Please tell me about Kittens

[AllyandJack]

From experience, I've learned never to get anything with a bell or any sort of ball that has a hard outer shell. I've spent many sleepless nights listening to "jingle jingle" or "tap....tap...tap, tap, tap....tap....tap". It gets old fast.

 

[beckmrk04]

Our cat plays with pens and hair ties. No matter how many fuzzy mice and jingly bells and catnip filled things and whatever we have bought her, nothing quite satisfies her like stealing an ink pen or one of my hair ties!!! We still buy her Christmas presents forher stocking, but I might as well buy a pack of Bic pens, and save a couple of dollars!! When we moved we found (I am not kidding) 36 pens under our couch. She is too funny.

We just get regular clumping litter. Beware the dog might like to eat out of the litterbox!! Ew, I know!

Our cat eats Purina Cat Chow. We've tried other (Iams, indoor formulas, hairball control) and she just won't eat them or they make her throw up.

And we dont' have a pet condo- she has a whole house! Plus, we just don't have room for one. Every time we've bought her a pet bed or anything like that, she has ignored it and slept wherever she pleased anyway, so I gave up.

In the end, it just doesn't take too much to make my cat happy!

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

We gave up clumping litter for crystals--and yes--when my cats go...there is baby powder in the air as that is the sent.

One cat likes any toy with feathers (drives him bananas).
Another likes to play fetch with fuzzy balls.


Teh towers are great--we do not have one due to expense...but we have made them before. Cats like to climb and hide.

Mine love to play on the porch--so if you have a screen porch--outside time is a safe treat.

Our oldest were siblings from the same litter and they love oen another. Cats are on a whole different playing field than dogs and while 2 puppies would be twice the effort--kittens do not follow the same ratio.


Cat food--we have to get whatever does not contain fish which is harder than it sounds--all cat food--even if it isn't fish or seafood flavor--contains fish. Now my cats like fish as much as the next cat--but it is detrimental to my cats urinary tract health to not have fish. I was using a whiskas brand--and even though it had no fish--I check the label every time. One day--it was "New and improved"--they had added fish meal to the ingredients and we could not longer get it. I think we have friskies or something now. Not my preference for their cat food, but as I said--fish free is hard to locate.

 

[TurboKitty]

We feed a mixture of Iams kitten food and regular Iams because our cats keep trying to eat the wrong food. We have a small kitty condo, but neither cat uses it. They prefer the back of the couch, or an empty box. I think my girls might like the pet tents though.


Go hang out with a cat and see what you think....


BTW, if you really want your cat to wear clothes, I am sure you could train it to tolerate that....but claws do hurt, and tiny claws feel like needles. May not be worth it to you.

 

[TheOtherVillainess]

What are your cats favorite toys?
Do you have a pet condo?
What brand and type of food does your cat enjoy?
Tell me about your litter boxes!

I'm not sure what your definition of a pet condo is, but we have a tubular scratching post that's got two holes and one 'landing' that just appeared outside our apt door one day years ago. No lie. I came home from work and there it was, sitting outside in the hallway near our door. I looked left, looked right and as nobody was around I dragged it inside. Nobody ever asked about it or reported one missing, so we kept it. And it's been probably close to five years now we've had it.

We've always fed IAMS brand and usually it's the standard adult brand that comes in the orange bag. We usually get the hairball control formula.

Favorite toys--she really likes small, shiny, crackly balls she can bat around easily, as well as 'fishing lure' type toys on the end of a rope on a stick. Rumple is indifferant to catnip. Some cats are but most go for it.

We've always used a covered litterbox and regular ol' clumping clay litter. It's pretty safe for cats of all ages (no matter what anybody says. Our vet said he's NEVER in all his years of practice had to treat a kitten for problems due to clay dust inhalation).

TOV

 

[icebrat001]

Oh wow! Lots of advice thank you.

I think I will spend part of the weekend visiting people I know with cats, maybe we can even see the kitten and the mommy and she how the mothers behavior is.

 

[simba928]

Thank you for all that.

I don't even know the sex of the kitten, all I know is that it is a tan color. Hopefully I will find out the sex of the kitten tonight. Is one sex better than the other?

I have always had female pets, so I really can't tell you. One thing I would like to just let you know that I forgot to say is that my grandma's cat and my cat are female. My friend's cat that I said was so friendly is a male. There are exceptions to everything. As someone said earlier, males are more likely to spray, but that doesn't mean females don't. The first day we had my grandma's cat in the house, she went into the dining room and sprayed a box filled with my grandfather's tools (he wasn't too thrilled with that one). LOL. I would just say to watch the kitten and take cues from it. You will know your cat the best. My cat never scratches or bites me because I know how far I can push her until she's had it. And then if I keep going, I know when she is ready to flip. I know what she likes to play with, where her favorite hiding places are (I can pretty much guess where she is just based on the time of day, where I am, and where my dog is), where she likes me to pet her and where she doesn't like to be touched, and that if I talk to her, especially as soon as I get home, she will meow back to me. Noone on the DIS can tell me the answer to any of those questions. They may be able to generalize it and say "Cats like to hide under things", but they will never be able to say "the cat likes to hide under your bed, but never will be under the guest room bed."

 

[Syrreal]

Yes we are moving to FL at the end of June and both Sophie and the new Kitten would be in the car with us for the "road trip". If we got the kitten, both Sophie and the new Kitten would get something from the Vet to get them cool, calm and collected.

We've gotten three kittens form our humane society in the past 1.5 years (our fault really for just saying "let's just go look and play") We didn't even have to train any of them to use the box. We just put them in it when we got home and that was all they needed.
About a month and a half after we got our 1st one we drove down to FL to visit the parents (mine and dh's) and brought her along. We put her in the backseat and after whining for about 15-20 minutes she calmed down and fell asleep. We went through the same routine after each break on the 1st day because we let her walk around inside the car at the stops (but the whining became less and less with each stop). By the 2nd day she didn't complain at all.
On another trip we found out that she can't go in the back part of the car (we had a subaru outback so it has the "trunk area") because I think it makes her dizzy, so we just keep her in the backseat or on a lap. We haven't taken the others on a long trip yet but know that the youngest whines even going to the vet.
My advice is that if you get the kitten before the move, take it for a longer car ride (an hour or 1.5 hours) to see how it will do. If it freaks out just let your vet know.
Also, you should look into a carrier with lots of ventilation. The ones we have for each of our cats are soft bag carriers and are all mesh so they let in lot's of air. That will help if your cat gets motion sickness.