Very true; though dogs can chew the hell out of things if not given chew toys, too.
My cat finds nice fabric-upholstered furniture well-nigh irrestistable, no matter how many scratchable things I buy him.
The solution: Leather. Hell, I wanted leather upholstery anyway, so the cat had the nice side-effect of converting my wife to that aesthetic as well. (She complained that dark leather furniture would make our place look like a “bachelor pad”. “And that would be bad because…?” I replied in bemusement.) For whatever reason, my cat couldn’t care less about our leather couch and chair. In fact, he doesn’t even like to lie on it, so shedding isn’t much of an issue either.
Yep, there are some hidden costs in owning a cat; but I didn’t much mind getting my arm twisted for some of them, anyhow, so no harm.
Yay! We have leather furniture. Not only does it repel cats, but when your child barfs on it it wipes right up! Who knew that our money invested into this furniture set would pay for itself over and over with each hurling episode?
I have a question for Cat Dopers, you know those kitty condos? Towers covered in carpeting that are medium to up-the-butt pricing? Do cats actually like those or what?
My husband and I are both extremely cat-people, so this is a fangirl talking.
Pros:
Cats can amuse themselves most of the time.
They sleep a lot.
They’re small.
They are rarely loud enough to bother a neighbor.
They are really really cute.
They purr.
They are pretty perceptive when it comes to your mood.
They will curl up on your lap or next to you in bed and be toasty and purr purr purr purr. It’s better than drugs.
They have pretty distinct personalities. You can’t predict what a cat will like or dislike based on other cats.
Cons:
When they amuse themselves? It’s probably going to be at 3 a.m. and involve a lot of bouncing.
They shed. Holy mackerel do they shed.
They’ll stick their nose in your ear, purring, while you sleep.
Litter boxes (though we have the automated kind).
Hair balls. Yeurcch.
Vet bills can be expensive for the diseases we’ve run across. We’ve had a kitty with cardiomyopathy and a kitty with diabetes and renal failure. The former was expensive but she lived to be 11 when the vets had predicted 6 months to a year. She went from healthy to dead in a very short time. The latter was very expensive but Tuffy was a difficult case and we never could get him competely stabilized. We held on to him too long. We couldn’t see it at the time, but in retrospect it’s clear.
And now I’m thoroughly depressed. Bah.
Anyway, I love cats. I simply love them. We have nine in a big house. They do not go outside, ever, and I can’t remember the last time one even tried. They do like to look out windows and chirp at the birds, though. Oh, and get two if you can. And get them fixed asap. And post pictures.
We have a small version (couldn’t afford the whole works) & they couldn’t care less. The best scratcher I found was made of corrugated cardboard. Very cheap & they love it. I agree that scratching is how they relieve stress. Ours have damaged this cheap carpeting we’ve got.
I bought a kitty tower for Auron & Paine. It’s six feet tall, covered in carpet, has several different levels and a tunnel for hiding in. They love it. They often have wrestling matches to decide who gets to sleep on the top level. Plus, they use it as a scratching post as well. If you have the money and the room, I would suggest you think about getting one.
Kitties rock! They do some of the coolest things, too. A kitty will let you walk around the house, calling their name, looking under furniture, until you’ve concluded that aliens vaporized your kit, and then you’ll realize you’re being watched. There’s the kitty, on top of the fridge with a face that says, “Hey dumbass. I was here all along.” Kittens believe that they’re invisible if they can’t see you (hiding head on the stairs with kitty butt and tail plainly in sight). Two kitties playing beetle hockey on a kitchen floor is a delight to watch.
We are storing a leather chair for a buddy of ours and the cats won’t leave it alone. They adore it, climb all over it and have destroyed the front of both arms.
Some cats love leather.
One of our cats loves the cat tree. The other attacks it furiously until she’s so frustrated that it won’t bleed that she hides under the bed.
jsgoddess, which automated cat box do you have and how well do you like it.
