Are You Ready to Be A Feline Parent?

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by Karen Fitch

I must admit I haven’t always been a cat person. In fact it wasn’t until my husband and I got our first cat three and a half years ago that my love for cats truly began. Thinking it was only a two-day emergency f o s t e r , w e m a d e n o preparations to permanently keep a cat. But when the cat fell in love with one of our dogs, we did not have the heart to let him go to another Get Your Family & Home Kitten Ready Get Your Family & Home Kitten Ready Get Your Family & Home Kitten Ready Get Your Family & Home Kitten Ready Get Your Family & Home Kitten Ready Get Your Family & Home Kitten Ready Get Your Family & Home Kitten Ready Get Your Family & Home Kitten Ready Get Your Family & Home Kitten Ready Get Your Family & Home Kitten Ready Get Your Family & Home Kitten Ready Get Your Family & Home Kitten Ready! !! ! ! !! ! ! !! ! foster home. Looking back, I had not the first clue on how to raise a cat. Though it was impulsive, a n d h i s mo t h e r, Mo n a w e re it turned out to be one of the best devastated. Oscar was eventually decisions our family made. Only found, but sadly for Armaan, Oscar did through trial and many, many errors not return to the neighborhood. Around did we begin to figure it out. So when this time, our newest rescue cat had I was asked to write about preparing just given birth to six kittens. After for a new kitten/cat, I knew that my following my social media posts, experience would simply not work Armaan’s mother called, saying she because, in all honesty, there was no wanted to adopt two of the kittens. “My p re p a ra t io n . E ve n wh e n we boys,” Mona told me referring to discovered that one of our rescues Armaan and his older brothers, were arrived pregnant, we just figured it sad (about the loss of Oscar). “It was out. just like a void in their heart my husband and I wanted to fill, so we took the leap.” Since our decision was led by our hearts and, not necessarily, our brains, I reached out to two families Armaan, determined to prove to his who I knew to have done a thorough parents that he was ready, began his job in preparing for their first cat. preparations by volunteering with a local rescue to learn more about cats. When it was time to bring the How Many Can You Handle? kittens home, he had already prepared Like Potato Chips…Can't Have the house. First, he and his family set Just One! up a room with their litter boxes, toys, and climbing/scratching posts. They For as long as he could remember, also secured electrical cords and 17-year-old Armaan Verma had outlets. What they did not realize was been asking his parents for a cat of how smart the kittens would be at just his very own. He fell in love with cats 10 weeks. Initially, they tried to keep as a toddler, playing with all the them in one room secured by pet neighborhood cats. After his favorite gates to get them slowly used to the cat Oscar ran off after getting stuck house, but that did not last long.in a neighbor’s raccoon trap, Armaan “We did not realize they would be able to jump so high. They were easily jumping almost five feet,” commented Mona. Needless to say, it did not take long for the new cats, Ikasha and Bertha, to have reign of the entire house, which is why they keep an extra litter box upstairs. I asked the Vermas about scratching, which seems to be a big concern for those getting a cat for the first time. Armaan did not think much of it, “I don’t think scratching is as big of a deal as people make it out to be.

The Verma’s cats -coming home for the first time, as kittens.

They definitely scratch, but it’s not that bad.” In regards to the expense of having two, Mona says it is not a huge difference in cost, “Cat food is cheap, and healthy cats usually only go to the vet once a year.”

Mona said the best advice she received was from a co-worker who told her to get two cats, Armaan agreed, “It really helps with development because they have someone to play with, plus it’s not any extra work because you are still doing the same tasks of changing the litter, feeding them, or giving them water, it’s not much more work.”

Armaan‘s best two pieces of advice: Introduce the kitten(s) to new things while it is still developing, prior to six months, and research all the plants you have in the house and their toxicity level to cats.

Ikasha, now as an adult cat Armaan spending quality time with his new kittens, Ikasha and Bertha (black &white) .

Ready for a New Roomie Rover? Introducing Kitty to Other Pets A n o t h e r m a j o r concern from pet o w n e r s t h i n k i n g about getting a cat is how he will get along w i t h t h e dog? Luckily, the cats who we have taken in were used to dogs, so we did not have to figure out how to introduce the two species. Mochi, with their dog Stella, as a kitten

For this question, I asked 12-year-old Jake Cauthen, who has a family dog, but just recently got a kitten. After hanging out with his cousin who had a cat, he became fascinated and decided he wanted one too.

Jake remembers the day his mother brought home Mochi, “ I was surprised that she got me a kitten. And I was excited because I never had much interaction with cats; we always had dogs.” One of his parents’ concerns was how their dog would react to the kitten. He told me that they slowly introduced the two, bringing both animals into a room and monitoring their behavior. At first it was for short amounts of time, but the time b e t wee n th e t wo g rad ua lly increased. He says today, as long as no food is involved, they are the best of friends.