mrew?

[ysobel]

So I am leaning closer to adopting a cat. It still scares the hell out of me because there is so. much. stuff. that I don't know about owning a cat. And there's so much opportunity for Doing It Wrong.

But on the other hand, KITTY.

(at the moment this is the frontrunner. She would be in the running except for the no-dogs warning; I want to leave the door open, metaphorically speaking, for a service dog.)

I know I don't have a cat yet, or even a definitive plan to for sure get one, but help me out here. What all would I need? Litterbox, litter, scratchy thingie, food, food and water dishes, laser pointer, ??? And how do I find a good vet? (and when should I bring a new kitty in for a checkup, since I know that "when they're sick" is not the best way to introduce cat to vet?)

And ... flail!

Comments

[jmtorres]

Ask locals who have pets if they have vets they like! You should take your cat in for a check-up when you first get her, and then the vet will advise you on what schedule you should return (there's a couple of vaccine schedules, one's annual, another's every three years).

I feed my kids California Natural, niqaeli favors Evo/Innova, they are apparently all under this company: http://www.naturapet.com/ which shows a couple of retail stores when I search your town. Asking at the store that sells the high-end cat food might also be a way to find a good vet!

eta: not all kitties are lap kitties, but I suspect that's something you'd want. So look for it in the petfinder ads!

[jumpuphigh]

I found my vet by asking at my local high-end pet food, natural remedies, and expensive toys store. Also, you might find a kitty that way as well.

[greenbirds]

Dr. Kaneko at the Cat Clinic of [Where You Live] is awesome. When the ex and I were together, we took his cats there and I was very happy with the quality of care. :)

[rydra_wong]

What you absolutely need: litter box, litter, food, food and water dishes, cat carrier for transporting cat to the vet and elsewhere. Scratchy thingy if you want to try to train the cat to scratch it rather than the furniture (this is not guaranteed).

I had a cat carrier like this, which has a flap so that whoever's escorting the cat can put a hand in the carrier and stroke them, which can help reduce their travel stress and in-car yelling a lot.

Toys are good, but it's pretty much a rule that whatever you get initially, your cat will proceed to ignore it and play with something else. *g*

(I tried a laser pointer with my late lamented cat once; he just looked at my hand and gazed patiently at me until I gave up.)

A catnip toy or several is a good idea to break the ice -- not all cats respond to catnip, but the ones that do really love it.

[rainbow]

litterbox, litter (some cats are reactive to grains and some can have urinary issues from clumping litter; plain,unscented clay is the least problematic), soemthing to scratch on (ours lovelovelvoe the cat tree, which is about 6 feet tall with 3 shelves adn a top thingy. but lower things are good, too), food and water (again, some cats are reactive to grains since they're carnivores. we feed grain free homemade but there are quite a few decent grain free storebought brands these days), toys. if you have a sunny window kitty will appreciate a bed there.

an introductory vet visit is recommended by many people. you could ask the place you're adopting through or look up recs online. what you want (holistic care, conventional care, animal acupuncture, etc) will shape your choices.

yay kitty!

[mjules]

You will need kitty claw clippers. Trust me on this. *shows off shredded hand from the little boy who likes to give love bites*

As for food... my mother feeds her cats AvoDerm because it is the only thing her Norah can eat without throwing up (sensitive stomach) but it makes Jude vomit. Halo (organic, high quality, profits go to good causes, owned by Ellen DeGeneres) is good for kibble. All the cats love it.

When you're considering a water bowl, think about one of the fountains with a filter. It's not necessary, but it cuts down on how often you have to change the water/clean the bowl. It still does need to be done, but if you have a static bowl, you'll most likely need to do it once a day/every other day. (My cats always end up shedding in their water, and saliva gathers on the bottom of the bowl, making it gross and slimy.) The fountain with the filter only needs cleaning once a week or so, and the constantly moving water usually tempts cats to drink. (It tempts Jude to treat his water dish like a toy and drag it across the room, spilling water everywhere, but...) Since cats are traditionally not heavy drinkers and commonly suffer urinary problems, anything that gets them drinking more is good. (This is the one we have. It's affordable, it seems to work the best for the cats, and if you use pre-filtered water -- such as bottled water from the grocery store -- then you can just use coffee filters to catch the hair, etc. instead of buying the expensive charcoal filter refills.)

As far as vets, I echo what everyone else says about asking people in your area who have pets. I might also suggest seeing if you have a Banfield Pet Hospital in the area. They're nationwide, usually in PetSmart stores, and that's where we have all our cats. I like it because you can set them up on a health plan (approximately $20/mo for the basic plan) that covers office visits and routine vaccinations and gives you a discount (15% for basic, I want to say?) on everything else. It's been a lifesaver with three cats, and gives us the comfort of preventive care and check-ups. After my last kitty died of fast-acting cancer that I still wonder if we could have detected ahead of time if I'd had her regularly checked out at the vet, it's something I don't mind paying for. And since the pet's information goes in the national database, if you ever have to travel with her and something goes wrong, you can go to any Banfield anywhere and have them be able to access all her records immediately (plus it's still covered under your plan). I don't know how much traveling is an issue for you, but it was for me. I've been very happy with our health plan and with the vets and nurses at our Banfield. My two best friends have their cats on plans there too. Also, I think I can send you a coupon for a free first visit because I have a plan -- that way you can take the kitty to get checked out when you first get her with no obligation, and if you like them, you can join... and if you don't, you're not committed. They're also very, very good about discussing things with me as far as options, suggestions, how much it would cost, etc. They're very low pressure.