In an odd reversal TheLadyLion had the bedroom off limits to pets until I moved in. Part of of was we had a large dog but he’s happily romping on my parent’s two acres and now the cat is allowed in at night but only when I am in bed. I need to make sure that the cat is annoying me rather than TLL. She usually settles down well and favors curling up across my arm as I sleep on my side. That or standing on my forehead when she’s trying to look out the window. That was cute the first time she did it but the first time I got a paw on my open eye it was no longer cute. I almost always get up at least an hour before TLL so my routine has become to take the cat out of the bedroom and close the door behind me so TLL can get some uninterruped sleep
I’d just like to second the notion that the ideal number of house-cats is two. One gets lonesome, while a third cat seems to to triple the litter box work required. Three or more cats also means that you’re guaranteed to have several chase-and-tackle fights each night – these are quite entertaining at 3 in the afternoon, but not at 3 in the morning.
We too have an automated litter box. This cuts down on the work, but not as much as you might think. First, since the cats will generally dig the litter to try and bury their waste (thus creating large mounds of litter one side of the box or the other), jams are not uncommon, particularly as the unit gets older and loses some of its oomph. Second, while you only have to clean them once or twice a week (not counting any jams you have to clear up), it becomes a big chore instead of a minor one. It’s especially bad if you get into one of those “I can wait longer than you can” things with your housemates, in which case it gets too full for the lid to close, the house stinks, and it’s such a mess that it still requires a real surge of willpower (and a good set of rubber gloves) to go near it.
Oh dear. I’m not sure. They are a few years old. Is there a brand called Litter-Maid or something similar?
To answer the second question: We have two stories. Upstairs are the automated boxes. Downstairs are plain boxes. Hubby refused to deal with the automated boxes any longer, which is why the downstairs is his domain. I like the automated ones well enough, and the cats seem to like them as well.
True, but in my experience it takes some effort to train them when they’re young. Contrary to popular belief, cats are trainable; they just aren’t trained the same as dogs, and they retain different kinds of information. More on that in a minute, but for now, yes, my cat comes to his name, largely due to long hours spent on the kitchen floor sending him back and forth between me and my wife in pursuit of yummy treats offered in association with his name.
I agree that this is strange. Like Loopydude suggests, a hunting cat is about as strong a creature you can safely have in the house. In fact, I suspect we’d have bigger cats as pets except that the house cat is the biggest it’s safe to own. One of my favorite activities with my cat is to find a big flying insect — he’s quite partial to moths, and he thinks crane flies are delicious — and then “help” him hunt it. He will follow it around the house, his tail swishing, occasionally making a leap for it; and from time to time I’ll scoop or swat the bug down closer to him. Sometimes he gets it, and sometimes he doesn’t and the hunt continues. In general, though, the reason I favor cats over dogs, I think, is that a cat doesn’t put up with your shit. A dog will love you despite a lot of ill treatment, because they’re pack animals and that’s how they’re wired; a cat will tolerate only a certain amount of neglect and then abandon you. When my cat curls up on my lap at night, I know it’s because he wants to be there. I’ve earned his trust and his affection.
As others have suggested, it really depends on the cat. I made my own cat tower for about half the price, and my cat loves it. It’s pretty straightforward, just a 4x4 post wrapped in sisal with a small hutch/box attached about a foot off the ground and three platforms spaced up toward the top, and all the flat board surfaces covered in carpet. Took like three hours and cost about a hundred bucks. Maybe this could be a peace offering to the Roadblock Husband, to let him spend time at the hardware store and in the shop in order to Build a Big Piece of Furniture.
One other thing nobody else has really mentioned yet, following up on my training reference above, is the habit-and-routine aspect of cat psychology. This is neither a good thing nor a bad thing, really, neither pro nor con, but it has the potential of being a bad thing if you don’t manage the cat’s life appropriately. Basically, the little critters thrive on sameness. They establish a routine, and they stick to it. They may vary it a bit, e.g. waking up in a window between 5am and 6am instead of right on the dot, and they may change from time to time, e.g. spending a year sleeping on the same spot on the couch and then abruptly deciding that the end of the bed is preferable. But in general, you should be conscious of this aspect of your cat’s needs. Don’t move the food around the house randomly; don’t move the furniture around arbitrarily. And if you start to set a pattern, expect that you will cause stress to the cat if he gets used to it and you don’t keep it up. Right now, my cat loves sleeping on my lap in the evening. When I come home from work, the cat begins hovering around me, waiting for me to go into the back room and turn on the TV or the computer or or open a book or whatever so he can curl up on me and go to sleep. The longer I go without doing it, the more agitated he gets, pacing around and meowing. And the nights when I don’t do that, when I’m in the front room, he’s definitely not happy. I pet him and reassure him, and he curls up wherever I am, but it’s obvious what he’d rather be doing. Now, of course, you can’t let your cat control your life, but be aware that a certain amount of routine will be necessary for maximum feline happiness.
