Tomorrow Eli and I are picking up 2 new family members. I've never owned cats and Eli's only ever "owned" practically feral outdoor cats. I know there are more than a few cat people here on IC - tips and tricks?
Get "Laser" declawing at that. It's a bit more expensive, but it's less painful for kitties, less likely to result in bleeding from paws later, and allows them to continue to use real litter that same day, rather than having to use paper litter for a week or so.
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colapart legend, part devil... all manBalls deepIcrontian
While I have not myself used Claw Caps, they are highly recommended. (When I was younger, declawing was the norm and just assumed, that has changed. My current cat is 1/2 outside cat so he still has his claws). The caps do not always stay on and you may find them throughout the house.
Cats are scratchers though and scratchers gunna scratch. Even with the caps you will want to give them something to "play" with. A scratching post or pad, something like that. They will try to scratch everything else though. When you catch them scratching something they should not, pick them up, put them on/next to their scratching post and show them how to scratch it. They will learn.
Edit: by scratch I mean more so sharpening their claws. We call it "making biscuits" because they look like they are kneading dough. They will do this wherever they are and they also do it when they are happy so watch your lap when you pet them :-P
Similar advise for sleeping spots. Cats are going to want to sleep in their favorite spot and that will most likely end up being somewhere on your furniture. Have a bed for them or a blanket to put over the top of the couch/chair/whatever, and when they lay down where you don't want them, pick them up and put them where you want them.
Grooming. Cats love to be pet and groomed. If you want to stay away from them hacking up hair balls on your floor/stuff, take the time to brush them with a pet brush. This is both a bonding experience with little ones (Their mommy would do this with her tongue in the wild) and removed the shedding hair so the cats don't have to. If they do it, it will end up in their tummies and then they will be hackin' up them hair balls. If they are a long haired bread, you can consider shaving them in the early spring/summer. This is both good to keep them cool and hilarious to see your cat "naked." If they are going to be 100% inside cars, feel free to clip their nails every once in a while. If they are going to play outside at all, do not as they use their claws for grip, balance and defense if necessary.
Shots and spay/neuter. Gotta do it, plan on it. Think of them like your baby. There are shots that you need to get at certain intervals and then eventually need to have them sterilized. Having them "fixed" is not just to help the wild animal population as Bob Barker has advised for years, it will also help them as they will not get the hormones that cause them to go into heat (That is a nice way of saying they get horny). When they are in heat they will claw at doors/windows/screens and howl whenever they get a whiff of the neighbors cats.
Pretty much everything in this thread will be a generalization for cats in general. Cats are known to have their own special personalities and can/probably will be an exception to some of it.
Enjoy them, I love me some cats :-D
Source: Grew up in an animal hospital. My mom has managed a local hospital here for as long as I remember, >20 years now. I used the hospital's address so I could go to the Jr High she wanted me to go to and went there every day after school for years.
FRONT declaw them. You'll save your furniture, and they will still be quite capable of climbing about as they are wont to do.
Feed them wet food twice daily about 12 hours apart.
Cuddle them constantly when they are young, or don't expect them to like any sort of human contact later.
Get them spayed/neutered ASAP.
Test for worms, fleas, rabies, feline leukemia and feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) ASAP.
If they get goopy eyes and sneeze a lot, it's an upper respiratory infection. It's not serious, but usually bacterial and should be closely monitored, and treated with an antibiotic if necessary.
The "cats don't give a fuck" or "don't like people" myths are perpetrated by shitty people and even shittier owners that create such cats.
Don't be afraid to gently slap, rub, or massage your cat for attention. Any massage you like, they'll probably like too.
Baby voice (low and high pitch) works for fucking serious.
Never let them outside. They are domesticated cats. They will be quite fine indoors their whole lives, and much less likely to get fucking demolished by all the feral shit they've spent 6,000 years avoiding. Domesticated cats are bred to live indoors. They are not prepared for the dangers of outside, especially not cars or larger predators.
Cats will always puke on something soft, like a rug, carpet, blanket or pillow. Prepare for this accordingly.
Litter train by gently disciplining an inappropriate piss or turd, then moving them to a catbox to finish. Make damn sure that catbox is in its final place when you start, 'cause you'll never be able to move it.
Brush them every few days with an undercoat brush, doubly so in the winter or if they're long-haired. Some like wire, some like bristle, so have both on hand.
Change their water every 3-4 days.
