How To Care For Cats

by Ruth
(England)

When you take me home as a kitten please remember I am just a baby and it is very frightening for me to leave my mother and siblings and to go and live with strangers in a different house.

I will have known nothing since I was born other than my mother cat looking after me and keeping me out of mischief and teaching me how cats behave….

Cat Age Comparison Chart – by RUTH

…..If you have other pets please don’t expect me to love them or them to love me straight away because we need to be introduced slowly and get to know each others scents first. I will need a room of my own with my own bed, scratching post, toys, food, water and lots of attention from you to help me feel at home.

But please don’t shut me in a room all night long alone as I will be very lonely and sad and would be much happier with my bed in a room where a person sleeps.

Please don’t punish me if I make a mistake, my mother will have taught me how to use a litter tray, but in a strange house I might forget at first.

Allow me to sleep in peace when I want to, as kittens need lots of sleep and sometimes suddenly when playing a game I might need a rest.

Please don’t let your children if you have any, treat me roughly and keep on picking me up. I am very fragile and need to be treated gently. Teach your children to be kind and I will play with them and love them and let them love me.

I won’t like it when you take me to the vets for inoculations and to book a little operation so that I don’t have babies if I am female or father babies if I am male. But I will be healthier after it is over with and I will not want to find a mate and cause more kittens to be born as there are not enough homes for cats already.

If you live in a country where it’s legal, please don’t let the vet take my claws away when I go for the operation to stop me breeding, even if they offer. Declawing is very painful and I would be very unhappy without my toe ends because that is what declawing means, taking away a cat’s toe ends and it is very cruel.

Cats need claws to be healthy and happy and to walk and jump and play and groom and to do exercises on a scratching post. If any bigger bad animal attacks, we need claws to give him a swipe so he wouldn’t do it again.

I won’t be a kitten for very long so please don’t punish me if I sometimes forget my claw manners, I would never scratch you on purpose if you are kind to me. If you provide me with my own furniture, which is a good tall strong scratching post and show me how to use it, I will not scratch your furniture.

Kittens soon grow up but it doesn’t mean I won’t want to play any more then. Cats love to play but I would like to sleep in peace when I choose to.

Please don’t ever go away and leave me alone for more than a day. Some people think it’s OK to leave cats on their own all day and night or even 2 days or even longer, but it isn’t a good idea. Cats can get ill very quickly and if we don’t eat for 2 days it’s very serious and we need to see a vet. We can also get into trouble and be trapped behind furniture or bad people could break into our homes and hurt us.

You wouldn’t leave a dog alone for a long time so please don’t leave a cat either. Dogs bark and howl when in distress and people hear them but no one hears a cat crying.

If you have to go away please ask someone you can trust to come and visit me twice a day to see to my needs and to give me some attention as I will be missing you and I won’t know if you are ever coming back.

Remember that we cats hide our pain, if you find us avoiding you or hiding away from you even though you are kind and gentle, it is a sign that something is bothering us and we need to see a vet.

When I am old I will need warmth and a comfortable private place to sleep and sometimes, just like old people who can’t get to the toilet in time, I may not get to my litter tray. Please don’t punish me for that.

In fact please don’t ever punish me at all, cats don’t know what punishment means and it makes us nervous of the people who do it.

If you are always kind and gentle and show me what I have to do to fit in with your lifestyle, I will do it. Remember cats are wild animals at heart.

Think how you would feel if it was the other way round and cats had taken your species from your natural habitat many years ago and you had to live in the wild with us. You would still feel domesticated at heart, even though you had adapted to living with us.

All living creatures have deep instincts and while cats can be happy living with you, it’s not your right to possess us and try to make us behave as you do, because that is impossible