Should we get a kitten?

[HydroSqueegee]

i have 4 cats and i despise every single one of them. poop, pee, puke, fur balls, hair everywhere...

god i hate them

 

[alkemyst]

Umm, female cats will spray as well. :biggrin:

QFT, but at least once sexually altered the males don't have as strong a smell and the females don't either.

When cats that are altered start 'spraying' it's usually an environmental issue (new animal, kids, change to litter/food/etc).

 

[OBLAMA2009]

I like cats, but the whole having-them-poop-in-your-house thing, and everything that entails, is a bit of a deal breaker for me. I would only have a cat if I could have their litter box in the garage, or if I had a large property and they could be indoor/outdoor cats.

When I grew up we always had indoor/outdoor cats so there was never a litter box.

my cats were outdoor and it worked out really well. i never even saw their poop and they actually stayed in my yard the whole time. my indoor cat was a persian and it was crankier, messier and less healthy than my outdoor cats (it required more vet visits and only lived 10 years vs outdoor cats that all lived over 15-20 years)

 

[alkemyst]

An outdoor cat living more than 4-5 years is incredibly lucky. It's pretty hard to not notice when a cat has crapped in your yard though and it rots.

Also I have found most people with 'outdoor' cats majorly overestimate how long they really have had them. Even those that take their indoor pets to the vet each year usually don't know the exact 'age'. A 20 year old cat is also very rare.

 

[Perknose]

I'd like to add that no cat I've ever had has ever peed or pooped in the house outside of the litter box. Nor have any of my dogs. I've guess I've just been lucky in this respect, I don't know.

But the furniture destroying thing, yeah. Pye, my white cat, is the main culrpit. He's gotten both living room couches and several chairs.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I can only count a few incidents where my cat peed outside the litter box. One is when she was a kitten and she was still stressed from her new home. Think she forgot where it was or something. Second time is when someone took her favorite blanket... true story! She got pissed and went to pee on it lol. She has not done anything like that since though. Oh and one time I forgot to empty the little a few days too many, and she pooped right in front of it to send me a message. At least she did it on the rubber pad and not on my bed or something.

 

[DrPizza]

Ours is incredibly fascinated by the toilet. It's impossible to go to the bathroom without the cat waiting around to stick its head in the toilet and watch the water go down. I've been trying to figure out a way to make it so the cat could be trained to use the toilet as a litter box AND flush the toilet itself. THAT would solve my only problem with the cat. Oh, and my wife has one set of curtains that are held up with a tension rod. The cat loves to jump up and pull the whole thing down onto the floor. The window is being replaced later this fall, so I haven't had a reason to put in a regular curtain rod.

 

[Paladin3]

First time cat owners should consider adopting an adult cat from a shelter. You'll get to spend time with it, learn a bit about it's disposition and know what you are getting into. Plus you know you opened your home and heart to a new family member who's days may have been otherwise numbered.

I'd avoid any of the more exotic, inbred breeds. Mutt cats tend to be more healthy in my experience.

And when a pet's healthy life is at an end, only reasonable means should be used to prolong it. If you have to give a cat weekly injections so it can spend another year crapping on itself, well, you're not doing the animal any favors.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

An outdoor cat living more than 4-5 years is incredibly lucky. It's pretty hard to not notice when a cat has crapped in your yard though and it rots.

Also I have found most people with 'outdoor' cats majorly overestimate how long they really have had them. Even those that take their indoor pets to the vet each year usually don't know the exact 'age'. A 20 year old cat is also very rare.

thats because some people live in bad areas for cats (small yards near the street, or areas with raccoons/coyotes, cold weather) and some people stop taking care of their animals if they are outdoors (they dont feed/change water regularly, dont take it to the vets, let it eat birds/mice). my outdoor cats were noticebly more alert, active, less cranky, longer living and happier than my indoor ones. cats are meant to live outside, its better for most of them (but not meant to be left alone like theyre wild)

 

[Raduque]

My cat is around 13 years old. She's never destroyed anything that was worth anything (she claws on the big towel that covers my dog's cage), though she accidentally puked in my shoes once. She also always uses her litter box, generally comes when I call her, and is always there to sit on me and purr when I'm having a bad day.

My dog, otoh, is an asshole who eats my pants, treats the cat box as a buffet and sleeps on my bed when I'm not home.

 

[Saint Nick]

If my cat pisses on my stuff, I piss on the cat. I fucking hate my cat.

 

[SphinxnihpS]

All animals smell.
Most people leave the cat box inside the house, so you do the math on that.
All cats shed, so I'm guessing you're not the type who will get used to cat hair in and on everything you own.
Despite popular opinion, cats are filthy. They walk in their own shitbox and then on you and everything you own, like your kitchen counters. Have fun cleaning them, because a cat in a bathtub is a high speed laceration machine.

