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Tips for Finding a Kitty
witch_ie
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So it looks like my boyfriend is finally open to getting a cat (yes, we live together). The thing is he wants a "non-destructive" cat - one that won't rip up furniture or shred his tower speakers that really do look a bit like scratching posts. He also doesn't want a climber (for some reason he thinks kitty might want to climb the curtains). For myself, I just want a short hair (allergies) kitty that purrs a lot, likes people, and likes to be petted. It would be fun to play every now and then too. Our neighborhood has a lot of cats as well as skunks and raccoons, so if we get an indoor/outdoor cat, it has to be able to defend itself. Also, I will not declaw any cat, although I'm not averse to getting a kitty that has already been declawed.
Right now, I'm looking at going to the local humane societies to find our kitty, but since I've never picked out a cat before (previous ones have just kind of shown up and started living with my family), I'm not sure how to figure out which kitty we should bring home with us. So, how do I find the kitty that's right for us?
Right now, I'm looking at going to the local humane societies to find our kitty, but since I've never picked out a cat before (previous ones have just kind of shown up and started living with my family), I'm not sure how to figure out which kitty we should bring home with us. So, how do I find the kitty that's right for us?
witch_ie on
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Specifically in regards to climbing/scratching, get an older cat that's been used to living indoors. Or just train your cat not to scratch speakers and climb curtains. It's not that hard.
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Edit: Also, I always recommend getting two cats instead of just one, because they keep each other company and are less likely to be destructive.
Get two if you can. If you can't get two, get one older cat (1+ years). Kittens are tiny engines of destruction when left on their own. They're less destructive in pairs but they'll still make messes and wreck up the place from time to time, so be prepared. Generally you want 2 kittens from the same litter. 2 males or a male and a female work well, two females can be bad news. Make sure they're spayed/neutered.
Cats will climb curtains. They just will. You can train them not to but it will be a long, arduous process and they'll surely climb them a bunch of times when you're not around before you get them trained. Consider ditching the curtains, or at least getting cheap crappy ones that they can claw to pieces while you train them to stay away.
Outdoor cats have an average life expectancy of 6 years. Indoor cats have an average life expectancy of 16-18 years. Letting your cat outside exposes it to things like FIV (cat AIDS) and other diseases transmitted through cat-to-cat contact, ticks, fleas, predators (incl. human), capture patrols for experimentation, cars, various toxins, weather, and so on.
You want a cat that's been tested for FIV and feline calcivirus at a minimum. Neither of these things are a death sentence for cats, nor are they transmissible to humans, but FIV+ cats require special care and calcivirus-positive cats can develop expensive health problems down the line. Most rescue groups have a panel of common diseases they test for so make sure you get a copy.
Most kittens that I've handled have made their friendly disposition apparent within the first few minutes, assuming the environment isn't too traumatic (very noisy, lots of foot traffic, etc). Don't be afraid to shop around until you find one (or two) that you like. Also, black cats (and tuxedo-colored cats) are the hardest to place in homes. Oftentimes people will overlook otherwise fantastic pets due to superstition, so their loss can be your gain if you don't care about color.
As is customary in cat threads, I'll post pics when I get home.
edit: oh, here's a piece of advice that has helped us out a lot with our cats. You want three things in every room you spend any time in- a scratching post, a bowl of water, and a squirt bottle. And don't hide the scratching post in a corner or behind furniture or the cats won't use it.
Also, do not let the cat outdoors. That's just irresponsible pet ownership.
Also, make sure it's fixed asap if it doesn't come from the shelter that way.
The not letting it outside thing is kind of misleading. I know plenty of people with tons of space out in the country who have outdoor cats who go out for a couple of hours during the day and never even cross the road or leave the front yard. Most have lived for 12+ years at this point.
So I will agree, do not let it outside unless you have an acre or two and are away from other roads and dogs/raccoons are not a problem.
