Happy Pets

Collars and leads

Even if you have no plans to take your cat out for walks a collar and lead will be useful as a means of control and restraint when you have to take it to the vet or on a journey. The collar must have an elastic section, so that if the cat gets caught on a nail or twig it can free itself without risk of choking. The collar should also carry an identity disc with the address and/or telephone number of its owner, or a cylinder that holds a roll of paper on which they can be written. The cylinder type is useful if you move around a lot and have to keep on changing your address, but the disc will be more easily noticed and read.

For those who intend to walk their cat on a lead a harness is better than a collar, but it is difficult to find one to fit a small kitten and a collar will anyway be needed if the cat is to be allowed out on its own.

Scratching-posts or panels

These can be a piece of log, or carpeting or coarse fabric such as hessian mounted on a post or panel on which the cat can exercise its claws — rather than on your furniture or furnishings. It is absolutely essential to provide a post or panel for a cat kept entirely indoors, though you could substitute an old piece of furniture if you do not mind having a chair torn to shreds! Both panels and posts can be obtained ready-made from a store.

Kitten comforts

If your new acquisition is a kitten leaving mother and siblings for the first time, get a clock with a loud tick — an old-style wind-up clock is just the thing. The idea is not to wake the kitten up — at that age it should be allowed to sleep as much as it likes — but to provide a substitute for its missing family. Unless you have splashed out on the luxury of a heating panel for the bed then a hot-water bottle (thick rubber, metal or ceramic) is another thoughtful extra to have ready.

Toys

Kitten or cat, your new pet should have some playthings. Pet stores stock all

kinds of of toys from simple stuffed mice and pipe-cleaner spiders to balls mounted on springs or elastic and mice that pop in and out of holes like the figures on a cuckoo clock. No doubt in the more expensive emporia for the pampered pussy you could even buy radio- controlled rodents and other space-age gadgets. However, a crumpled ball of paper, a cotton reel, a table-tennis ball, a cardboard box big enough to get inside and a sheet of newspaper, placed tent- like with the fold as the ridge so that it can be dashed beneath, will all give hours of fun.

Shops often sell toy mice stuffed with catnip, a plant that cats usually like, and these are better than toys stuffed with materials that might do harm if eaten. If a toy has eyes make sure that they are secure and do not buy anything on which toxic paints or dyes have been used. Like small children, young cats will instantly demolish most playthings, so get the toughest ones you can find.

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This entry was posted on Friday, May 23rd, 2008 at 6:00 pm and is filed under Arachnids, Cats, Collars, Harnesses, Kittens, Scratching Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.