Advice for a first time cat owner living in an apartment?

Question

I will be moving into a studio apartment and getting a kitten. Does anyone have any advice for products I should get, or things to look out for when taking care of a cat?

Answer 1

Check the lease. Some apartment owners ban pets. While others designate one building for pet owners. You want to be sure to move in some place where you do not hide the cat from the landlord.

Check doors and windows. If the cat can get out, get lost, you can be devastated. You might not want the cat able to get out of your apartment on its own.

Check placement of kitty litter, water to drink, etc.
You don't want the cat in some room where the door gets closed, cat needs to go to the bathroom, no kitty litter in there.

Do you have a personal computer?
Did you know that cat hair can muck it up?
Look into appropriate covers for keyboard and tower that will protect against cat hair mucking it up.

Give consideration to fragile things and spillable things that cat can accidentally knock over. You need to adjust placement and protection.

Answer 2

cats are intelligent and make great apartment pets & first time pets. More than likely your kitten will already know how to use the litter box, granted that she isn't taken from her mom too early. She might still have little accidents at first, but just make sure you consistantly show her where the box is. You're going to want to make sure the box is always clean. Some cats will refuse to use a dirty box, and will pee on their items of choice! There is a kitty litter called "small spaces". It has a pleasant citrus smell, and is my favorite! I don't remember the brand but it has an orange lid. I usually buy mine at Target. Make sure you are feeding her quality natural foods. I feed my cats Nutro brand dry food. You can find it at Petsmart. Many cat foods out there put chemicals/fillers that are HORRIBLE for animals. You can buy inexpensive toys just about anywhre. Petsmart also has a section of toys for cheap. My cats LOVE the fake furry mice, preferably in the green color! lol
You may also want to invest in a cat climbing tree. This will give the cat a high place to sit and a place to scratch.

Have fun!! Kittens are the best!

Answer 3

You will need a litterbox, food and water dishes, a scratching post, and a few kitty toys to keep your kitten happy while you're at work. You need to kitten-proof your house; remove all toxic houseplants, lock up foods like onions and chocolate, and tie up all electrical wires.
When you pick out your kitten, if you haven't done so already, look for one that suits your personality. A lot of people will say to look for a "lively, healthy" kitten, but if you have a soft spot for the runt of the litter, take it home. You'll both be happier.
Common signs of illness in kittens are runny stools, vomiting, shaking, stumbling, loss of appetite, and abdominal swelling. You shoud take your new furball to a vet for a checkup as soon as possible anyway, because some illnessness don't show up until later. If your kitten's behavior changes suddenly, look for possible causes-haveyou changed something in your home? Dyed your hair? (I'm not kidding, lol-some cats hate hair dye, and they'll let you know it) If nothing has changed in the house, your cat may be sick, especially if it becomes shy or starts hiding allof a sudden.
Oh! And test your tap water! Kittens can get lead poisoning too. (And it ain't too good for you, either!)
Enjoy your new place, and your new furbalL!

Answer 4

The biggest downside is the litter box. No getting around it :-b. That said, it's not that big a downside when you consider all the fun and love you will get. I've always prefered males, but we just adopted what may be our all time favorite cat and she's female, so there are no hard and fast rules on this. I strongly recommend you get TWO kittens/cats, since they will be indoor ( I presume) and you work full time. I wish someone had given me that advice decades ago. You end up with far better adjusted happy pets. After all, how would you like living in a world where you never had contact with your own species? Just make sure they like each other , which means either getting siblings or another pair that have made friends. Welcome over tot he cat side, BTW :-D

Answer 5

I don't know how old your kitten will be. "Kitten" covers a lot of months of a young cat's life. If you are getting a small, just-weaned kitten, understand that you are his/her mommy in her eyes, and treat her like a baby. When you are not home, do not give her the run of the apartment. What seems small to you is enormous to her, her whole world. Kittens who are newly weaned and separated from their mothers go through a teething period. So it is best to keep them in the bathroom or a cage when you are not home, because they can chew on electrical wires and get into situations they cannot get out of.
They need full time mommies, and if you cannot be there to keep an eye on her, put her someplace where she will be safe.