Also, like was said above. Cats are lazy fucks. If they can scratch on the couch next to them, or go in the other room for the scratching post, nothing is going to stop them. I keep our posts near the main walkways in the living room and bedroom. Instead of walking in and leaning back to scratch the couch or bed, the post is much more convenient.
Also, don't declaw your cat. If you have to declaw it, you don't need to be getting a cat.
edit: Do invest in some decent small animal nail clippers, though. Don't just use toenail clippers as you can crack their claw and they will hate you for a month. You only have to cut the very very tips off, there should be no blood or discomfort at all. We do this about once a week.
Also, I suggest going to a shelter and picking out a cat that's 1 year old or so, kittens never have a problem being adopted and older cats who were stray or otherwise abused REALLY appreciate a good home. So much so they can act as guard dogs. Ours will literally bark and grumble if she thinks something is threatening her home. She was a stray for 2 years, and had kittens on our doorstep. Two litters back to back. No one was feeding her so we took all the cats in for 6-8 weeks, got them all fixed, then kept the runt and a cat from the first litter plus the mama. (who is still named mama by the way). She is the most affectionate creature known to man, but she's independent as hell. My only complaint is she loves laying next to me in bed and purring in my ear, but she sounds like a lawnmower.
(edit: Yes we had 11 cats living in our apartment for almost two months.)
Best thing you can do for picking out a cat is to spend time with it. Go in to the shelter of your choice, ask to see the cats, and ensure you can spend a good amount of time with the cat out of its cage. This won't be a perfect personality test, but you can definitely pick up on some stuff. If you're unsure, come back at later dates to revisit the same cat.
Please, please, please adopt from a shelter. There's a ton of cats out there that need good homes.
I would definitely keep your cat indoors, but supervised outdoor visits are okay too. I take my cat out every other day or so on a harness and leash. You get some funny looks from passersby, and it's nothing like walking a dog, but he seems to enjoy it. Lots of interesting smells, etc.
Don't be afraid of adopting a slightly older cat. People obsess over the young kittens because they're so cute, but an older cat has a better chance of their personality being set, so you don't adopt an adorable furball only to have it turn into hellcat a year later.
Also you can totally adopt just one cat, you just need to make sure they have the means of entertaining themselves when they want to, and that they get a lot of love and attention when you are around.
Good luck!
Edit:
Oh, yes. Feed your cat an appropriate diet! Cats are obligate carnivores. Contrary to what many companies would like you to think, cats do not need vegetables and grains and fruit. This site has a lot of good information, although the author comes off as quite millitant on occasion. This site contains nutritional information for various wet and dry cat foods in terms of how much carbs, fat and protein content they have. Surprisingly this is really hard to determine from the labels normally. An ideal food would be low in carbs, and higher on protein. Wet food is better than dry, cats have a very weak thirst drive as they're accustomed to consuming most of their water intake via small, dead animals. While a feline eating dry food will drink more water, one eating wet food will on average consume more moisture. Given the high incidence of bladder, kidney and urinary tract issues cats can face, this is a good thing.
And along with that, make sure they always have fresh water available. We change ours every time we feed the cat.
Don't overfeed your cat. It makes them fat. Yes, your cat may get a bit hungry sometimes before a meal, and be a whiny bitch. It's no different than when one of us has a grumbling stomach. He/she won't perish from being hungry for a half hour or so. Some cats just don't know when to stop eating, or don't move around enough to burn off what they'd eat if allowed to eat all they want. This makes free-feeding less desirable in my opinion, and if the food is of poor quality it can compound the issue. Imagine if a child was fed via an endlessly replenishing supply of twinkies.
Also, I suggest not getting a kitten. It's very rewarding watching them grow up, but they change a lot along the way, and you can never really be sure how their personality will develop until it already has. Also, I feel adult cats tend to "need" adoption more - kittens will always find a home somewhere, but adult cats tend to get overlooked when families see the cute little fuzz balls.