Signed, Your friendly local has-owned-about-15-very-long-lived-cats-across-26-years Icrontian
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AnnesTripped Up by Libidos and HubrisAlexandria, VAIcrontian
I agree with no declawing. My parent's newer cat never claws their leather couches to my knowledge (and I've sat in the living for 2 months straight); this is probably directly correlated with them having a "cat castle" structure that my dad built with carpet and a catnip scratching pad (bought, but its basically cat nip underneath corrugated cardboard pieces so they never actually get the catnip but get to scratch away. Some cats also enjoy toys of noisy (bells inside balls) or imitation (fluffy mice) variety. I can also vouch (via a friend) for the claw covers.
I've always been a dry food fan because my cats have always been grazers (eat a few bites now and then) and wet food will go bad after being out for a while. Truth is ether will work. ASPCA puts it best:
Please remember that in addition to feeding your feline a high-quality food, kittens, adults and mature cats all have different nutritional requirements. Therefore, it is important to feed your pet a diet intended for his/her life stage.
For the record outdoor/nearly feral cats are the best cats. My parents had this weird looking orange cat just show up at the house. It will bite you and shit. Pretty awesome cat. As long as you don't live in bobcat/coyote/high traffic area you should raise some feral cats. They'll kill all the shit and give you dirty looks when you feed them and all kinds of other awesome shit.
You'll thank me later.
0
RahnalH102the Green Devout, Veteran Monster Hunter, Creature EnthusiastNew MexicoIcrontian
Huzzah for your new family members! Good advice all around. All I would have to contribute at this point would be silly trivia.
Owned cats for 33+ years. All have been declawed. A few we tried to NOT declaw and after several scratching posts, catnip cardboard scratchers, Cat-No spray, pepper, and finally two lounge chairs arms destroyed, we had them declawed in the front. Laser is a MUST though. Leaves the "digits" mostly intact so they retain most of their sense of touch and no long term problems. Like any other pet, touch them a ton, brush them, touch their paws, and reward them often to encourage them to allow you to do the same thing years later. I have always free fed my cats and only had 2 fat cats. The rest just nibbled... Please make them 100% indoor cats. I've killed THREE cats in the past 5 years all from a neighbor that has indoor/outdoor cats and they seem to love darting out in front of cars. Really made me mad then so unbelievably sad that I ran them over. Cats love sun and windows. If you can, put a bird feeder outside a sun facing window. My cats sit in the window and sun themselves and chirp at the birds. Laser pens can be hilarious as can good catnip... combine them and you have entertainment for the entire night. Be VERY diligent about peeing behavior. Once a cat pees in a corner, in a plant, on clothes, or whatever it can be nearly impossible to break the habit and the pee is made of part super glue, part sugar water, part oil. It get sticky, sweet smelling, and very tough to clean. NATURES MIRACLE is a must too. It is a enzyme based cleaner that "eats" the pee so it really kills the odor and can reduce the odds the cat pees again. I have one cat that likes feet and thus shoes... and LOVES to "mark" them. Many, many pairs have been thrown away after getting peed on. One cat loves dirty clothes. Make a pile on laundry day, gotta keep her away or she'll pee on them. But over all, you start out right and they are good pets.
Considering that declawing is basically amputating part of the end of their digits, I'm fairly against de-clawing.
Instead, I'd try to introduce scratching posts of various shapes and sizes (some cats like scratch pads that go on the ground, others like vertical posts, or even diagonal sloped scratch surfaces). You can also get pet nail clippers to manage claw sharpness, which works for my family. Just be sure to not cut too far back to hit the vein at the base of each claw.
If all of this fails and valuables are still being damaged, de-clawing is an option. But please consider doing everything else first. We have 2 cats with claws, and they love their scratching posts. Never seen them use anything else.
My cats have always been perfectly happy cats without their front claws. In the end it's up to your preference.
I've used claw caps for one cat because she was missing one of her front paws, and the vet suggested that it would make it even harder for her to get around if she was deprived of the extra grip of the single remaining front paw. She told me that capping them would be fine, though, so I did that. I can tell you that it does require some maintenance. They have to be replaced every few weeks - or when they fall off - and you have to trim the claws yourself, since they'll have no way to dull or shorten them on their own, and cats hate having their claws trimmed in my experience. I tried doing the caps thing for that kitten's sister, since I would already be doing one paw, why not three? In the end, I decided it would be more humane, for that cat at least, to just have her declawed rather than make her suffer having her claws trimmed regularly.
As for food, Iams kibble is enough (nothing cheaper), and if you always leave food out all the time, they will moderate their own intake. If you start feeding them only what they need several time/day, like a dog, then you'll have to do it like that forever, and that's a pain, and usually results in fatter cats. Unlike the above paragraph, this paragraph is more than personal experience. I worked at a pet food store once, and had to get a certificate in pet nutrition in order to manage the store. (I can also tell you about stool ratios, if you like :P)
At the end of the day - as you've noticed in this thread - you'll get a thousand different sources tell you a thousand different 'best' ways to deal with a cat, but honestly, you've got to just go with what works for you and your cats.
