Cat Care

It is important to use the proper cat care for both a kitten or an older cat so that your p[et can enjoy good health for many years. One of the first things you should take care of when you bring home a new cat is where it will sleep. Since this will be a traumatic experience for a kitten being separated from its mother and the rest of the litter, you should place the bed in a small quiet area of your home. Give the cat time to get used to its new surroundings and to you. Don’t approach it quickly because this will scare it. Rather sit quietly and allow the kitten to come to you.

All cats need comfortable bedding in the area that you designate where they will sleep. This allows them to have something soft to curl up next to and will keep them from getting on the furniture in the living room or from sleeping on one of the beds. You should have a container that holds the cat’s food and water.

Once the cat get used to this area, you can gradually allow it in other rooms of the house. You can allow it outdoors after about three weeks so that it is then used to living in a new place and will not try to run off. You can buy a collar for the cat with a tag containing the cat’s name and your address, but you do have to make sure that it is not too tight. If it is, it could cause harm to the cat if it does get tangled in something. You will also need to have a scratching post for the cat so that it doesn’t start scratching the furniture.

You should provide food for an adult cat twice a day. Specially prepared cat foods for all ages of cats are widely available at supermarkets and pet stores. This way you can get food that a kitten needs, one for a growing cat and one for an adult. Young kittens need to have milk rather than water. Older cats don’t need milk as it can cause diarrhea. Be careful when you do feed your cat any scraps from the table and check for bones. The bones could get stuck in its throat.

While cats do need fresh air and should go outside for exercise, there are cats that never go outside preferring to remain in the house. You should have small toys for your cat and play with it from time to time. Younger cats have more energy they need to work off, whereas older cats are perfectly content to sleep for most of the day.

You do have to train your cat to use the litter box if it isn’t housetrained when you get it. This means keeping it in a small area covered in newspaper. When the cat associates the newspaper with going to the bathroom, it will gradually start going on only newspaper. Then you can start putting the newspaper in the litter pan and finally it will start using the pan regardless of whether it contains newspaper or not. With the Kitty Litter on the market today, there are odor vaporizers that eliminate the smell so you don’t have to change it every day.