So my cat isn't the only one that does this eh? I though my cat was just a weirdo (which I suppose is still possible). She loves to use the water in her bowl for cleaning herself and not so much for drinking.
I'll also echo adopting a cat from a shelter. Usually the cats there are really nice and just need someone to love them, and it saves it from being put to sleep.
My experience is that cats mostly get diseases from the shelter/cattery, not from wandering around the neighbourhood. Fights between cats result in superficial wounds in general - they are not fighting to kill (if the wounds get infected, the vet can give antibiotics) The only real, serious danger to cats is roads. Maybe wild animals are a danger in the USA, I don't know.
Also, all cats are destructive to some extent. Some more than others, but clawing the furniture is a given. A lot of American pet owners declaw their cat to solve this problem. (Again, British cat owners would have a heart attack considering such a thing)
Good god, I want a Maine Coon so badly.
Not sure on the outside thing, and while it is true that many people declaw their cats the rest of us think those people should have the tips of THEIR fingers cut off as part of the process.
And I don't even own a cat! (although I am considering it at some point in the future, so I like to read these threads
No, cats get FIV among other things from fights. They also get ticks, fleas and can die from poisons used to keep rodents under control.
Edit: Maybe in the UK there's a better rate for having feral cats fixed or put to sleep so you dont end out with a bunch of diseased strays? Quite honestly though, I don't care where you live. If you let your cat outside to roam the neighborhood, you are a douchebag. People don't want cats roaming around their back yards. Your cat, your problem. It's not a jungle, especially in an apartment complex where the last thing someone wants is a cat pissing on or digging up their plants.
As a backup, get a small spray bottle from a gardening store and fill it with water. If your cat starts testing its claws on the leather sofa just spray it right in the face. No lasting harm and it should more often than not curb them of that habit.
Parents had to resort to the spray bottle to stop our kitten from clawing the screen door a year or so ago.
I wouldn't say that a lot of American pet owners declaw their cats. My shelter made me promise not to do that, either. I think it would be optimistic to say that a lot of them spay or neuter them, like you're supposed to.
I have a cat fountain, and it's extremely popular with my cat and my roommate's cat. We even have a neighbor cat that climbs up to our second story apartment to drink out of it. My roommate's cat doesn't wash herself with that water, she uses (human) drinking water from glasses that people leave sitting out for that.
Even raccoons which are just about everywhere will fuck up a dog or cat and possibly give it some pretty terrible diseases. Those things travel in packs and have vicious claws and teeth.
There don't seem to be a lot of stray cats around, it is true. The only strays I've ever seen have been instantly adopted by the people whose gardens they wandered into.
Also, please do not call people who chose to let their cats wander douchebags, since you are calling every person I know who owns a cat a douchebag. People do things differently in different countries.
My main advice would be to identify the breed and read up as much as you can about them.
/End Sarcasm
Huh, I've never met a cat who wasn't a pure British moggy. Probably due to all the wandering!
There are not a lot of dangerous wild animals in the UK, which probably accounts for the different attitudes. The only real predators are badgers and foxes, and they don't generally go for cats.
From how I've heard it, those non-Americans view pets differently - it's more of a semi-wild animal adopting you than you adding one to your family.
Maybe. Personally, when we got our cats, part of the contract the breeder had us sign included not letting them outside - there are many other dangers besides busy roads. They are quite happy and entertained inside, it's certainly not a form of cruelty like you seem to be implying.
In some areas, yes. In most places it's more that several nasty diseases can be caught by contact with other infected cats, rodents, insects, etc. Not to mention getting into stuff like rat poison, antifreeze, lawn chemicals, and so on.
I'm curious what makes you think this - none of the people I know with cats have had them declawed. I don't think our vet would do it even if we asked (and we won't, ever), and we also had to agree not to declaw as part of the contract when we got our kittahs on top of all that.
This would be one big reason why a lot of people don't like cats being left to roam...many of us fail to see the attraction of a cat burying waste around stuff we plan to eat later.
