New Cat Owner - Tips?

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Wood

Not sure if all ragdolls are similar but mine is like a dog. Follows us everywhere, so friendly, playful, only meows when his food bowl is empty otherwise he's silent, he trained easily and is non-destructive. Make sure you get a scratching post though because mine likes to stretch and ragdolls are big and extremely strong

They are generally kind of dog-like. Mine does the same, almost always in the same room as me (and when he's not, it doesn't last long before he comes looking). Maybe a bit skittish sometimes but friendly with everyone, you can hand him to people and he's fine. Likes being picked up, I can even just put him on my shoulders and he'll hang out there happily. Very playful, but calms down quickly when he gets over-excited and tries to eat my arm or something. Mine is a bit noisier than yours though, apparently; he's quite talkative. As noted in the other thread, he likes to play fetch.

Annoyances, well, he chews things, for sure - even grocery bags and more recently a PS4 controller's top buttons. But I've managed to protect most of my stuff effectively with a bit of lemon juice, and once you've done that once he learns that that particular cable is not what he wants to taste. He's also a bit rebellious, in that he knows I don't want him scratching my chairs or the guest bed, but he does it anyway just to get attention, then runs away when I say his name in an admonishing tone. Still, he's less destructive than any dog I've owned. And he does get bored and try to wake me up at around 5:30 if I let him into the room, although sometimes that's a welcome alarm clock.

[edslunch]

Double-sided tape strategically placed on the corners of tempting scratching places works like a charm. After they try a few times they never will again and you can remove the tape

[Max Cow Disease]

With something like the lemon juice, do you coat the entire length of any exposed cables by dabbing with a cotton swab or something? How regularly does this need to happen?

[DuffMan]

Turn cats into tacos.

[photon]

Call your cat Palindrome and you'll get to forever explain that Tacocat spelled backwards is Tacocat.

[cupofjoe]

I would appreciate any and all tips on things like:


a) preventing material damage

b) creating a great environment for a new kitten

c) feline food management

d) feline waste management

e) general feline management

a) Get nail clippers and clip nails regular approx every 2 weeks. Start this right from the beginning and reward the little monster with several treats after nails are clipped. You can also doing any grooming / brushing at the same time. If the cat scratches furniture, it will do less damage while you correct the behavior.

b) You don't have to spend much on toys, but likely you will anyways (hard to resist). Laser lights are fun for most cats, but even scrunched up aluminum foil balls are fun. Have multiple scratch posts / pads around house, praise / pet / reward the kitten every time it uses one (especially at the beginning). If you catch him scratching furniture etc, don't hit or scold, place him on a nearby scratch pad and after he scratches it, reward him with petting etc.

c) Good quality wet food only IMO (grain free), not as convenient, but healthier for the cat, and potentially less vet visits in the long run. Male cats are especially prone to urinary track blockages which are ofter caused in part by dry food. We almost lost ours to this (it was an expensive vet bill). We switch over to wet food with no problems since.

d) If you can afford it, the automated litter boxes are very nice, we have both the catgenie and litter-robot. They both work very well, the catgenie is less maintenance and my personal preference.

e) If you plan to eventually get another cat / kitten, make sure you do some research and introduce the new one properly to the home. Google this online and there is lots of info. Enjoy your kitten, they can be a little destructive at times but be patient and have fun with him.

[driveway]

I've owned cats my whole life, by my count 13 cats have come through my life in various ways be they mine, my roommate's, girlfriend's, or a foster. I currently have two and have finally figured out the best possible cat-litter solution.

First you want to get yourself a litter box with a tray for a pee-pad:


This next part might be a little complicated, but I think I've figured out the North American solution... THIS is the type of cat litter you want. The bag looks like this:

Now, I'm not 100% sure if you can get this stuff in Canada, but having done some google translate, I believe this is a zeolite cat litter. The big key is that it is non clumping. It looks like pine litter, but isn't. Pine litter breaks down into dust as it absorbs moisture, but this stuff doesn't break down. It does however completely eliminate any ammonia smells, it's freaking amazing.

Change the absorbent bad and scoop the litter every two to three days and there will be essentially no cat odor. I have two cats and two litter boxes in a three-bedroom apartment and everyone always mentions how they can't actually smell the cat litter. Even if you're using the bathroom that one of the litter boxes is in, still can't smell a thing. Here's an English website about zeolite cat litter: http://purenaturepets.com/what-is-no...-kitty-litter/

Cannot recommend this highly enough.

Oh, you're going to want a lot of these: like A LOT. Get ready for your whole life to be covered in cat hair. There is pretty much no way around it. Based on the colour of your cat you may as well set any dark upholstered furniture you have on fire right now. If all your furniture more-or-less matches your cat, you'll be quite happy.

[Max Cow Disease]

Great posts. Are there any decent one-stop shops for a lot of the necessary goodies in Calgary?

[Amethyst]

Any pet store should have pretty much everything, except maybe the litter if you go for something unusual.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Max Cow Disease

With something like the lemon juice, do you coat the entire length of any exposed cables by dabbing with a cotton swab or something? How regularly does this need to happen?

I just did it with a paper towel. And I've only ever done it once to any given cord. Once the cat tries to chew the thing, it will immediately stop and think "well that was just awful", and never try again. Or at least, that's my cat. I've also heard people using a combination of lemon juice and hot red pepper flakes, but lemon juice by itself worked for me. Fortunately, with my cat, he decided that he really likes chewing the little velcro thing on my laptop cord that you use to wrap it up, so I just sacrificed that to him.

