Cats Daily

Owning Cats

Kittens or Adults?

Choosing over kittens or adults seems to be one of the hardest choice. While most of us are tempted to adopt cute little kittens, please read pros and cons to adopt each of them when you make decision.

Kittens

Pros:

• They are Cute! No doubts that babies are really cute.
• You can have longer relationship with kittens adults.
• Kittens can be social with other animals if exposed to them at an early stage of their life.
• You can shape some of their habits easily.

Cons:

• You have to adopt two of them in order to prevent Single Kitten Syndrome. It costs you double the amount of owning a single cat.
• Kittens might not develop a good social behavior if adopted before 12 weeks old. For example, kittens adopted too early do not know how harmful it is to scratch human.
• It will take long time for kittens not to scratch others or bite computer cords or become noisy at night, etc.
• Kittens won’t be ‘little’ for long time. They will look like an adult at 6 month of age.
• Kittens are too fragile for small children to play with.

Adults

Pros:

• Most adults are trained to behave properly.
• They do not run around your house crazy at night.
• They are less costly than kittens because you can only adopt an adult cat.
• They can get along with small children.

Cons:

• Adults that are not exposed to other animals when they were young usually do not get along with others at all.
• Adults that did not learn to behave socially when they were young won’t learn social behaviors (not to scratch people hard) easily.
• You might not feel like you are the mother of them.

Conclusion
It is much easier to own an adult cat than owning two kittens.
While kittens are ‘cute’, they will look like an adult at 6 months of age.
If you are beginner and unsure, an adult cat is best for your partner.

Shorthair or Longhair?

Never thought the length of cat’s hair would be a factor to consider when you adopt cats? Well, the difference is simple, yet the amount of effort required to take care of hairs is greatly different.

Shorthair

Obviously, shorthairs are easy to take care. They are less likely to develop diseases from hair balls. So you just need to brush them about once a week. It would be nice if you shampoo them once a month as well. Recommended in most cases.

Longhair

Longhairs causes some problems as they lick their hairs to clean themselves. Hairs attached to their tongues eventually go inside their stomach and it won’t come out in urine. Therefore, you need to brush their hairs EVERY day. If you are not wiling to spend 10 minutes taking care of your cats’ hair, then you probably should not choose longhair cats. However, it pays off in some way. Longhair cats look gorgeous and nice if you take care of their hairs regularly.

Breeder, Pet Shop, or Shelter?

Where should you buy your cats? Does that even matter? YES! Some cats are poorly raised and some do not even know what’s good for cats! So before you adopt cats, understand the risks.

Breeder

They are ‘the’ professionals. If you choose breeders that are certified by CFA or TICA, you are likely to get cats that are raised with concerns and experiences. What is best is that they can provide you after care services. If you are looking to purchase cats online, it is best to deal with breeders because it is easy to check background on them. Just be careful that most of them do not refund the reservation fee, so you have to be ’sure’ that you want the cat. In general, regular prices for cats are $600, and it could go up more depending on the conditions of their hairs, spots of colors, or rareness of breeds. Cats Daily have recommended breeder list. Visit it to see how we screened certified breeders.

Petshop

I have never heard or read articles that recommends you to buy cats at pet shops. Wait wait, aren’t they supposed to be pet professionals? Well, when profits are at the core of their hearts, cats do not receive adequate care they need. Most of the time, they have to be in the cage to save the inventory spaces. It is best to avoid purchasing cats from pet shops.

Shelter/Rescue Center

Depending on the organization, they may or may not be knowledgeable about taking care of cats. Obviously, most of them are not operating for the profit, that would affect how cats are treated. It is best that you read their websites to check out their adoption policy to see if they seem to be knowledgeable about what they do. It is also best to check cats out in person, talk with organization for any questions you have. Regardless of the cons, If you are seriously concerned about those abandoned cats, then it is really nice for you to welcome those cats to your home!

Friends/Individuals

It really depends on the knowledge of your friends or other individuals. It is widely accepted idea that you should not remove kittens from their mothers until they are 10-12weeks old for MANY reasons. So if your friends or individuals seems to be ignorant about it, then do not adopt cats from them or please inform them to treat cats better. If you are purchasing it through pet classifieds, really be careful from who you are purchasing cats from. I do not usually recommend this.

Indoor or Outdoor?

Indoor, period. Do you feel like you are imprisoning your cats if you don’t your cats walk outside? Oh no. Cats do not feel that way unless they are raised in that environment or previous owner has let their cats go outside. Cats are not dogs, they do not have to run outside everyday. What they want is moving up and down, so it is far better for them to have cat condos than going outside. What cats get from going outside is numerous kinds of diseases, flees, or even injuries. From what I have seen so far, all breeders agree and even make you sign that all cats must be raised indoor for the listed reasons. So please take it seriously and read others’ articles about why it is not recommended to let cats go outside. To make cats stay inside, you can try ScatMat Automatic Indoor Pet Training Mat.

Declaw or Natural?

Natural, period. No breeders and almost no rescue centers allows adopters to declaw cats. You must understand that cat’s nail is actually their bones. So declawling means you are amputating cats. If you want to stop your cats from damaging your house, you should consider buying a cat condo with scratching post, or scratch pad.

Spray/Neuter or Natural?

Unless you are going to breed cats with knowledge, you have to spray or neuter your cats. Most breeders requires you to spray/neuter your cats unless it is already done by breeders. It is also important to spray/neuter cats at an early stage. Especially, female cats have to suffer for periods once they experienced it before neuter.

Toilet

Cats usually learn toilet quickly. However, they can’t adopt to the change quickly. So it is best not to change the position of litter box once you placed it. Most cats prefer darker and quiet place for toilet. It is best to use the same litter that previous cat owner used. When cats arrive at your house, they can easily find their appropriate toilet by the smell of sand. If cats happend to toilet on your bed, make sure to clean it till the smell goes away, because cats will remember the toilet by their smell. If you are tired of cleaning litters, you can toilet train your cats to learn how to use human toilet using CitiKitty Cat Toilet Training Kit.

Food & Drink

There are some myths out there about what cats like to eat or drink. Cats should not drink milk, and they should not eat any foods designed for human. Have you ever tasted dog or cat food? They are usually tasteless to human, because the amount of salt is significantly different. You just never know which human food is bad for cats, so feed cat foods and water only. If your cats do not seem to drink much water, you can feed them canned foods or try out Drinkwell Platinum Pet Fountain, cats love to drink from a fountain. Also, make sure you don’t give too much food at once. For your cats diet and your precious time, you can use Automatic Cat Feeder-CSF-3.

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