They are wonderful cats
/End Sarcasm
Also that animal that I was referring to in the previous post isn't technically a predator more than it is an animal that is extremely dangerous to humans, cats, dogs, and anything that is dumb/curious enough to draw it's ire. It was the weirdest animal I have ever seen in the middle of a city because it was the size of a medium dog and capable of amputating small limbs.
Huh? There is a very limited amount of wildlife living in the UK. We have been systematically exterminating anything dangerous for hundreds of years :-D Badgers and foxes are pretty much it when considering carnivores that could take on a cat. We simply don't have raccoons, jackals, whatever. They don't exist here. Maybe this is derailing the thread a bit. However it is worth mentioning in case any British people reading this thread get the idea that they are being cruel by letting their cats out.
Except even if your cat isn't going to get killed, shitting in my lawn and digging up my plants or attacking my cats who live comfortably on my back enclosure will make me feel like snapping its neck and throwing it in a dumpster.
edit: I will leave this here but I am done, this will derail the thread quite a bit.
All three of those subjects are to be considered closed, and I don't want to see any more posts regarding them.
People who want an animal that can be trained and controlled all the time should investigate the concept of "dogs". Cats are always somewhat wild, and I wouldn't have them any other way. It's a marvellous thing to go wandering off in the woods and find your cat playing happily there.
True! LOL :P
Maybe you could get a cat and it would be perfect and loveydovey and never ruin anything...But I mean, if even once that cat fucks something up, I doubt your boyfriend would be all "Well it's ok its such a cutiewootie." It would be hard to take in an animal and then have to kick it out after a few months, or worse a year or more, because it became incompatible with the requirements.
I had some cats when I was younger and I was heartbroken when we had to get rid of them because they wouldn't stop clawing on our sofas.
Just talk to the people that work at the humane society, they'll probably know everything you want to know about them.
Sit down and have a talk about what you both feel is a reasonable behavior to put up with in the short term and long term and what you think are reasonable solutions to the inevitable problems that might arise. How much are you willing to spend to keep your cat healthy, how will vet and food bills be divided, who will be responsible for training? Figuring it all out beforehand saves a lot of arguments down the road.
I have dos gatos, and one kind of came with the apartment (hate the previous owner for leaving her, but just cause it is mean.) And she is her own person for sure. She was living in the hall, and then one day kind of came in the apt. and I guess decided to stay. That is milly. She is declawed, but not by me.
We adopted Yojimbo our 2nd after deciding that we needed another.
he was 6 wks old, and had been dropeed off at the shelter when he was I think 2 weeks. Bottle-fed from a nice lady at the shleter, and is the sweetest most loving cat I've ever known.
I didn't see them mentioned here, but we used the softclaws things (little caps for their claws) they last about 2-3 weeks and then you glue new ones one. And that seemed to really help with the clawing behavior. After a couple of months we tried it without them and they don't scratch too much. (except baskets and anything that looks like their post, but hey I probably would too.)
Get one of those cool cardboard things for them to claw on. Ours love theirs (on our 5 or 6th one).
As far as my boyfriend is concerned, even though I would like to go out this instant to get our kitty, I'm going to wait a couple of weeks just to make sure we're both ready. My family included a cat for 14 years when I was growing up (he adopted us), so I know what to expect on that front. I'm very excited and promise to post a pic when we finally do get our kitty.
I kid, she's just been a little crazy and demanding the last few days because I went on vacation for a week and had a cat sitter drop by my place everyday to take care of her. Anyways, I also recommend dropping by a shelter and getting to know a couple of the cats there and picking one that both you and your boyfriend enjoy.
But I would like to emphasize that a pet is also a responsibility! You're a little more restricted on travel and how much time you can spend away from home because your pet will require basic care as well as attention everyday if you can. I hope you can make a happy home for an animal and I give you props for wanting to adopt these days! With these tough times, adoptions in needy animal shelters are down.