Cats are awesome pets, but they are also very finicky felines! With so many needs ranging from vet visit to nail clipping, they require you to know a lot of things. This article can teach you all about basic cat needs.
Don’t let your cat near drape cords. The cats will start playing with the cords and they can easily wrap around their necks. This could cause injury or death. Hang your drapery cords out of your cats’ sight to avoid this.
When looking for a new cat for your home, contact a local animal shelter. Shelters have a lot of cats in them and you can get one adopted for a small fee. Adopting a cat this way helps to save their life and cut down on unwanted animal births.
Make sure that your cat is well groomed. Remember to brush your cat’s fur and comb it regularly. If you do this often, their coat will stay clean. Having a clean fur coat helps reduce the amount of hairballs that get spit up around the house. In order to keep shed hair down to a minimum, plus have a beautiful cat, you must groom your cat regularly.
Have your cat see a vet frequently to keep good health. Cats need routine annual check-ups and possibly additional ones as well for vaccinations. If there are more pressing health problems, take your cat to the vet right away.
Never use any product intended for dogs on a cat. This can irritate your cat or cause an allergic reaction. This is particularly true when it comes to flea treatments. Flea products meant for dogs can seriously harm or kill a cat. After your dog receives a flea treatment, keep your cat away for at least a few hours.
Making sure your cat doesn’t jump on the counters is hard to do. Cats enjoy high places so they can see what is happening around them. Therefore, you should create high areas for resting. A cat tower near your kitchen can give them a place to watch you that is out of the way.
You may want to have a microchip put into your car. Indoor cats can slip out an open door. While a collar with a tag is useful, remember that your cat may be able to escape from the collar while they are away. Collars can also harm your cat if they get caught. A microchip is tiny, similar in size to a single rice grain and capable of holding plenty of information. Nearly every vet and shelter owns a scanner which can read a microchip, and since they’re implanted, there isn’t a risk of the chip falling out or getting lost.
When you buy a small kitty for your children, set the boundaries ahead of time. Let your children know which areas of the house are off-limits for the cat. They should know that indoor cats can’t go outside. Setting up rules ahead of time can help your kids understand better.
Make sure you are cautious about leaving a young child alone with a small kitten. A child under five should not be left alone with a pet. Small children don’t have the mental capacity to understand that certain activities are dangerous to the kitten. When children are over the age of five, then you should decide whether or not they are mature enough to handle a kitten.
Feeding them lots of different foods can lower their chances of becoming finicky eaters. If you raise your kitten with the same food for their entire life, this can become the only type of food they will willingly eat.
You need to buy some quality food for your cat. Look over the ingredients in the food, and be sure there is some kind of a protein source in the food. Don’t feed your cat food that includes corn or other fillers. Cats are meant to eat meat, and that means that they need to have foods that are high in protein.
Making sure your cat is taken care of can be easy if you know what you’re doing and if the animal behaves right off the bat. But, you have to remember that most cats won’t be that easy to take care of. Use these tips to become a better cat owner and to really enjoy it. The time that you spent reading this article will be worth it.