Yet Another Cycling Forum
Random Musings => Miscellany => Where The Wild Things Are => Topic started by: fd3 on 10 September, 2022, 11:41:49 am
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We have finally found a rescue shelter that will let us have a cat! We are getting a 4 year old cat this coming Friday; we have been told she needs to stay in the house for 4 weeks to settle before she is allowed outside.
Not had a cat since the 90s, I understand that these days cats are microchipped and don't need collars and the flea collars have been replaced by drops.
What are key things you think I should know RE the cat.
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Always let them sniff you before you touch, stroke them.
Don’t stare, blinking is good and friendly.
Make sure she has a safe place to go to when stressed
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Get the biggest litter tray you can. My rescue cat would pee near the edge of the first one I got and the piss would go over the edge. That stopped when I got a larger one with deeper sidewalls.
The supermarket own brand Dreamies are just as popular with my cat and they can be used sparingly as familiarising treats.
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Get her insured - trust me it is worth it!
Get her registered with a vet. Ask the rescue and local cat owners for recomendations
Most vets have an plan you can pay annually or monthly to cover her annual checks, vaccinations, worm/flea treatment and offer various discounts eg on neutering and meds and food.
Get her neutered if not already done.
Get her vaccinated annually.
Get her microchipped - if she is already chipped make sure you update your details. (Vet or rescue can scan to see if she is already chipped.
Get a good cat carrier before you need it. And a cat hatch if you intend to let her outdoors.
Find out as much about her background as you can, including what food she has been having.
Most cats need to have several beds - boxes are often popular - and will often like to be high up esp if there are young children or other pets.
My last cat lived to age 24 years, they are a log term committment.
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Make the cat carrier a normal ordinary part of the furniture for sitting in and chasing toys into and so on (possibly remove the door). That way its appearance won't serve as early warning of a vet visit.
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Good point,
Ourcarrier serves as an additional barricade in front of the cat hatch when locked, to save it from destruction.
And a top-loading carrier is a lot easier than trying to stuff her in a front door type.
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Have a read of
https://icatcare.org/advice/?per_page=12
https://www.cats.org.uk/help-and-advice
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Some cats are robots. Don't trust their programming. Some cats aren't. Don't trust them either.
Basically, let her acclimatize to her surroundings, she'll find places to sleep, all cats have a series of favourite places and her own schedule that suits her personality. Don't bother her at first, she'll get around to bothering you eventually. She needs to accept you as a subservient cat.
If she's going to be an outdoor cat, consider a microchip cat flap, it'll keep the local riffraff out. All modern cats have microchips, like people. She'll be neutered, unlike people. Remember that the cats' main predator is the motor car, so letting a cat outdoors is usually a bad idea if you're near a busy road.
Flea collars and pet-shop flea stuff don't work these days (the bugs are resistant), vets do prescription drops for external and internal parasites, they're not cheap, but they're worth it. Just hope you don't have one like LMC, good luck squirting the back of her neck and living to tell that tale. She should get an annual check-up and a series of boosters. Yes, you will compare your vet with your GP and wonder if you'd get better service in your surgery if you attended as a furry. You'd also probably get something shoved up your arse, I leave the reader to decide whether that's a positive or negative outcome. Vet bills are very expensive as all vets are (a) posh and therefore (b) need a minimum of twenty ski trips a year.
Get used to cleaning up vomit. Cats love being sick. I recommend Dr Beckmann's Carpet Cleaner. Every cat owner should buy shares in this company. Or just get a hardwood floor.
Big litter tray, be aware that they may be particular about the type of litter. If they don't like what you've provided, they won't need human language to express this. The enclosed trays hold in some of the smell.
Find out what she eats. They're fussy about food too. Often mental for tinned tuna. Bad Cat will climb up me to try and get the can. Seriously, she's learned how to operate the can opener and she doesn't even have opposable thumbs. If it got her into a can of tuna, she'd learn quantum physics.
Cats that don't get run over, tend to live to old age (twenty or so, unlike dogs, a quarter of which don't make four years these days).
