Bringing your first pet home

Some free advice from a veterinarian:
1. Unless you are uber-comfortably wealthy, GET PET INSURANCE. You will think you don't need it. You're kitty is young and healthy and indoors and blahblah. Things happen. Even the healthiest, most well taken care of pets get themselves sick and into accidents. It just happens. You can decide to include the preventive health things or not, but at least get accident/illness coverage.
2. Clean the litter box plenty - the number one reason kitties are given up is litter box problems, and it's usually our fault, not theirs. For the first few days, you might want to keep her confined to the area the litter box is in, or at least show her where it is several times.
3. Keep her at a healthy weight. About 60% of the cats we see are overweight and even being 10% over (1 lb for a 10-lb cat) can increase their risk of diabetes, urinary disease, arthritis, etc. Get her used to a measured amount of food (don't free feed) and play with her daily!
4. Call your vet and ask whenever you have questions, don't rely solely on the internet. There's a lot of weird information out there about nutrition, etc. Pet cats are living to their early 20s nowadays, which means feeding them as if they were wild ancestral cats (who didn't live very long) can be hard on their kidneys.

zoodocgirl wrote: »

Some free advice from a veterinarian:
1. Unless you are uber-comfortably wealthy, GET PET INSURANCE. You will think you don't need it. You're kitty is young and healthy and indoors and blahblah. Things happen. Even the healthiest, most well taken care of pets get themselves sick and into accidents. It just happens. You can decide to include the preventive health things or not, but at least get accident/illness coverage.
2. Clean the litter box plenty - the number one reason kitties are given up is litter box problems, and it's usually our fault, not theirs. For the first few days, you might want to keep her confined to the area the litter box is in, or at least show her where it is several times.
3. Keep her at a healthy weight. About 60% of the cats we see are overweight and even being 10% over (1 lb for a 10-lb cat) can increase their risk of diabetes, urinary disease, arthritis, etc. Get her used to a measured amount of food (don't free feed) and play with her daily!
4. Call your vet and ask whenever you have questions, don't rely solely on the internet. There's a lot of weird information out there about nutrition, etc. Pet cats are living to their early 20s nowadays, which means feeding them as if they were wild ancestral cats (who didn't live very long) can be hard on their kidneys.

Re # 1 - After having a dog who came to us with heart worm and later developed lymphoma, oh boy oh boy do I wish I had had pet insurance.

meganridenour wrote: »

Congrats on your new kitty!
My advice is to be a loving, responsible pet owner, and realize a pet is for life (the pet's life) so don't give your cat up for silly reasons such as "I'm moving" or "I got a new dog and it doesn't like the cat."

Sorry to be "that person". I used to work at an animal shelter.

Oh and my first pet experience being on my own was kind of a disaster at first. The dog I adopted ended up hating women and I had to do a lot of training with him. He had/has some issues but it all worked out eventually and now he's awesome. Cats are much lower maintenance so hopefully you won't have any issues

#preachit

give the cat space. he will likely hide- sometimes for many days until he adjusts. make sure plenty of food and water (and litter box) is available.