Raise a Cat

Are you considering getting a kitten from a friend or neighbor or from a pet store or an animal rescue? If you want to bring a cat into your home and raise it, you need to know how to do that in a way that assures the cat grows up healthy and happy. Raising a cat requires that you provide not only for its most basic needs, such as food and a clean litter box, but also for its health, its comfort, and its mind. If you are interested in raising a cat, take the time to understand the commitment you are making and learn how to raise it right. If you do this, you are more likely to end up with a well-adjusted, happy, and healthy cat.

Steps

Providing For Your Cat's Basic Needs

1. Give your cat quality food and water. When raising a cat it is important to provide it with nutritious food and unlimited access to clean drinking water. Canned and dry food are both fine, though dry food will help keep your cat's teeth clean, but the important part is that the food does not includes mostly animal protein and not a lot of fillers. If you are unsure of what to feed your cat, discuss food with your cat's veterinarian. They will likely have a suggestion for what to feed your cat for its specific nutritional needs.
   • When your cat is young, you should feed it kitten food, which gives it more fat and protein for its growing mind and body. As the cat cat ages, you should feed it food to gives it complete nutrition without giving it so much that it gets overweight. When your cat gets older, you may need to Change Cat Food it onto senior food, which provides the type of nutrition that geriatric cats need.
   • Feed your cat 2-3 times a day. The amount of food you give it will depend on the size of your cat. Look at the food packaging and follow the directions there for portion sizing or discuss portion size with your veterinarian.
   • Hairball-preventing cat food may be a good choice if you have long-haired cat.
2. Show your cat love and affection. When you are raising a cat it is important to show them love and affection every day. You can do this by holding it in your lap and petting it for a little while every day. You can do this by playing with it and giving it uninterrupted attention for at least a little while every day. Whatever you do, make sure that your cat knows it is loved and that it is an important member of your family.
   • Many cats only want attention once in awhile, and they will usually ask for it when they want it. If your cat is like this, make sure to give it some petting and attention when the cat asks for it. These requests may not always come when you want them to, but just try to remember that your cat deserves a bit of uninterrupted attention every day.
3. Provide identification. Once you bring a cat home and name your kitty, you should get it some identification. This can be in the form of a tag on its collar or you can get it Microchip Your Cat at its veterinary office, or both. Even if you plan on raising the cat to live indoors, having identification is important if it gets out, as it will have no experience finding its way home.
   • Your cat's collar tag should include its name and your phone number. Keep this phone number up to date, so that someone who finds your cat can contact you easily.
4. Teach your cat to use a litter box. When raising a cat, you will need to teach it to use a litter box. For most cats, this is a relatively easy process. Once you bring a cat home, keep it contained in a small space with food, water, a bed, and its litter box. The cat may naturally head towards the litter box to go to the bathroom, as they are naturally clean animals that like to pick specific bathroom areas.
   • As your cat adjusts to its new home and you let it roam the whole home, you should keep the litter box in an area that is easily accessible and close to your cat's daily activity. This will help assure that the cat actually uses it instead of a handy corner.
   • If the cat doesn't use the litter box automatically, move any feces or urine into the litter box and clean the areas where the cat went to the bathroom outside of the box. If the cat smells feces and urine in the litter box, it will know that is where it should go.
   • Remember to remove solids daily and empty it completely, clean the box, and put totally new litter in weekly.

Giving Your Cat a Comfortable Home

1. Give your cat a cozy place to sleep. When raising a cat you should make sure to give it a cozy place all its own where it can take a nap or just get some alone time. Typically, this is done by giving it a bed all its own and placing that bed in a quiet and warm corner. This can be difficult to achieve if you live in a hectic or crowded home, but your cat may even pick the spot itself and all you have to do is provide the cushioning.
   • Many cats love a spot that gets sun from the outside. The sunshine and the view to the outside will likely be very appealing to your cat. Even on a day that is cold outside or when your home is a little chilly, a sunny spot will suit a cat's needs very well.
2. Provide a place to scratch. All cats need to scratch once in awhile in order to keep their claws healthy and agile. In order to allow them to do this without destroying your furniture, you should get them a scratching post or scratching pad. If your cat likes to scratch a lot, you may even need to buy or make one for every room.
   • Once you give them this item to scratch, you will need to Get Your Cat to Use a Scratching Post. To begin with, you can place the scratching post in front of a piece of furniture that the cat has been scratching. You can also show it how to use it by placing your cat's claws on the post. If all else fails, try making the scratching post or pad attractive to the cat by rubbing catnip on it.
3. Keep your cat inside. Try to raise a cat to stay indoors, especially if you live in a city. Living indoors greatly increases their lifespan due to lower risks for disease, injury or abuse. It also helps keep wildlife in your area , such as birds, safe and healthy. For entertainment for an indoor cat, provide boxes, cat toys, and sunny window perches for it to lounge in. You may also want to consider having at least two cats, so they can keep each other occupied when you are away.
   • Make sure that all doors are kept closed and that all windows and window screens are secure if you are trying to keep your cat indoors.
   • If you really want your cat to experience the sights and smells of the outdoors, consider building it a "catio," which is a cat patio. This is an enclosed outdoor area that is typically attached to your home and it allows your cat to get some outdoor time without letting it roam freely.