And they give me a print out every time I leave with how much the services would've been if I hadn't been on the plan, and how much we've saved with all three cats so far... we put Sundance on the plan first about nine months ago, and we've already saved upward of $5000, and the cats are healthy, which makes me happy.

...And sorry I just wrote a whole book on that. Good luck with the kitty!

[krait]

Seconding the clippers! And someone willing to do the clipping. (I do my housemate's claw-clipping; she holds the cat and distracts her with petting, I do the snippage and it only takes a minute. Thank goodness for good-natured cats! ...And it's a good idea to get the cat used to being held and having its feet handled by doing so at every chance.)

Scratching places are also very good to have -- especially a tall one, since they like to stretch aaaallllll the way out to scratch. :D

Other good things to have on hand might be a cotton balls and a gentle ear cleaning liquid (some cats get built-up waxy gunk in their ears that needs swabbing out, plus it's a good way to keep an eye on the ears for ear mites -- if the gunk is reddish-black, it's mites).

A comb or brush, probably just a simple "slicker brush" since your front-runner is a shorthair, might be a good idea, too, in case she isn't one for self-grooming as much as she should be (or just as a bonding/petting thing!). You might also look into a collar and/or microchipping, if the shelter doesn't do that as part of the adoption process; a frighteningly small percentage of lost cats find home again, so with our own cats we've done everything we can to up the odds.

[niqaeli]

greenbirds offered a specific vet suggestion in your area, but if that's not viable as others have noted, you can also ask at wherever you're getting your pet food. For the record, high-end kibble is honestly worth it because it does wonders for coat and overall health and energy levels. It's really not that much more expensive than cheap kibble and... yeah. I'm fond of Naturapet's products though they're not the only high-end pet food company out there. If you want, I can put together a list of all the high-end pet food companies I'd consider using for any animals of my own.

As far as first vet visit goes, that's going to depend on the cat. How stressed out are they seeming about the move and for how long? Once they seem to be okay with the new environs and so on, take them to the vet. If you have the time, it might be worthwhile to take the cat on short trips in whatever method of transport will be conveying them to the vet as it breaks the association of trip == omg horrible vet's. But that can depend on the cat, too, some cats just always stress and freak out over leaving the house so it can be better to just spare them the extra stress of other trips.

Depending on the cat, you may need to make peace with cat vomit happening. It's -- a whole thing. As cat owners of long and medium haired owners can attest. If you do have a cat prone to hairballing and vomitting, there's some pretty simply remedies that will at least alleviate the issue.

Basically, though, cat ownership's not too difficult. There's opportunity for it going horribly wrong, yeah, but tbh Things Going Horribly Wrong doesn't happen that often. And you know a lot of people who have cats and have experienced most of the ways in which it can go wrong and how you deal with it. So you're not jumping into this without any support!

The only thing I would say is... cats don't live forever and you can lose them completely unexpectedly. Which, duh, and it's totally not something to dwell on, but it's something maybe worth realising before you get a cat that you might face the pain of losing it without preparation.

[pthalo]

Litter box, litter, SCOOPER to get the shit out of the litter, food (find out from previous owner what it's been eating, what brand they've been using. It's okay to change brands, but if many brands are pretty interchangeable and if a cat is already used to something it can help with the transition).

Food and water dishes: the set up we have, which is good because it is low maintenance, is a dispenser that can dispense a lot of food and water at a time. It stores the kitty biscuits in a container with a lid on top and a hole on the bottom which lets the biscuits fall out into a trough. As the cat eats the biscuits, more biscuits fall down. Cats are generally good at eating only when hungry, especially if it's the crunchy dry cat biscuits and not YUMMY YUMMY TASTY HAM I AM A STARVING AND NEVER FOODLED KITTEN PLEASE GIMME HAM. same thing with water -- the kind i have uses a regular 1.5 L water bottle and i just have to refill that and whenever the water level goes down in the trough, more water comes out of the bottle. It's very effective.

laser pointer! yesh!

brush, if the cat needs it -- and some cats like it. scratchy thing if it has claws.

a kitty bed is nice -- doesn't have to be anything expensive, it could even just be an old towel that you decide will be his/hers. But my cats are equally likely to use my pillow as a kitty bed -- Csillag will even use my pillow case as a sheet, burrowing into the pillow case, turning around, and then falling asleep on the pillow with only her head sticking out of the pillow case.

New kitty: generally, you should take him to the vet within 48 hours of acquiring him.


kitty treats are good. don't give them too many, but i find one anti-hairball treat a day does keep the vomiting down, at least somewhat. also, with the vomiting, i noticed that with certain brands of wet food they were much more likely to throw it up immediately (although they liked it very much and wolf it down), whereas other brands they seemed not to throw up so much. it's all trial and error, but the trend we noticed was that the very cheapest stuff, the stuff that was so cheap it was hard to believe they could affordably put meat in it at all, tended to make them throw up more.

you definitely want a lap cat. neither of our cats started out as lapcats, but about 7 years in they suddenly turned into lapcats. i guess they mellowed with age.

as for avoiding doing it wrong: don't pull their tails. they don't like it.

[ephemera]

my much-missed Ariel would never go for one of those storage feeders (biscuits that hadn't been touched by a human were insufficiently 'fresh') but the 1.5 litre water tower was a godsend on hot days!

Also, she was a great fan of the grooming glove - if you imagine a stretchy glove with little rubbery 'stipples' all over the palm and fingers, which catch loose hair as you stroke - apparently that felt really good, and also kept the hairballs down, even though she was never a fan of grooming *brushes*.