Keep her litter pan right there, a big bowl of water, some food (be sure if you are to feed her dry kibble that she can chew dry kibble), and a comfortable bed. A kitten alone gets lonely, and when you leave your apartment, she is going to miss you. Many places that adopt out kittens insist that kittens be adopted in pairs. And before you adopt or before you actually pick up the kitten you have already selected, you should pick out a vet and pay him or his office a visit. Let him weigh in on a good food, shots and neutering (if this has not already been done) and answer your basic care questions, or give you reading materials.

No matter where your kitten is coming to you from, unless there is a veterinary clinic right in the facility (like the ASPCA or Bide-a-Wee), you should have your kitten checked by the vet as soon as you can.

The most important thing you can do to prepare for your kitten is to read up on kitten care in a reliable manual. There are websites, or you can lay hands on the ASPCA Cat Care Manual, which covers everything, most especially cat behavior. If you were expecting your first child, you would be studying up on it. Well, you are expecting your first cat, and if it is a kitten, you are going to be a parent, whether you want to look at it that way or not. So you need to know the tail signals, and the rubbing signals and the ear signals and the eye signals that are stock-in-trade of cat communication.

You will need to get a scratching post, an all the experts recommend a sisal scratching post. You will need to learn how to trim your cat's front claws once a week, so that if she does scratch you or dig at the furniture, her claws won't go through your flesh or the fabric. You need to train her right from the start to expect this, so she doesn't get big on you, and you are stuck training an adult cat to sit still on your lap while you cut their primary defense mechanism. You need to train her to sit still for brushings right from the start, that this is a loving activity, so you don't have a shedding cat that attacks the brush when you try to facilitate the process.

She will need toys. A good toy for a kitten is the Cat Dancer which costs about $8 and attaches to the wall. Kittens wear themselves out jumping after the doohickey on the end of this very simple toy. Some busy balls (plastic balls with rattles in them), some little stuffed mice, the Turbo-Cat Scratcher (which works as a second scratching post and an aerobic/stalking toy and costs about $12 at K-Mart), a feather on a stick or a skinny feather boa that you dangle and drag.

Be sure all your windows have screens in them, and if your kitten is old enough to jump up onto the counter or up to the windowsill, get her one of those window seats that attaches to the windowsill, and put it in a window that has something interesting going on outside (if you have one) -- treetops so she can watch birds, or overlooking a busy street. That is like giving her a t.v.

Lots of people will weigh in on this one, and I'm sure you'll get lots of good advice, and the inevitable crackpot response or two.

Where I live now, I can have no animals. It is very difficult for me, and I haunt this site answering questions as best I can, because I love these little animals and find them amazing and delightful. I wish you the vey best with your wonderful little roommate.

Answer 6

Along with all the wonderful things your kitty will do, he will also wreck some of the furniture, throw up on the carpet, and occasionally need a doctor's care.
You will probably live about 78 years, while your kitty will die at age 16. You will most likely bury him.
He will have emotional needs too -- love and affection -- and will want to play every day.

Answer 7

It would be a good idea to get a good scratching post and a few toys to keep kitty busy. When they get bored, they can be a tad destructive. My cat has a tower and he scratches on that instead of the furniture. It also provides him with a high perch so he can look out the window.

Answer 8

Get a cat condo or something they can climb on. Cats love to climb to the highest possible spot. And have a spot where he/she can sit and look out the window.

Answer 9

To litter box train put the kitten in the box and let it's instincts kick in repeat until it's instincts kick in.

Answer 10

make sure that you dont have any plants that are toxic to cats in your appartment. also, give them plenty of toys to keep them from playing with you new couch, shoes, ect. i would make sure that you closed all the doors in the appartment and leave him in the biggest one so that he has room to run but cant get into too much trouble.