Consider catteries etc. if you go on holiday, not leaving them to fend for themselves (which is mean and unfair). Plus they might choose the make the point by burning down the house while you are away.
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Our biggest Maine Coon needed three doses of the spot-on flea stuff. Getting one through the double coat of fur without losing too much blood was hard enough. Any more was madness.
The vet came up with a tablet instead, so we took them either two or four times a year for their doses, one of which was the annual MOT and jazz anyway.
Basically, cats are fairly easy. Remember they are independently minded beasties, but will be very affectionate on their terms.
Enjoy!
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Enclosed litter trays do little to contain the smell, and a lot to contain the litter. And would presumably thwart the Brian The Stupid approach of sitting in the litter tray and pooing overboard. Recommended.
Never buy Marks & Spencer's cat food because you're pants shopping and happen to need some cat food. The cat will decide that she likes it, and demand you make special M&S shopping trips forevermore.
Have an off-cut of your precious carpet kicking about to function as a sacrificial anode.
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Yeah, food escalation. We now have Ottolenghi chained up in the basement and he has to make them an eight-course meze for every meal.
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Seconded a covered litter tray - cats like the privacy.
As to food, it can be a minefield finding something they like (ask the shelter as a first step) but we buy ours from Zooplus.com who seem to offer decent value, and around a 3 day delivery.
We’re in the country so don’t bother with a microchip / magnetic cat flap.
You’ll need the annual jabs if ever you want to use a cattery.
And accept them as they are. Our current cat is very aloof compared to the previous 2, but hey, we’re giving her a home for her. If you want affection get a dog.
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I can totally recommend the approach of getting 1 type of quality (not kitekat or that shite) dry food and sticking to it.
Don't get sucked into the 20 different flavours of sachet, that way lies fussy bastards.
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...You’ll need the annual jabs if ever you want to use a cattery...
And so will the cat.
I'm here all week, try the buffet, ect, ect. Oi, that's not my coat!
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Also, this will need to be updated: https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=144.0
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Our biggest Maine Coon needed three doses of the spot-on flea stuff. Getting one through the double coat of fur without losing too much blood was hard enough. Any more was madness.
The vet came up with a tablet instead, so we took them either two or four times a year for their doses, one of which was the annual MOT and jazz anyway.
Basically, cats are fairly easy. Remember they are independently minded beasties, but will be very affectionate on their terms.
Enjoy!
LMC smells the stuff the moment we open the tube and she's gone. If you do catch her, she needs a minimum of three people to hold her, and there are only two of us, so it's a vet and two nurses' job. She did once poop down the vet's cleavage though during one of these endeavours. She's a very affectionate cat, but on her own terms, which often means 4 am. She doesn't generally miaow other than when she has her beemouse, a stuffed toy she likes to carry around the house like a kitten while doing full-on cat opera.
Bad Cat is just soft, you can pick her up and swing her around, and she miaows all the time. She'll follow us around and she's always by the door when we get home. Completely different personality. She's a bit dim though.
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Most important of all………love it to bits, and it will love you too.
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Our biggest Maine Coon needed three doses of the spot-on flea stuff. Getting one through the double coat of fur without losing too much blood was hard enough. Any more was madness.
The vet came up with a tablet instead, so we took them either two or four times a year for their doses, one of which was the annual MOT and jazz anyway.
Basically, cats are fairly easy. Remember they are independently minded beasties, but will be very affectionate on their terms.
Enjoy!
I'll just leave this old thread on that very subject here, because it is well worth re-reading for a giggle: https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=21791.0
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Get used to exciting adventures like yesterday, when I came home and fed them some Dreamies and then, as a poured myself a beer, Bad Cat walked into the living room and threw them all up.
I have this thing where if I see and touch warm sick, I have to throw up too. Fortunately in the loo.
Then, after I'd cleaned up my own mess, I got back into the kitchen to resume my beer pouring to find Bad Cat sitting by her treats waiting for some more. She didn't get any.
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Get used to exciting adventures like yesterday, when I came home and fed them some Dreamies and then, as a poured myself a beer, Bad Cat walked into the living room and threw them all up.
