Even though cats are fairly hearty and healthy, they do require some basic care. This includes looking after their emotional health as well as their physical well being. With just a little bit of practice, caring for your cat can be enjoyable as well as rewarding.
Surprisingly, caring for your cat includes more than buying canned cat food. Cats can and do eat vegetables and grains, but require meat to live. Although you will rarely catch them choosing non-meat based foods, they may enjoy a little bit of vegetable broth mixed in with their food. You should try to keep cats away from house plants known to be poisonous, as they can and will take a mind to chew on them. Caring for your cat may also include obesity management. Because cats cannot tolerate fasting, it is best to take your cat to a veterinarian to seek help with feline obesity.
Caring for your cat also requires certain immunizations. For the most part, rabies, feline distemper, and heart worm inoculations should be kept up to date. You may also want to have you cat immunized against feline leukemia, but many veterinarians feel this is as an unnecessary and risky decision when caring for your cat. There are also immunizations available to help manage fleas and upper respiratory infections.
Unless your cat is a kitten, hairless, or advanced in years, it will want to be outdoors. If the cat is healthy, you can purchase insulated houses that will suit most environments. That said, if the weather is very cold, or there is going to be a lot of snow, caring for your cat may involve some time outdoors looking for it. You should still do what you can to bring your cat indoors. That said, caring for your cat if it is feral will always involve a risk of injury, loss, and theft.
When considering how to go about caring for your cat, it is also important to consider how they will get along with other living things in the home. Among other things, cats usually do not like to share what they consider as their personal space with other cats. As a result, their subtle behaviors may be enough to drive one or more cats away from the home. In other cases, they will fight in order to establish territorial dominance. It is also important to note that some male cats will kill kittens. Therefore, if one of your female cats has a litter, it is best to isolate them from the males until they are weaned.
Finally, when caring for your cat, you must also consider its emotional well being. If they are indoor cats, and do not have an opportunity to hunt and play, they will need some attention from you. While they can keep themselves busy with toys, they still need social interaction with another cat, or with people in the home. Cats that are not getting their emotional needs met will do any number of things to get attention. This includes defecating outside of their litter boxes and behaving in an insecure way. When in doubt, it is best to take your cat to the veterinarian to see what is going on.
There is no question that properly caring for your cat will result in a loyal, wonderful companion. They will provide you with hours of comical activities to watch, as well as a companion whose purring can reduce even the worst stresses. A cat's quiet charm and affection are prized by those that recognize it as being more than comparable to what dog owners have with their pets.