Also if it's an outdoor/feral cat if it dies it's almost not your fault much.
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JBoogalooThis too shall pass...Alexandria, VAIcrontian
Declawing is basically like cutting off your finger at the first knuckle as I've been told by numerous vets. We've always wondered what the deal was and our first trip to the vet we asked about it. Tea and I LOVE our cat like a child. He's got huge sharp claws and we've never used claw caps. We clip them on a regular basis and our cat has destroyed NOTHING in our house (besides a few scratches from excessive playing with him) and we've had him going on six years now. We picked him up from an animal shelter (the Alexandria one) when he was 11 weeks old. It's really all in how you raise your cats, as we've discovered. We raised him and treated him with huge amounts of love, a fair amount of discipline, tons of attention, and mass amounts of playfulness. We always played with him when we came home, made sure to have more than 2 scratching posts and cat toys (and a cat tower...cat age appropriate) available, kept him in a room for 3 days so he wasn't overwhelmed by the size of the apartment (and so he can understand where his food and bathroom were), we rubbed his paws with our hands (so he'd get used to us cutting his nails), held him often, and made sure to call him by his name every chance we got. After maybe 2-3 weeks he was beginning to understand his name (he'd respond to Stripey, but no variations of it), within a couple months he was understanding of the pitch in our voice (such as when he's good and bad), within weeks he was cuddling with us on the couch, and in 3 months time he was beginning to sleep on our pillows with us at night (if you allow that type of thing). Since then we are always greeted by the most loving cat EVERY time we walk into the house, he sits on our laps when we're on the couch or in chairs, and he has always just been a RIDICULOUSLY loving cat. As far as food, we started him on a kind of expensive dry food (and he's stayed on it since without EVER needing to go to the vet for sickness or teeth issues). If you want to ask about it or check it out its EVO "The Ancestral Diet" (in a purple bag). The only other food he eats is cheese that we give him, plain table turkey, tuna from a can (his once in a while treat), and the treats called Greenies. It's sound a bit crazy, but our cat really is family and we skimp on nothing when it comes to taking care of him.
Just a bit of info from these cat owners Have fun with the kittens!
I've always been less concerned with furniture, and more concerned with my skin. I love cuddling with cats, but every single clawed cat I've cuddled with stretches out their claws when they get comfy and attach them to you. It's not very fun. I've had tons with owners that tried to train them out of it, and it never seemed to work.
(anecdotal, since my cats do not claw me unless I purposefully fuck with them)
My friend LOVES to mess with his cats and doesn't mind the scratches within reason, and they aren't afraid to mess with him back. Should see his arms. Like some weird attempt at cutting.
Some great stories and tips here. Ultimately, remember that every cat is different. Just like kids, the personality of your cats will be influenced by a mix of their surroundings and upbringing. Do your best, and adjust as needed to meet both their needs and your own.
Comments
unless you don't like your furniture
Cats are scratchers though and scratchers gunna scratch. Even with the caps you will want to give them something to "play" with. A scratching post or pad, something like that. They will try to scratch everything else though. When you catch them scratching something they should not, pick them up, put them on/next to their scratching post and show them how to scratch it. They will learn.
Edit: by scratch I mean more so sharpening their claws. We call it "making biscuits" because they look like they are kneading dough. They will do this wherever they are and they also do it when they are happy so watch your lap when you pet them :-P
Similar advise for sleeping spots. Cats are going to want to sleep in their favorite spot and that will most likely end up being somewhere on your furniture. Have a bed for them or a blanket to put over the top of the couch/chair/whatever, and when they lay down where you don't want them, pick them up and put them where you want them.
Grooming. Cats love to be pet and groomed. If you want to stay away from them hacking up hair balls on your floor/stuff, take the time to brush them with a pet brush. This is both a bonding experience with little ones (Their mommy would do this with her tongue in the wild) and removed the shedding hair so the cats don't have to. If they do it, it will end up in their tummies and then they will be hackin' up them hair balls. If they are a long haired bread, you can consider shaving them in the early spring/summer. This is both good to keep them cool and hilarious to see your cat "naked." If they are going to be 100% inside cars, feel free to clip their nails every once in a while. If they are going to play outside at all, do not as they use their claws for grip, balance and defense if necessary.