I have this thing where if I see and touch warm sick, I have to throw up too. Fortunately in the loo.
Then, after I'd cleaned up my own mess, I got back into the kitchen to resume my beer pouring to find Bad Cat sitting by her treats waiting for some more. She didn't get any.
When we had Mojo & Pippin, Pippin used to regurgitate her food about once a day (we didn't realise this wasn't feline SOP until we got this pair - but don't worry, they have other weirdness to make up for it). Fortunately for us, Mojo thought that warmed up cat biscuits was a delicacy so used to hoover them all up with gusto. Which meant I didn't have to clean up too much cat barf.
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If you don't already have a carpet cleaner get one of these:
(https://www.vax.co.uk/media/product_wib/What_is_in_the_box_500x500_SPOTWASH_HERO_New.png)
Small and makes cleaning up sick etc less horrible plus your carpet wont stink.
Your can thank me later.
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Cat barf fortunately doesn’t smell much.
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I do hope we're not putting fd3 off with all these tales of woe.
Most of the time cats are well behaved, clean and tidy creatures and the benefits far out way the disadvantages.
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You're certainly putting me off... my husband would like a cat but I'm much less enthusiastic.
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Nah, cats are ace. Our two are occasionally annoying and make the periodical mess, but we wouldn't be without them. We always said we wouldn't bother with pets as we travel a lot and generally are quite busy, but then the one of us who isn't me gave a stray cat some tuna fish, despite the one of us who is me, saying no, don't give that cat any tuna fish. Understandably that became our cat and she was great. When she passed into the great furry beyond, we said, that's that, no more pets, let's do exciting stuff like drive around New Zealand for a month. A week later, the one of us who isn't me presented the one of us who is me with a series of printouts from a local animal rescue place. So the same night we ended up with two kittens. We never did drive around New Zealand.
Children, on the other hand, we'd have thrown in the canal years ago. Hell, we'd throw other people's kids in the canal with rocks tied to them.
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Reviving this thread because we're getting a cat (well, two) next week! :thumbsup: They're two-year-old brothers from the local shelter.
People with multiple cats - I'm assuming two litter boxes is standard?
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It seems to be advised now.
We have two fighting cats, so gave them separate trays. They each poo and pee in both. ;D
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If they're brothers they presumably get on with each other, and are probably used to sharing a litter tray. Obviously a second tray becomes useful if you have to isolate one cat for some reason or other, but left to their own devices they'll probably use whichever is cleanest.
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We have two cats and two litter trays. One of the trays is hardly used at all (it was bought in an attempt to help with Pumpkin's anxiety issues in the previous house).
When Mojo and Pippin were with us they managed OK with one tray between them.
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The usual recommendation these days is one each plus one more, so three for two cats.
Probably about right if they are to live indoors.
In real life, I've had up to four non-related cats living together with just one tray.
But they had access outdoors, and like my present cat, only used the tray if shut indoors for some reason.
You probably know the recommendation to keep the trays well away from their food?
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Yes, I should say that all of our pesties have/had access to outdoor poo areas.
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N+1 probably works great if you live in a mansion....
Happy new kittehs 😊
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Yes, I should say that all of our pesties have/had access to outdoor poo areas.
And they did/do frequently come back in from outdoors to use the pit.
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Yes, I should say that all of our pesties have/had access to outdoor poo areas.
And they did/do frequently come back in from outdoors to use the pit.
True dat, the smelly gits :demon:
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Persuade your neighbour to dig their garden regularly. Cats prefer to shit in freshly dug soil.
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And do hope they leave the door to their glasshouse or poly tunnel open, as freshly dug dry soil is even better!
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We have one box since the joys of cleaning out two aren't enticing and previous use doesn't seem to put them off (though it's guaranteed that the moment one of us cleans the tray and puts in new litter, it will get a visit). The pair of them used to poop outside but in the last year or so, they've started to go mostly in the box. We're hoping it's just a winter thing and summer will remind them of the delights of al fresco defecation.
