Cat Care Resources

Dr. Sherlyn Spooner, a veterinary behaviourist, shares some tips to help you take care of your feline companion.

• Selecting Your New Cat
• Playtime
• Top Ten Things Not To Do With Your Cat
• Preventing Litter Box Problems
• High Blood Pressure and Your Cat
• Right pawed or left pawed?
• It is All About Control

Selecting Your New Cat

Thinking of acquiring a new kitten or cat? Here is some information that might assist you in making your choice the right one for you and your family.

Kitten or adult?

Sure kittens are cute but they are also very active and have a hard time controlling their claws at first. So if your household contains seniors and or young children, you might want to consider an adult cat instead.

Many adult cats are looking for good homes. Most of them are given up for reasons that have nothing to do with their health or temperament and make wonderful additions to a young family or a seniors home.

Domestic or purebred?

Purebred cats can be very beautiful, but due to their genetic inbreeding, need a little bit more homework on your part before settling for one particular breed. Each breed has certain behavioural characteristics that you need to be familiar with before you start visiting breeders. For example if you want a quiet, calm cat then an Abyssinian is not the cat for you. Does cat meowing bother you, then stop looking at Siamese? Looking for a great lap cat - Persians are not the right choice for you. All of these breed have great characteristics that make them all good pets - just not for everyone.

Our veterinary team is good place to start with your questions about breeds as we specialize in felines. Some of our links such as the Cat Fanciers Association also have good breed descriptions.

Playtime

Play is a very important element for both your cat's mental and physical well being. Appropriate playtime is key to preventing many behavioural problems such as play aggression. Here are some key points to help you in maintaining a great relationship with your feline companion.

• Play each and every day.
• Learn the type of play that your cat enjoys, for some cats it may be fetching for others it may be playing with rods with feathers attached.
• Try out a number of toys and keep up a variety of interactive play.
• Please avoid hand playing with your cat. If you hand play, your cat will start to think of your hands as little mice - ouch!!!
• Please don't play with your cat in bed - your cat will think that moving feet at five o'clock in the morning is a signal for play time.
• Please teach young children how to play appropriately with their new kittens.
• If your kitten scratches you during play, let out a loud meow, fold your arms and stop playing. They will soon learn that keeping their nails sheathed results in fun play time.
• Multiple cardboard boxes with holes cut into them makes for great places for your cat to explore. You can make it even more fun by dangling rods with feathers/balls on the end through the different openings.
• Check out your toys very carefully before buying them. They should be well made with all parts securely sewn in place so that your cat cannot tear them off and swallow them.
• Laser mice make great toys but watch out for shining them near your cat's eyes, this could result in permanent eye damage.

HAVE FUN!

Top Ten Things Not To Do With Your Cat

1. Get a kitten on impulse without doing your homework or base your decision purely on looks and not personality.
2. Ignore your cat's dental health
3. Keep the litter box dirty and in a noisy dark corner of the house
4. Let your cat get fat
5. Fail to cat proof your home
6. Hand play with your cat
7. Fail to follow a prescribed deworming program
8. Not bring your cat to your veterinarian for its annual physical exam
9. Introduce your new kitten to your existing feline population without consulting your veterinarian first.
10. Believe everything you read on the internet about your cat's health and behaviour and then apply it at home

Preventing Litter Box Problems

Cats have basic needs when it comes to their toilet habits and if these needs are not met, they will try out new toilet sites such as your favourite Persian carpet. The good news is that you can prevent this problem.

Keep it smelling clean

The odours around the box and the litter material itself are very important to your cat. Try and think of the entire area as a mix of odours that need to draw the cat to the litter box. What smells good to a human may actually turn out to be repulsive to your cat. Litter boxes need to be kept very clean. This means that if you use scoopable litter that you must scoop out all urine and stool each and every day. As well, scoopable litter needs to be completely changed every three weeks. The litter pan itself must also be completely washed and rinsed well on a regular basis. Make sure that your cleaning products do not leave a harsh smell. Cats' noses are much more sensitive than humans and a harsh chemical smell can turn a cat away from the box. Be careful of additives, such as chlorophyll or baking soda which can act as a deterrent to litter box usage.

Litter pans are usually made out of plastic and over time this plastic can break down and give off odours that may turn the cat off from using the box. This means that you need to buy a new litter pan every six months.

A box for every cat

If you have more than one cat in your household you need to have more than one litter pan. The general rule is one litter box per cat. If you have three or more cats, you need to add an extra box to this rule. So if you have three cats living together, you need four boxes in the house. Although this may seem like a lot of litter boxes, try looking at it from the cats' viewpoint. Urine and stool contains a lot of odours that serve as communication markers between cats. We as humans are not able to understand what these markers mean, but your cats can and if they are forced to use a box that contains "unfriendly" odours, they can start to urinate outside the box.

