Telephone calls and a letter from cat fans castigated us for putting emphasis on dogs (as pets) and neglecting cats. Actually, almost everything we advise potential caregivers to consider when adopting/acquiring a dog is valid for cats as well. However, by way of an apology, please accept this week’s publication as being specifically targeted at the considerations that you must factor into the decision to make a cat your pet.
Firstly, we must recognise that cats are mainly house creatures. They want to be cared for and just love living in clean surroundings. If anything displeases them enough, they’ll leave – and may not even come back.
One of the things that your feline friend will appreciate is its sleeping quarters. You must be prepared to place his/her soft bed in a draft-free corner. The ‘bed’ could be a towel or a flat stuffed cushion. Don’t feel too bad if, after all your effort, he/she prefers to sleep elsewhere. You chose a cat as a pet. You chose Mr/Ms Independence. Just move the bed to the cat’s spot of choice. Cats instinctively seem to like high places to sleep.
Urinating and defecating in the house
Are you prepared to have your feline ward defecate/urinate in the house? An important need of the house cat is its litterbox. We are lucky here. Because cats are so clean, they naturally migrate towards the litterbox. In other words, they are easy to train. The litterbox is simply a flat pan lined with newspapers (your choice) on top of which you may place clean sand, straw, or sawdust. Place the animal in the box and move its front legs in a scratching motion, the same movement that cats make after they defecate. It’s as simple as that. Keep the litterbox clean (change the litter daily or even after every usage). If you use disinfectants (eg bleach) to sterilise the pan, please try to remove the disinfectant scent. Cats don’t seem to like soap/bleach/jeyes fluid/pine smells.
Scratching the furniture
Can you accept cats scratching the furniture? So now that we have solved the sleeping and urinating/stooling problem, let’s look to the big one: furniture destruction. Well, let’s face it: all cats in catdom love and need to scratch. We just don’t want to offer our expensive (and expensive they are) furniture to promote our cat’s needs. At the outset, let me tell you what not to do. You do not try to train the cat away from scratching.
You do not beat the cat or, as one educated Ranch Manager did, soak the cat’s tail in kerosene and light it afire and boast about how the running cat, with its tail ablaze, lit up the savannahs.
Instead, you use one of two methods to solve the furniture-scratching problem: Firstly, you should construct a scratching post. This is simple. Just tack some old flat carpet onto a 1-2 foot high post that is firmly fixed to the ground. Show the cat how to use the post by holding the cat’s front legs and moving them down the carpeted post. (You may even ‘decorate’ the post with some toy that bobs up and down so that the kitten/cat also has something to play with).
May I also suggest that you begin the training exercise while the animal is a kitten or, in any case, before it begins to get into the habit of scratching the furniture. If the cat still seems to prefer the chair or table legs to the scratching post, then hang some naphthalene balls around the spot the cat seems to have a predilection for.
Secondly, and not preferably, is the possibility of surgically removing the front claws. That, of course, has to be done by your veterinarian. This option is to be considered only in those obstinate cases as the final solution. This alternative is still preferable to getting rid of the cat from your home.
Cat fights
Cat fights also represent a big problem that cat owners have to face. Usually the fights are between males – most of the time these fights take place during the mating season. Cats fight viciously and without remorse. The injuries are sometimes life-threatening. And it is not easy to part the fight. Not so much because it is dangerous to the persons who interferes, but because the fight does not take place in one spot. They might begin fighting on your property, but the continuous fight could end up in the yard of your neighbour twice removed. So what can you do? Saying “shoo, kitty, shoo,” will surely have no impact. Pulling the tail of one cat away to dislodge his jaws/claws from his adversary might result in a serious laceration on your hand. Cats are that fast.
My only suggestion is that you douse the fighting pair with a pail of water. That split-second cessation of hostilities would give the cat that is not faring too well, perhaps enough respite for him to beat a hasty retreat. The last word, unfortunately, is that there is no real successful way to separate fighting cats. Please just be careful when you intervene, for intervene you should.
