? Is this a thing in the US?
This sounds like a very reasonable price, I see no issue with that.
Oh, and are there any breeds or anything like that that are temperamental or crazy or something that i'd want to avoid? I mean, more than cats usually are? That'd I'd even run into in a shelter that is.
Yep - I use Pet's Best personally, and I haven't any problems for a few years. We started out with VPI when our girl was a kitten, but were really displeased with their customer service and the insanity of their benefit schedule.
Shelter cats will almost always be mongrels of some stripe or another, though it is certainly possible to find individuals that look and act close to a specific breed - when I was growing up, one of our Humane Society kitties was a standard tabby barn cat, but the next can't have been more than a generation or two away from a purebred Russian Blue.
The differences in temperament aren't as pronounced with cats as they are with dogs, probably because we haven't been breeding cats as long. I know Maine Coons have a reputation for being gentle and easy-going, which is good because they're roughly the size of a small bear, while Siamese are noisy and demanding and skittish.
A more important factor than the hypothetical breed is the coat length of the cat, though. Long-haired cats can be absolutely gorgeous, but they shed everywhere, and you need to invest a significant amount of time into brushing them to prevent their fur from matting. Cats with a very short coat, on the other hand, are much more sensitive to cold, and benefit from access to heated areas for sleeping.
One of the big health problems that cats get as they age is kidney dysfunction. This is generally because of poor water intake over a long period of time. It helps a lot to put out multiple bowls of water all around your house, especially where people spend time. We've got one in the living room, one upstairs, one in the kitchen, etc. Cats, unlike dogs, don't like to drink where they eat so placing a single bowl next to their food is not a good idea (something you'll notice if you put out a few bowls and keep them all fresh).
EDIT: I hadn't thought of that, Zilo. I think I'm going to put some extra water bowls around.
Bother me on steam: kabbypan
If you get adult cats, make sure they're tested for FIV, calcivirus, and feline leukemia. It's good advice for any adopted animal but critical for an animal that's spent a long time in a shelter.
And if does, wait to get a cat. Declawing is horrible.
Cat breeds are getting more distinct but because they are mainly bred for visuals and not for work (unlike dogs) you get very little variation in behaviour/temperaments. People say such-and-such are more dog-like or whatever but its all tiny variation, cats are individuals and the whole spectrum of personalities appears in all breeds. Bigger cats can be terrible climbers and they eat more but that is about it!!
The shelter should let you hang out with the cats a bit to see which are your type. I would personally go for a cat that is calm and curious. I probably wouldn't get the one pouncing on my shoe laces, cute as it is, and I wouldn't go for one that was hiding out in the back, just because it would be a better choice for an experienced owner. If you get an older cat, if you get to play with it you might be able to get a good sense if they have been trained properly not to attack hands and if they are interested in interaction. Kittens will scratch and bite you no matter what so I just mean for the older cats.
I agree totally, if you can't afford a quality food you can't afford a pet, but there are a lot of good economical choices out there and you can't deny that whenever someone asks about food you get 3 pages of people saying unless its first ingredient is prime angus its awful. Good rule of thumb is if you can find it in the grocery/target/walmart its probably just junk food. people automatically dismiss anything by Purina or Nutro etc because they either have varieties that are sold in grocery stores or are only very good and not extremely.
I feed my guys a combination of Purina Proplan and Nutro max. No idea what we pay since we mix a bunch of different types into one of those big airtight containers. its hairball, weight management and urinary. They get that 2x and can of wet once a day.
though maybe we just need a sarcasto emoticon.
Do you have any reason to believe cheap food is okay, or do you just want it to be? Those particular foods are okay (not great, just okay- high corn content, inclusion of wheat) and mixing in wet food is a really good idea but there are a lot worse foods sharing the shelves with them. You should know what you're buying and not just take Purina's word on it.
The sad fact is that most cheap cat foods are terrible. You may not have an obvious problem with them for 20 years, you may make your cats sick immediately, or (much more likely) you could cause long-term damage you wouldn't notice without a necropsy. Some cat food is ridiculous, like the stuff you see advertised as "premium wet food" on TV, but that doesn't mean there's not something to the argument in favor of avoiding cheap food. A big cause of feline obesity is low-quality (high-carbohydrate) food, not to mention feline diabetes, bowel issues, and kidney disease.
It's not a matter of "unless its first ingredient is prime angus its awful", it's a matter of the food not emphasizing ingredients that are (worse than) useless to a cat. If you really don't think the better food is worth it, then so be it...but it's a big, big stretch to justify that a food full of grains and by-products is nutritionally equal to one with a bunch of non-by-product meats and minimal/no grains.
Even if there is such a clause on your lease, it's worth talking to your landlord about having it removed or modified - when Pixels and I were negotiating for our place here, the lease stipulated that any cats must be declawed, but we talked the landlord into changing it to "any cats must have their claws trimmed regularly" (which we would have done anyway, because otherwise she destroys our clothes when she comes over for kitty cuddle time).
He's about 4 months old, used the litter box like a champ and is trying desperatly to get behind my computer/tv into the wires back there!
Any handy tips to keep in mind raising this guy? I got him Wellness brand Kitten food, it's dry and he has two water bowls in this room alone. Got him the neat little toy/scratching post thing in the picture and i've been enjoying dangling a lanyard for him! Any tips to keep him out of the cords? Or will spraying them with this "Bitter Yuck!" stuff I got work just as well?
You may want to try some wet food too, maybe half a kitten-sized can once in the morning and again at night. It's easier to switch flavors of wet food around, they seem to really enjoy it, plus it ups their fluid intake which is always good.
I suggest getting a tray of some kind to set the food and water dishes on. All of my cats have at one point gone through a "dipping my foot in the water and making a mess" phase. Followed closely by "I don't want to eat the broken pieces of food so I will push them out of the dish onto the floor" phase.