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Well, I've bought two litter trays (in the biggest size the pet shop had, as everything I've read suggests bigger is better). They're indoor cats and will continue to be, so outdoor toileting won't be an option.
In the interests of experimentation, I intend to put different types of litter in each to see what they prefer.
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I highly recommend the woodpellet type.
Less dust and smell.
We tried the 'clumping clay' types, and they all stank and were difficult to clean.
With wood pellets, the wood breaks apart to a sawdust where they pee on it, making it easy to tell when it needs changing.
You need less litter than you think. Too much wastes the litter, as you will throw out the whole lot. Less and change often.
Get a poop scoop trowel, it enables easy removal of poo and that really keeps the smell down.
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If I had an indoor cat who wasn't too thick, I'd attempt to train them to use (but not flush[1]) the toilet.
[1] Never teach a cat to flush a toilet, work a lightswitch, use a door knocker, answer the phone, etc, etc.
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When Pumpkin was a kitten she tried eating the non clumping mineral stuff. Weirdo.
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From my experience of dealing with fox poo on the lawn of Chateau Jurek, pipe freezing spray makes the poo much more manageable with a trowel or tea spoon (you choose which) than it would be otherwise.
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When Pumpkin was a kitten she tried eating the non clumping mineral stuff. Weirdo.
When Pumpkin was a kitten she tried eating everything.
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I highly recommend the woodpellet type.
Less dust and smell.
We tried the 'clumping clay' types, and they all stank and were difficult to clean.
Ah, I wasn't too keen on the clay types anyway, so will give them a miss for now! From memory, I think they had wood pellets at the shelter so will at least be used to it.
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From my experience of dealing with fox poo on the lawn of Chateau Jurek, pipe freezing spray makes the poo much more manageable with a trowel or tea spoon (you choose) than it would be otherwise.
Cats, being obligate carnivores, tend to have firmer poo.
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I think they had wood pellets at the shelter
Definitely worth checking and trying to use the same brand, at least at first.
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From my experience of dealing with fox poo on the lawn of Chateau Jurek, pipe freezing spray makes the poo much more manageable with a trowel or tea spoon (you choose) than it would be otherwise.
Cats, being obligate carnivores, tend to have firmer poo.
Perhaps, if they stick to their obligate carnivore diet (I'm looking at you Pumpkin ::-) )
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How are the new recruits, Phanta?
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We want photos :thumbsup:
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https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=144.0
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How are the new recruits, Phanta?
Arriving tomorrow. :D
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F5 :D
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They're home...and hiding (as expected!).
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What, still no photos ...
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<F5>
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Aw, I got all excited when I saw there were new posts on this thread. Come out little kitties.
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Put a bell on it ;D
(https://i.postimg.cc/J79bcjZ3/bell.jpg) (https://postimages.org/)
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<F5>
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I've been looking after a couple of aged cats and found the tips here useful :thumbsup: Changed to the wood pellets (much lighter & easier to manage/clean out) and a high-sided litter tray - no more gravel scattered everywhere and no more of them standing in the tray but doing the business over the side ::-)
Still waiting for the pics though!
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I think I forgot to mention cardboard boxes.
Cats love cardboard for some reason.
You can buy cat beds - forget them. Get a small fruit/tray cardboard box from the supermarket box bin. your cat will love it, and when the box gets dirty, put it in the recycling and get another one.
Boxes with lid/flaps are also adored. Keeps cats occupied for hours.
If I were keeping cats indoors only, I'd be tempted to use the amazon boxes to build a cat fort.
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If I were keeping cats indoors only, I'd be tempted to use the amazon boxes to build a cat fort.
My brother and I did this a few times. Usually around Christmas when there was a surplus of cardboard.
Those boxes that hold six bottles of wine were abundant, and when joined end-to-end make excellent cat-ducts for joining larger boxes. Hours of fun.
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My present cat does not understand cardboard boxes at all.
Every other cat we have had in the past 45 years loved them.
So I bought an expensive cat tower/adventure thingy which she also ignored (raffled that in aid of the local cat rescue).