 

[alkemyst]

All animals smell.
Most people leave the cat box inside the house, so you do the math on that.
All cats shed, so I'm guessing you're not the type who will get used to cat hair in and on everything you own.
Despite popular opinion, cats are filthy. They walk in their own shitbox and then on you and everything you own, like your kitchen counters. Have fun cleaning them, because a cat in a bathtub is a high speed laceration machine.

lolwut

 

[corwin]

Anybody said "NO" yet?


NO!!! Fuck those hairy ass pieces of shit...

 

[Jeff7]

My cat did once. I was trying to stuff her into her cat carrier in order to bring her to the vet to get spayed.

Cat scratches and bites have the potential to be nasty, especially scratches since cats bury their shit with their paws. Best thing to do is immediately was with soap and water and then put on something like Neosporin. I do that and have never had any infections.

Someone in the family got the idea to start feeding the cats their daily canned food in their carriers. Unfortunately, they'd become suspicious if they got fed at an unusual time of day.

I have certainly been scratched by them. The scratches would sometimes turn a little puffy and red, but it always went away within a few hours, though they'd always get a good covering of triple antibiotic ointment.

 

[Perknose]

Anybody said "NO" yet?


NO!!! Fuck those hairy ass pieces of shit...

Some azzhole did. I guoted it above!

 

[OBLAMA2009]

Someone in the family got the idea to start feeding the cats their daily canned food in their carriers. Unfortunately, they'd become suspicious if they got fed at an unusual time of day.

I have certainly been scratched by them. The scratches would sometimes turn a little puffy and red, but it always went away within a few hours, though they'd always get a good covering of triple antibiotic ointment.

the way you get a cat in a carrier is you turn the carrier up so the door faces the sky. then yougrab the cat by the scruff of its neck and lower it back feet first into the carrier, and pushing on the head when the time comes

 

[Dumac]

the way you get a cat in a carrier is you turn the carrier up so the door faces the sky. then yougrab the cat by the scruff of its neck and lower it back feet first into the carrier, and pushing on the head when the time comes

Or get a carrier with a top door.

 

[IronWing]

the way you get a cat in a carrier is you turn the carrier up so the door faces the sky. then yougrab the cat by the scruff of its neck and lower it back feet first into the carrier, and pushing on the head when the time comes

First you put on the armor of your god or, absent that, a heavy jacket, leather gloves, and eye protection. I had one cat manage to bite through a leather work glove though he didn't manage to break the skin. He's a special case though. He's a sweet, loving kitty until his feet leave the ground, then his brain spins around inside his skull and he becomes a feline chain saw.

Also, and this important, use a bath towel to catch the cat. Scoop it up in the towel and dump it in the carrier, towel and all.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

First you put on the armor of your god or, absent that, a heavy jacket, leather gloves, and eye protection. I had one cat manage to bite through a leather work glove though he didn't manage to break the skin. He's a special case though. He's a sweet, loving kitty until his feet leave the ground, then his brain spins around inside his skull and he becomes a feline chain saw.

Also, and this important, use a bath towel to catch the cat. Scoop it up in the towel and dump it in the carrier, towel and all.

You're a wuss. If you regularly pick up your cat and mush their face, you can do anything with them.

 

[Perknose]

You're a wuss. If you regularly pick up your cat and mush their face, you can do anything with them.

Socialization aside, cats do vary in inherent temperament. I'm lucky, I can d anything I want with my guys. They've never so much as scratched me. They're about as low key as cats can get.

But yeah, socialization can go a long way.

 

[ichy]

My cat is such a glutton that I can put an empty cat bowl in the carrier and she'll run right in. By the time she realizes she's been tricked the door is closed.

 

[ichy]

And when a pet's healthy life is at an end, only reasonable means should be used to prolong it. If you have to give a cat weekly injections so it can spend another year crapping on itself, well, you're not doing the animal any favors.

That depends IMO. A daily insulin shot isn't a big deal, nor is it expensive and it can add a lot of good quality time to a cat's life. Of course not letting your cat get fat mitigates the risk of it becoming diabetic in the first place.

 

[IronWing]

You're a wuss. If you regularly pick up your cat and mush their face, you can do anything with them.

Meet Leon

He's actually a very sweet kitty and he worships me. He's standing on the computer table next to me getting petted as a I type this. Just can't pick him up.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Meet Leon

He's actually a very sweet kitty and he worships me. He's standing on the computer table next to me getting petted as a I type this. Just can't pick him up.

He looks a lot like my "Squee" but, smaller. Mine has an overbite too. I pick him up regularly. He likes to stretch. It's a bit disconcerting when you don't realize he's around and you feel a tap in the small of your back.