I should also say that it's basically impossible to predict what cables they want to chew and which ones they don't care about, but apple chargers seem to be favourites.

For cleaning furniture, I suggest you buy this brush immediately.

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It is amazingly effective at getting fur off of all upholstered surfaces. If you have hardwood floors, I would also suggest getting a Roomba (or similar). Running it a few times a week will collect a lot of random loose fur that's just floating around, and greatly reduce your effort.

[edslunch]

Double-sided tape strategically placed on the corners of tempting scratching places works like a charm. After they try a few times they never will again and you can remove the tape

[Sliver]

My advice is if you can get out of this you should. In theory, getting a cat would be cool of you end up with a cool one. Chances are way too high of getting a lame one, though. I started a thread a few years ago when we were looking for a cat. We did end up getting one but only kept it for a year because it was a total dud. Meowed all the time, scratched stuff (and people), always had poo stuck to his butt hair (effing nasty), left hair everywhere. It was an absolute nightmare. Pretty sure we'll never do that again.

[Amethyst]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Pretty sure we'll never do that again.

I certainly hope not!

[CalgaryFan1988]

Do not get your cat de-clawed under any circumstance. If it's a male, buy good food low in ash and avoid wet food as it rots teeth.

[Jonrox]

Don't completely avoid either hard or wet food. Later on in life your cat may end up with dietary restrictions requiring one or the other. Cats can become quite picky about their food and if they're not ok with eating both, you could end up with a battle at some point.

Watch out for strings, ribbons, tinsel, toys on bouncy strings, floss in the garbage can, etc... our little guy ends up eating anything resembling a string if we leave it out or aren't careful. Our girl cat doesn't do the same though. Until you know what your kitten will do, just be careful. Eating strings can lead to serious problems requiring surgery.

I'll second the playing around with ears, mouth, and especially paws early on. You might think you're being annoying but it will make life so much easier for you later on.

Also, inside cats only!!

If you even think about declawing, first break one of your knuckles with a hammer then yank your fingernail off with pliers and see how you feel. If you don't enjoy the experience then don't declaw your cat.

[Max Cow Disease]

No, declawing doesn't seem like a particularly friendly practice. What purpose does the playing with ears/mouth/paws serve exactly?

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Max Cow Disease

No, declawing doesn't seem like a particularly friendly practice. What purpose does the playing with ears/mouth/paws play exactly?

You and your vet will need access to those areas to check his health periodically. If he freaks out and tries to maul you because he's not used to those areas being touched, it just makes things more difficult. Particularly you're going to have to clip his claws (which is different from declawing and is essentially the same thing as clipping your nails), which if you get him used to it young is relatively easy, even if you can't do them all at once.

You're saving yourself some blood, basically.

[bigtmac19]

A lot of vet offices sell food, it's a bit higher in price, but you can avoid a lot of problems later on if you buy them. Look for food that is specific for Urinary Health. As others have said, this can crop up suddenly especially in male cats, and can be reoccurring. They get blockages and are unable to pee, and you can lose them very quickly. My son was feeding his two males a very expensive highly recommended food from the pet store, but had to stop when this happened to his cat. It was the cause of the urinary blockage.

[Fuzz]

Training when they are a kitten is important. Brush their teeth once a week to get used to it. Cut their nails. We put ours in a harness every day for an hour so she was accustomed to it. Because we spend so much time in our yard, it was going to be inevitable she would want to spend time with us out there. So now she goes out with us on a harness and leash and gets to enjoy chasing bugs in the yard. She even took care of our vole problem!

If you plan on travelling with them, make sure you give them time in the carrier. We take ours out to Canmore, but I'm not sure we did enough crating as she isn't always calm for the trip. My dad also has a cat, so getting her accustomed to it when young really helped. She's pretty good around other animals.

If your kitten is being destructive, it probably wants to play. Make time for them, I toss her some toys every morning. I bought a little RC car for her to chase around.

As for food, boy that's a rabbit hole! I'm now in the camp that they should primarily get wet, with some dry to clean the teeth. I was at the vet asking about food. They recommended a Purina one and Royal Canin. I mentioned I had Purina Fancy Feast, and she said that was OK as a treat, but it was like feeding the cat big macs. Uh huh. So I get a sampler and open it. It looks identical to the fancy feast. I check the meat content, minerals etc. And they are identical. The only difference was the order of a couple minor ingredients, and the Fancy Feast had chicken broth instead of water as one ingredient. Oh, and the vet stuff costs twice as much!

I've read not to feed to much fish, so I've switched for the 3 pack of chicken-salmon-tuna to chicken-chicken-turkey, and she gets a few fish every week. Honestly I think the vet food is a bit of a scam. Obviously there is crap food out there, but I don't think the vet specific stuff is better than what can be found at the store, if you do a little reading.

[cupofjoe]

+1 on everything Fuzz posted. Vet food can be a scam, I don't think all vets promote particular food or intentionally deceive clients. There are big corporations at play here with predictable results.

Quote for the following link:

"And part of the problem, as a Mail investigation can reveal, is that much of the veterinary industry is inextricably linked to the pet-food manufacturers.
Research into pet food is carried out by the pet-food companies but, more surprisingly, the training of vets at some universities is also funded by pet-food manufacturers.
Crucially, lectures on nutrition at a number of vet schools, and for veterinary nurses at individual practices, are also often paid for - and even taught - by these huge corporations, giving them the ideal platform to promote their products."


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-vet-rich.html

It is best that you do you own research and draw your own conclusions about which food to buy for your kitten.