She has a choice of shelves and windowsills with vet bed cut to size, and a couple of those corrugated cardboard scratch pads that seem to be cumfy, and of course all the chairs are fair game.
But best of all is lying on anything the humans are trying to read - especially maps.
She will use one sleeping area consistently for a while, then totally ignore it in favour of another.
They will choose......
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Ours will mostly use fleecy cat blankets on a couple of different chairs - until she changes her mind of course. But one other place she loves is in the “wardrobe.” Curtained off recesses at the side of a chimney breast. Accessed from the top of the chest of drawers, and nice nesting amongst my wife’s many jumpers. On occasion we’ve been awakened in the small hours as she jumps down and decides it’s time to go mouse hunting in the garden.
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<F5>
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Looks like the new arrivals were Fierce Kittehs and have etted Phanta :jurek:
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Ah, it's caturday...
<F5>
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Looks like the new arrivals were Fierce Kittehs and have etted Phanta :jurek:
Sadly not. ;D
Here's Goose, my goofy boy:
(https://i.ibb.co/WPXW58G/20230315-140943.jpg)
And his smaller, shyer brother Emu:
(https://i.ibb.co/Mk73Xsp/20230316-095929.jpg)
They're both settling in well. Goose wanted to explore everwhere from day one, but Emu mainly wanted to hide (he barely moved from behind the filing cabinet for the first day; he's since claimed a comfy spot in one of the under-bed boxes we use to store bedding and towels. He still spends a lot of time there, but will happily come out when he wants to, and also sleeps at the top of the cat tree a lot. I think he's just an introvert who needs his alone time, which I totally understand).
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My present cat does not understand cardboard boxes at all.
Every other cat we have had in the past 45 years loved them.
So I bought an expensive cat tower/adventure thingy which she also ignored (raffled that in aid of the local cat rescue).
She has a choice of shelves and windowsills with vet bed cut to size, and a couple of those corrugated cardboard scratch pads that seem to be cumfy, and of course all the chairs are fair game.
But best of all is lying on anything the humans are trying to read - especially maps.
She will use one sleeping area consistently for a while, then totally ignore it in favour of another.
They will choose......
These two seem ambivalent about boxes. However, the enclosed cat cave I bought has seen exactly zero use. The cat tree I rescued from next to a bin has been a hit, and they've tried all the chairs we have - the preferred one is usually the one I use as my office chair.
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:thumbsup:
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Squee! :thumbsup:
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Squeee indeed! Goose has a lovely looong belly!
They both look like splendid chaps, I look forward to more contributions to the gratuitous cat pics thread in future :D
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Forget what I said about Emu being shy: it was all an act. ;) He's now become the more boisterous of the two, and is normally the instigator of any scuffles, despite being significantly smaller. He's not really been under the bed lately, and is currently curled up on my lap.
After all my litter box dilemmas, I've decided we need to try one with a lid - of the two boxes we have, they both have a strong preference for the one in the en-suite bathroom. Unfortunately, they also have smelly poo, and this is not ideal when they need to go in the middle of the night. :sick: Emu also doesn't bury his poo, which I suspect is him trying to assert his territory.
So, I've just bought a hooded litter box and put it in the en-suite instead (same litter, as I don't want to freak them out too much - and I've left the flap up). We shall see what happens.
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Our girls don't bury their poo. The kitteh poo is very stinky as she is on kitten pouch food. Eye watering...
The older one is largely on dry food and hers are not smelly.
Goose looks gorgeous!
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hooded are so much better - prevents them from spraying cat litter around. Also, sometimes they will toss a turd when scratching to bury it.
Scoop and flush frequently!
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hooded are so much better - prevents them from spraying cat litter around. Also, sometimes they will toss a turd when scratching to bury it.
Scoop and flush frequently!
If only they'd actually use the hooded one! Of course, they prefer the open one, and the hooded one gets very little use.
In other news, Emu appears to have chipped one of his fangs. :( No idea how it happened - just noticed it this afternoon. Earliest vet appointment I can get is next Friday, so I'm hoping it's not too serious.
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You know you can get quite deep unhooded ones to help with the tossing?