The Best Stuff For Your Cat

Thinking of welcoming a new cat into your home?

It is important to recognize, first and foremost, that a cat is not like a toy or luxury item, but rather more like a baby. Children have needs you’d expect to meet and support. Cats are living and quite intelligent creatures that have needs as well. Your cat, especially an indoor cat, will be wholly dependent on you to fill those needs.

Your kitten will be totally dependent upon you

In order to thrive, there are some fundamental basics that a cat needs, such as good food, water, a litter box, scratching post, the occasional bath (yelp!) and a place to sleep. Oh yes, and don’t forget – appropriate cat toys (and no laser pointers are not appropriate cat toys as they confound and frustrate the cat but never afford it the gratification of succeeding.) A bored kitten will tend to wreak havoc on your home.

Cat toys are also beneficial to the kitty because they afford it the exercise and stimulation it needs. Using your fingers to taunt and tease them is a bad idea due to the fact that when they get older, and those teeth get bigger and sharper, it won’t be quite as much fun when they think it is OK to bite your hand.

Other items to consider for the cat’s new home are:

• a cat collar
• cat furniture, cat condos, cat trees
• a warm, cozy cat bed or even a heated cat bed
• an Automatic Water Dispenser: keeping a steady supply of moving water will keep the cat well hydrated.
• cat litter box

Your kitten will not arrive out-of-the-box litter trained.  Even if it understands the concept, it won’t necessarily understand the layout of your home.  This makes litter training top priority. The litter box should be large enough for your cat to enter and exit with enough space inside (if it is covered) to turn around. Adding newspaper, scraps of carpet or similar will aid in acclimating the cat that this is the proper place for them to take care of business.

Be sure not to overfeed your cat wet food which can be akin to fast food. It is of value in the kitten’s earlier years as it needs some fat to grow, but as the cat matures it is preferable to switch to a primarily dry food diet. Visit our cat supply store to find some incredible dry cat food choices from a variety of health and ecologically conscious manufacturers including (Paul) Newman’s Own organic brand.