Kitty advice

After Maggie DH and I cannot bring ourselves to consider another dog. Heidi loved Maggie but we would have to find another mellow dog that could handle Heidi because she has puppy like energy. She is seriously like a child with hyper-activity and even high energy dogs tend to be annoyed by her!

I have always had cats growing up but Maggie was blind and I thought introducing another animal would be hard on her. DH finally agreed I could get a cat IF I consider all the negatives. To him this is: scratching, stinky litter boxes and being a PITA.

So is it possible to have no scratching? I have never had a bad scratcher but I have seen the damage by cats that do. DH said NO WAY to claw removal. Second do those self cleaning litter boxes work? DH can't stand the smell of litter. Finally how do you screen a cat for dog tolerant temperment? Is it even possible or would hyper Heidi be a bad situation for a cat? Heidi loves any other animals.

I grew up with cats. I hate litter boxes. Our cats got to be housetrained. They asked to be let outside. I don't believe that cats should be kept indoors--they are too curious and need to explore. I strongly agree with your DH about declawing. Clawing inside means they are bored and destructive because they can't get outside. A cat door is a good idea.

If you live right next to a busy traffic road then your outside cat may very well be hit by a car. I've seen it happen a million times to others....and for some reason I have yet to figure out, they always seem surprised when it happens. (hello?....)

Younger cats (less than 2 perhaps?) can be generously praised when using their scratching posts (hint, cats especially like TALL scratching posts or cat 'trees' with sections of sisal rope and carpet). They can be discouraged from scratching furniture if you keep an eye on them. We managed to train our cats to 'mostly' not scratch the furniture- gave them much better things to scratch on and praised them when they did good. :)

Old fashioned clay cat litter tends to smell a lot. There are many new alternative litters that are way less smelly- and of course if you offer a decent sized box and CLEAN OUT the deposits in the box every day, then there is not much there to smell- especially with only one cat.

As to 'being a PITA'- well not much helpful advice i can offer there, except that maybe he is not a good prospective cat owner?

Amanda I share my home with 8 cats all of which are indoors. I do not declaw my cats and have no issues with furniture being destroyed. All my cats are trained to use a scratching post and I trim nails every 4 - 6 weeks.

As for the litter boxes I am fanatical about cleaning them. I scoop them out 1 -2 times daily. All boxes are dumped and disinfected every week. As far as I know I do not have an odor problem.

If you adopt from a reputable shelter they should do a screening on the animals they take in. Explain that you have a dog and ask them to "test" the cat/kitten you are considering for adoption. When you bring the cat/kitten home work with Heidi when you introduce. Some shelters will encourage you to bring Heidi with you to see how she reacts to cats.

Hope this helps.

I adopted a 6 yo cat from a shelter 5 mos after my 20 yo cat passed away. She was very shy at first, actually she hid under the bed. We thought we made a mistake because she was so unsociable. Now, a year later she has become such a little sweetheart.

She was trained to use a scratching post and I, too, trim her claws. I have a scratching post in all the rooms that she frequents and haven't had any problems with her using the furniture. The shelter tested her to see how she reacted to kids and dogs.

I did have to spend more money than expected because she had contracted a virus at the shelter and her teeth had not been taken care of so I had a big dental bill. She also has food allergies so I have to be very careful of what I feed her.

My fee from the shelter included required shots, testing and identity chipping in case she got lost.

I requested a house only cat. We have coyote and fox in our neighborhood and I couldn't stand the thought of losing another cat so soon. She has no interest in going outside but loves to sit in the windows so we provided lots of places for her to perch. Besides a cat that lives indoors typically lives longer than an indoor/outdoor cat.

You can buy strips of plastic that attach to the furniture to protect it until you're sure the kitty will use the scratching post.

There is lots of information on the web about adopting cats from shelters and how to introduce the newcomer to your family.

Adopting from a shelter requires patience since you don't get much information from them about the cat and you have no idea how they were treated in their former home so it takes time to understand their idiosyncrancies. The shelters are full of wonderful cats needing a home and I'm sure you'll find the perfect kitty.

My cats have never torn up my furniture, either. My son's cats have torn up their furniture. I don't really get why. I know I pay attention to my cats when I think they're about to do it and I hiss at them. There's something about multitasking that my sons are not able to do! (Pay attention to what they're doing AND notice the cat is stretching up to scratch the furniture.)

I don't clip nails or anything like that. My cats do go outside.

I use the regular Tidy Cat litter, and one tip is to make it as simple and convenient as possible to scoop the litter. (My cats only use it when it's wet outside.) I keep the litter box in the upstairs bathroom, and I have a small trash can with a step-lid beside it. I scoop into that trash can when I scoop and then pull the bag out of the can when necessary.

I also use a large Rubbermaid tub for litter, not a short-sided pan. This cuts way way down on the amount of litter that comes out on their feet. I originally started using this because I had a small dog that probably would have gotten in the litter. I turned the tub upside down on its lid, and cut a cat-sized hole in the side, and put a litter pan inside. Kept the dog out. But now the dogs are different, bigger and not interested, so I just use the tub right side up with no lid. The cats seem to like it just fine, but they prefer to go outside. They have litter boxes on the market now that do the same thing, but the tub works just fine and is less expensive. If you get a kitten, you will have to provide a way for the kitty to get in the litter box on its own if you go this route. Or start with a short one.