The paws tell all

Cats scratch the litter surface both before and after they urinate/defecate. So the actual texture of the litter is very important to them. If you see that your cat is standing on the edge of the box or shaking its' paws vigorously after touching the litter, your cat may not like the feel of the litter. It is time to find one that your cat prefers.

When bringing home a new kitten, try and find out what type of litter the breeder used. Kittens learn how to use the litter box from their mothers and early experience with litter will often determine which type of litter they prefer.

Often cat's paws will stray out of the box to scratch on nearby surfaces. Sometimes, the cats will learn to prefer another surface texture. Consider what placing your litter box on carpeting could mean. Your cat could develop a preference for the touch of carpeting. Place your litter box on a non-carpeted area of your house.

Location, location, location

Consider the location from the cat's viewpoint and not the human's. Placing a litter box next to a loud household appliance such as the dryer or the furnace can startle a timid cat when the appliance turns on and lead to location aversion.

For older cats, locating the box in the basement where they have to go down stairs can lead to problems, if the cat begins to develop arthritis.

Some cats prefer a very private location, and a screen set up in front of the box may give them their desired privacy.

My box is too small

Some cats have a learnt need to turn around in the box when they are scratching and sniffing. If the box is too small, they may decide to go somewhere else. A very good litter box should be at least two times the length and width of the cat's body. Large plastic storage containers with low walls can serve very well as a good litter box.

If you have a cat who likes to move around a lot during urination/defecation, they may not be able to do so if you use a covered litter box.

Keep it consistent

Once you have a litter routine that works well for your cat, keep it the same. If for any reason you need to change the litter box location, make sure that you keep a box in the old location until your cat is constantly using the new litter box site.

High Blood Pressure and Your Cat

Thanks to the combined effort of conscientious cat guardians and observant veterinarians, our cats are living longer lives.

With this increase in longevity comes some added medical conditions that we need to be aware of. One of these is high blood pressure. Cats like humans with high blood pressure often show no signs but the results of living with high blood pressure can be just as devastating. High blood pressure can predispose some organs to damage. The kidneys are especially susceptible and can suffer irreversible loses. Eyes are a target too and untreated kidney disease can lead to sudden onset of blindness.

Measuring blood pressure is a simple, painless non-invasive procedure which we recommend for all of our cats who are over ten years of age. We at La Clinique Veterinaire des Chats are dedicated to helping your cat live longer healthier lives.

Right pawed or Left pawed?

Did you know that your cat has a paw preference? Cats, like humans, can be decidedly right or left "handed". A simple experiment can help you determine what your cat's paw preference is.

Present two identical food bowls with the same type and quantity of food to your cat. Your cat will repeatedly pick one bowl more frequently than the other. This becomes important when you are trying to get your cat to change foods. When transitioning your cat to a new food, it is important that you do so gradually and allow your cat a choice between the old food and the new food. If you know that your cat is left pawed, present the new food mixed with his current diet in the bowl placed to the cat's left. Place the cat's current food in a bowl to the cat's right. Over a number of days, you start to replace more of the cat's current food in both bowls with the new diet. Eventually your cat will have only the new food in both bowls. After a number of days you can remove the right sided bowl.

You may also notice right and left preferences when you are playing with your cat, or when your cat is reaching for a desired object.

It's All About Control

Cats are a rather unique species in that they play two roles in their lives—predator or prey. Even in a busy urban environment cats are important predators of birds, bugs, mice and other small mammals. Cats as a species spend over 70 percent of their waking time engaged in the behaviour of hunting. Our domestic indoor cats have no challenges left to them when all they need to do to get food is roll off a couch and saunter over to a never ending supply of kitty kibble. Cats can also be preyed upon. Coyotes, foxes and even domestic dogs have been known to hunt and kill cats.

What does this mean in terms of normal cat behaviour? It translates into making the domestic cat a little bit of a control freak over their home environment and daily rituals. Cats feel the need to control their environment from threatening predatory behaviour. Who presents this threatening behaviour? Their human guardians of course. Every time that you try to make a change in your cat’s environment, your cat sees it as a threatening gesture. These changes can be as small as changing the brand of litter that you normally use.

Of course, we often need to make changes in a cat’s life such as moving a litter box from a guest room if company is coming. How can we go about this without making our cat feel threatened? We can allow the cat to have a “choice” in the change. In other words let the cat think that they are controlling the situation. Rather than moving the litter box to the new area, leave the box in the guest room and then put another box in the new location. Then work on making the new location more attractive to the cat than the old one. If your cat likes catnip you can rub some into the environment near the new litter box. You can also scatter some treats in the room where the new box is located. The new litter box can also be a slightly larger box which most cats enjoy. Gradually put less and less litter in the box in the guest room. Once the cat is happily using the box in the new location for about one week, you can remove the box from the guest room.

Control means choice for your cat. By giving our cat’s choices in their environment we remove predatory threats which help to make them more relaxed and happier and ultimately less prone to illness and behavioural problems