Caring For Your Cat's Health

1. Have your cat desexed. Most cats should be spayed or neutered at an early age. The cat will be tamer and desexing decreases the risk of your cat developing certain cancers, such as uterine tumors in female cats. Most vets do not allow you to spay or neuter your kitty until they weigh about two pounds, so discuss the right time with your vet.
   • In addition to the health benefits of getting your cat desexed, you will not have to deal with a female cat going into heat and a male cat will be less likely to spray in your home and roam outside looking for a mate.
   • The only cats that should not be fixed are those that are intentionally being used for breeding. These should be purebred cats that are being bred by experienced and ethical breeders.
2. Take your cat to a veterinarian regularly. In order to raise a cat properly, you need to provide it with regular veterinary care. When a cat is young, it typically only needs to have an annual exam, in which the veterinarian checks its overall health and updates any vaccines or medications that it needs. Once your cat gets old, it will likely need veterinary checkups more often, usually every six months.
   • Veterinary checkups can seem like a waste of money if your cat is generally healthy but it can actually save you money in the long run. Finding a health problem early on and getting early treatment for a serious illness can really reduce your costs, along with your cat's pain and suffering.
   • When bringing your cat in for a checkup, discuss flea medication with your veterinarian. They will most likely recommend a regular flea repellent treatment, such as Frontline and Trifexis, that you will apply at home.
   • Vaccinations are an important type of preventative medicine that your cat should have. Get vaccinations and vaccination boosters for your cat when your veterinarian suggests it.
3. Brush your cat regularly. Depending on the breed, you may need to brush your kitty more often, but all breeds need to be brushed at least weekly. For example, Persian cats need brushing 3 to 4 times a week but American shorthair cats only need to be brushed once a week. Weekly brushing eliminates tangles and reduces spare hair that would rub off on furniture or floors, or form hairballs in your cat.
   • Cats do not need bathing unless they get into something really foul and cannot satisfactorily clean themselves off. The exception to this is Sphinx cats, which are bald and need bathing once a week to keep skin oils under control.
4. Remember to clip your cat's claws. When your cat is young, you should begin clipping its claws every week. This will get it used to the process and will make it less resistant to it when it becomes an adult. Trimming a cat's nails is particularly important if the cat does not regularly go outside, where it might wear down the nails with vigorous activity.
   • To trim the nails, use nail clippers made for cats, which come in a guillotine  type or a scissors type, or human nail clippers. Put the clippers perpendicular to the claws. Trim only the tip of the nail. The quick of the nail, which is the back part of the nail with a blood vessel in it, should not be cut.

Stimulating Your Cat's Mind

1. Socialize Your Kitten your cat. In order to raise a happy and well adjusted cat, you should begin socializing it when it is very young. Introduce your cat to a wide variety of people beginning when it is a small kitten so that it knows that this is a normal part of life. Exposing it to a wide variety of people, and keeping those interactions positive, will make it more likely that the cat is friendly and interested in new people and animals when it is an adult, instead of being scared or aggressive towards new people.
   • Socialization can even include exposing your cat to a wide variety of noises and situations. For instance, if you expose a small kitten to the sound and activity of a vacuum cleaner early on in its life, it is less likely to be fearful of it when it is an adult.
2. Provide your cat with mind-stimulating toys. All cats need some mental stimulation every day. This is especially true when cats are kittens and their minds are developing. This can be provided, in part, by giving it stimulating toys to play with while it is alone. These toys could include motorized cat toys that it can chase around, but it can also include simpler toys, such as toy mice or balls with bells in them.
   • To find out what type of toys your cat likes, you may need to bring home a variety. Once you give all the toys to the cat, pay attention to your cat as it plays and see which toys it prefers.
   • Just like humans, cats can get bored with toys that it has played with for a long time. Provide new and exciting toys on a regular basis, so that your cat continues to get lots of mind-stimulating play time.
3. Interact with your cat daily. In addition to giving your cat toys for it to play with on its own, you should spend quality time playing with your cat every day. When raising a cat, it is important to spend quality interactive time with it in order to develop its mind and personality. Use a feather on a string or a laser pointer to get the cat to run around and leap into the air. Throw little toys for the cat to chase and play other games that the cat enjoys. This interaction will likely be more stimulating to the cat than playing on its own.
   • If your cat is really intelligent, you can even try to train it to do things, such as tricks you would normally teach a dog.

Things You'll Need

• Litter box
• Cat food
• Cat litter
• Flea collar(s)
• Water and food dishes
• Grooming tools
• Cat bed
• Cat toys

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• Care for a Pet Rat
• Care for Siamese Kittens

Sources and Citations

See also

• Dog‐Sit when You Have a Cat
• Convince Your Parents to Let You Get a Cat (Teens)
• Give Selamectin to Cats with Parasites
• Use Cats for Pest Control
• Find Your Cat's Preferred Play Style
• Use Cat Tunnels
• Give Atenolol to Cats with Heart Disease
• Give Your Cat Cozy Sleeping Spaces
• Treat Burns on a Cat
• Help a Cat Recover from Hip Dislocation Surgery

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