There's a cat out there who needs your home! Go for it! :)

Karen

I find it interesting that you have a dog who is hyper and you are worried about a cat being a PITA? Cats are very low maintenance in comparison to needy dogs.
If you are going to get a kitten, it will easily get used to a dog. And many adoption agencies use foster families to socialize their cats and many of those have dogs. So if you specify you want a cat who is ok with dogs you will find there are plenty that are available.
We don't have carpets and we don't have any furniture that the cats are scratching. I have a cat tree in the livingroom, a box (corrugated cardboard cat scratcher) in my office, a door hanging thingy on a door knob, and
I bought some really really cheap carpet for my cats (just a 6 foot by 2 foot piece of it) to scratch on too.
I also trim toenails, maybe not as often as i should. And i have the cat litter in the basement where I don't have to smell it every day.
oh, and if you feed high quality food, the feces don't smell so bad.

Getting a cat or kitten from a rescue group will be far better way to go. You can ask a rescue group for a dog friendly cat. The cats in our rescue group are rated for multiple cat household, children, dogs, indoor/outdoor. The foster person should answer your question regarding hyper dogs and the cat they are fostering.

Get a tall scratching post. Atleast 3 feet in height so the cat can stand up on his hind leg stretch out and reach with front legs to scratch. Also having several cheap corrugated cardboard scratching post works wonder.

Litterbox clean every day! We also put some Litterbox treatment from Nature's Miracle to deal with the smell.

And what most everyone else said. We don't like cats to go outside. They get hit by a car, pick up FeLV/FIV when they get bit, come home all chewed up after a cat fight, rabies, coyote, barn owl...

I went the other way, had cats all my life and got a dog later.

If the cat is from the shelter (and I SO encourage you to!) they are going to be grateful to be out of the shelter environment to begin with, and because your home will be completely new, s/he should adjust to a dog. That being said, I would slowly introduce the cat to the dog, maybe keep them separated in a room but can smell each other for at least a couple of days.

I think all our cats had some sort of scratching issue, but those are usually remedied by what others have said: scratching posts, or putting double-sided tape on sides of the furniture.

And there always seems to be at least one poor kitty at the shelter who'd been declawed. Declawed kitties need homes, too.

If there's going to be outdoor access, I've found that for the most part females don't tend to wander as far and wide as males do.

And (sorry this is getting so long!) most shelters these days do some sort of personality assessment of the cats. Just look for a cat that's boldly lounging in the middle of all the action - if they're mellow in a shelter setting, they can only be mellow at home!

Ditto what others said about training cats to use a scratching post. Some other thoughts/tricks:

- If they do scratch where they should not, put strips of scotch tape in that spot, they don't like that and won't scratch there again;

- When you catch them in the wrong spot, gently carry them over to the designated scratching post/spot and simulate with their two front legs the act of scratching;

- Keep front nails trimmed!

On the litter, our days of smelly litter ended years ago when we switched to bedding "litter" like that used for gerbils, rabbits.... Currently, we are using aspen shavings which absorb better than the pine or cedar. It is also much nicer not having to step on the little stray litter pebbles that make their way around the house.

Oh yeah, 1+ on what Mimi said about high quality food. We switched our two cats to a raw food food (chicken) diet about 3 months ago and really, their feces hardly smell at all.

Consider keeping it 100% indoors. The statistic on cat death through cars and other encounters is very high. The hunting they do, while instinctual, is fairly devastating to the bird population. And lets not forget that roaming cats generally make the neighbors unhappy by pooping in their flower beds and going after the birds they are watching.

The solution I like is the fully enclosed outdoor kitty runs: they can be out and observe, but not roam and kill. It's humane and keeps them safe yet interacting with the outdoors.

confession: I am a bird watcher who is really sick of my neighbors cats lurking under the nests in my yard, and encountering cat poop in my gardens. If my pets hung out in your yard and I never cleaned up after them, how would you feel?

After too many close calls with prior cats and since we have 3 bird feeders out back and do not want to invite them to their deaths, our cats are indoor cats even though they like to go outside. The way we solved this is to buy them harnesses and attach them to long ropes or cables to let them go out. We only do this when we are in the backyard with them (wouldn't want them going after birds or chipmunks or being attacked and unable to get away). They seem quite content with this arrangement.

Here's a suggestion about the litter box. We have a cat door out into the garage where we keep the litter box; then the smell at least is not inside your house.

If your cat is an indoor cat, you need to check on them before you open the garage door to make sure you don't startle them and make them run outside.

I have cats that were outside and inside cats. But, we have never lived on a busy street. One lived till he was 17 (had a heart attack) and the other is still hanging in there at 23. This garage cat litter box has always worked fine for us.

We have an indoor/outdoor cat, but we now live in the country and it's necessary to control the rodent issues.

When we got him though, we lived in the suburbs. In fact, we got him because DH wanted a pet that was 'his' and my dog was NOT dog friendly. We opted for a cat.

We picked one from a shelter that was very young. He was also extremely timid. This worked for us. 1) he was so young that he quicklly adjusted to the dog. The dog was fine with the cat once she learned that the cat was now a part of the family. We never had another issue. 2) he was so timid that he was terrified of even going outside!

Once he got the hang of going outside with us as attendents, he started to learn to go on his own but he never left the back deck. Then he advanced beyond the deck into the yard. He never left our yard and only once went to the neighbors when we'd accidently left him out in a rain storm and he needed a dry place to hide (under their shed). He did bring us the occasional mouse, but never any birds. We've since learned that his vision is off. He can't catch birds because his depth perception is wrong! He can only catch animals that he can corner!!

Now he's been with us 5 years. He's terrified of cars, stays near to the house even in the country and he won't even come out from under the bed when the coyotes are in the area.

We've never had a scratching problem (he does it outside) and he no longer even has a litter box because now he uses the dog door. We did keep a box for him in our other homes but it would reside in the spare bathroom and I don't think we had a smell issue. We did have trouble with keeping the dogs out of the litter box though - THAT sucked.

He is still absolutely a PITA though. I think that's part of being a cat (and clearly skewed by my opinion since I'm definitely a dog person).