Shots and spay/neuter. Gotta do it, plan on it. Think of them like your baby. There are shots that you need to get at certain intervals and then eventually need to have them sterilized. Having them "fixed" is not just to help the wild animal population as Bob Barker has advised for years, it will also help them as they will not get the hormones that cause them to go into heat (That is a nice way of saying they get horny). When they are in heat they will claw at doors/windows/screens and howl whenever they get a whiff of the neighbors cats.
Pretty much everything in this thread will be a generalization for cats in general. Cats are known to have their own special personalities and can/probably will be an exception to some of it.
Enjoy them, I love me some cats :-D
Source: Grew up in an animal hospital. My mom has managed a local hospital here for as long as I remember, >20 years now. I used the hospital's address so I could go to the Jr High she wanted me to go to and went there every day after school for years.
Feed them wet food twice daily about 12 hours apart.
Cuddle them constantly when they are young, or don't expect them to like any sort of human contact later.
Get them spayed/neutered ASAP.
Test for worms, fleas, rabies, feline leukemia and feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) ASAP.
If they get goopy eyes and sneeze a lot, it's an upper respiratory infection. It's not serious, but usually bacterial and should be closely monitored, and treated with an antibiotic if necessary.
The "cats don't give a fuck" or "don't like people" myths are perpetrated by shitty people and even shittier owners that create such cats.
Don't be afraid to gently slap, rub, or massage your cat for attention. Any massage you like, they'll probably like too.
Baby voice (low and high pitch) works for fucking serious.
Never let them outside. They are domesticated cats. They will be quite fine indoors their whole lives, and much less likely to get fucking demolished by all the feral shit they've spent 6,000 years avoiding. Domesticated cats are bred to live indoors. They are not prepared for the dangers of outside, especially not cars or larger predators.
Cats will always puke on something soft, like a rug, carpet, blanket or pillow. Prepare for this accordingly.
Litter train by gently disciplining an inappropriate piss or turd, then moving them to a catbox to finish. Make damn sure that catbox is in its final place when you start, 'cause you'll never be able to move it.
Brush them every few days with an undercoat brush, doubly so in the winter or if they're long-haired. Some like wire, some like bristle, so have both on hand.
Change their water every 3-4 days.
Signed,
Your friendly local has-owned-about-15-very-long-lived-cats-across-26-years Icrontian
You'll thank me later.
http://www.amazon.com/Natures-Miracle-Stain-Odor-Remover
Instead, I'd try to introduce scratching posts of various shapes and sizes (some cats like scratch pads that go on the ground, others like vertical posts, or even diagonal sloped scratch surfaces). You can also get pet nail clippers to manage claw sharpness, which works for my family. Just be sure to not cut too far back to hit the vein at the base of each claw.
If all of this fails and valuables are still being damaged, de-clawing is an option. But please consider doing everything else first. We have 2 cats with claws, and they love their scratching posts. Never seen them use anything else.
I've used claw caps for one cat because she was missing one of her front paws, and the vet suggested that it would make it even harder for her to get around if she was deprived of the extra grip of the single remaining front paw. She told me that capping them would be fine, though, so I did that. I can tell you that it does require some maintenance. They have to be replaced every few weeks - or when they fall off - and you have to trim the claws yourself, since they'll have no way to dull or shorten them on their own, and cats hate having their claws trimmed in my experience. I tried doing the caps thing for that kitten's sister, since I would already be doing one paw, why not three? In the end, I decided it would be more humane, for that cat at least, to just have her declawed rather than make her suffer having her claws trimmed regularly.
As for food, Iams kibble is enough (nothing cheaper), and if you always leave food out all the time, they will moderate their own intake. If you start feeding them only what they need several time/day, like a dog, then you'll have to do it like that forever, and that's a pain, and usually results in fatter cats. Unlike the above paragraph, this paragraph is more than personal experience. I worked at a pet food store once, and had to get a certificate in pet nutrition in order to manage the store. (I can also tell you about stool ratios, if you like :P)
At the end of the day - as you've noticed in this thread - you'll get a thousand different sources tell you a thousand different 'best' ways to deal with a cat, but honestly, you've got to just go with what works for you and your cats.
As far as food, we started him on a kind of expensive dry food (and he's stayed on it since without EVER needing to go to the vet for sickness or teeth issues). If you want to ask about it or check it out its EVO "The Ancestral Diet" (in a purple bag). The only other food he eats is cheese that we give him, plain table turkey, tuna from a can (his once in a while treat), and the treats called Greenies. It's sound a bit crazy, but our cat really is family and we skimp on nothing when it comes to taking care of him.
Just a bit of info from these cat owners