>Okay, so I've 'owned' a cat as a kid but the wife and I saw a >beautiful little kitten at the vet (it was a stray).
How nice of you to adopt it! Here's some tips in addition to the others: 1. PLEASE don't declaw your cat without seriously trying everything else first. It's cruel and inhumane and often leads to various behavior issues. You didn't mention anything about this, but so many people do it without even trying other options, thought I'd mention it. Particularly if you intend to let the cat out (I don't recommend this either but of course many people do). 2. So to keep your cat from clawing the furniture, provide LOTS of other places to scratch. Best are near where you/kitty sleep and near where they eat. The most good scratching surfaces you provide the better. The cardboard things are definitely popular, but you should have at least two good, tall scratching posts. Make sure they are tall enough to allow the cat to stretch to full length, and get ones that use sisal rope, NOT carpet. Most cats prefer sisal over carpet, and you can find many nice posts/cat furniture these days that provide a combination. 3. You definitely need to feed somewhere the dog can't reach. I personally prefer a mixture of dry/wet. It's hard to get a good dry food that has the right nutrition that a carnivore like a cat does best on, so I mix some wet into it at least once a day. This is particularly true for male cats, they tend to have less urinary issues on wet food than dry. 4. If you can, check out the cat shows in your area. Not only are they a lot of fun and a great place to talk to other cat owners, they are a wonderful place to shop for your cat! They often have all kinds of great toys and scratching posts that you can't find in stores. I found this really great case for the litter box that makes the cat jump up onto a grate before leaving the box (reducing the litter that gets tracked out) and is totally dog-proof as well. They also have a household cat division if you want to participate with your own cat. ;-) Enjoy your kitty! And don't fret too much if the dog doesn't get along with him (her?) Sometimes they can be the best of friends, other times they just learn to tolerate each other. My younger dog and the cat fight constantly, there are times my cat looks like a lion on the hunt, because he'll lie there waiting for the dog to come by and then pounce on him, grabbing him around the neck, pull him over and bite and kick at him. Luckily all his front teeth had to be removed or I'd probably have a pretty beat-up dog at this point! http://youtube.com/watch?v=3tkvqXrrU4s ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;160198600;22374440;w Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:248671 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