Chase-and-tackle fights I can handle any time of the day or night. But it’s waking up to find our five cats on top of the bed in the morning, spaced around us such that we’re trapped like Gulliver in Lilliput that is the bothersome thing. But I have to like the little guys.
There are plenty of good answers here, but one I might add that doesn’t seem to have been touched on is that they are good companions. My wife travels a lot on business and I work from home, so there are some days when I don’t deal with people at all (unless, of course, I choose to go out somewhere). But the cats and I spend our day together–one is curious about what I’m doing on the computer, another is curled up in the chair beside my desk, yet another wants me to take a break and play. One reminds me that the food bowls need refilling, and another reminds me that the litter box needs emptying. They are hardly the aloof, independent creatures that are made out to be; rather, they’re great little companions who seem to like their situation. Certainly, I enjoy their company.
On the downside, their litter boxes do need frequent cleaning, and the vet bills can be rather high–we tend to take all of them at once for their annual vet visits and shots; you’d think we’d get a group rate, but no. Still, if those are the only cons I can think of, we’re doing pretty well.
I’ve had my extemely low-maintenance cat for about nine years. The vet bills, besides shots and check-ups, have been nonexistent. She only requires food, petting, and (this is strange) water dripping from the bathtub faucet.
The litter box is not a big problem with just one small cat. I empty it completely once a week or so.
I would recommend a female over a male for an indoor cat. I have had friends with male cats who became quite a bit of trouble. Also, my cat is a short-hair, so the shedding is not a big problem.
Downside: scratched furniture and carpet
On the “manliness” of cats, you could tell your husband that Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, and Edgar Allan Poe were all cat owners.
When we got our dog 9 years ago I picked up an excellent training book for dogs from the ASPCA. I don’t think I can use this on a cat, other than chucking it at it, but everyone has always said “What a great dog you have.” It is, I would like to think, 50% breed and 50% training.
Can anyone recommend a book for dealing with cats and training.
Mentioning that Mark Twain, Edgar Allen Poe and Hemingway having cats will not sway Mr. Ujest in the least. His argument will be, " Yeah, but they are now dead and it was probably the cat that did it." That and the fact that writers are not the manliest of men. He is already prejudice. If there were some sports stars I could wave under his nose, like John Madden ( except he is a troll.) or Boomer Esiasson, who were cat owners, that might work.
Our Burmese cat - Muffin - is dog-like in a lot of ways. She’s very affectionate and playful. We had her by herself for six weeks and then we got a second kitten and I find that two kittens are better and easier to care for than one. I simply did not have the energy to keep up with Muffin alone, and so having a playmate for her was wonderful. She enjoyed it too, after an initial hissy fit.
We usually feed our cats Iams - they like it and they seem healthy on it, so we keep buying it. Recently we ran out and we purchased a mid to high range supermarket kibble just to tide them over, and oh my goodness have we noticed the difference! Their litterbox stinks to high heaven at the moment, and I cannot wait to get them back on the Iams so I can walk past the laundry without retching. What we’re saving on the price of the petfood, we’re paying in kitty litter! Well, close enough.
Plus: they’re small, quieter than a dog but can be just as affectionate, fairly cheap to feed, funny to watch, more effective than hot water bottles in the bed at night.
Minus: it’s hard to train them out of clawing the furniture, they can shed quite a bit and everything ends up with a fine layer of fur on it, your standard hot water bottle does not complain loudly when you boot it out in summer.
As you might guess, I’m a dog man. The more the better, the bigger the better.
I also keep cats, and I love them too.
Indoor/outdoor is the way to go. They are more at risk, but they’re happier. Would you rather live longer and safer, but be indoors your entire life? Me neither.
Outdoor cats use the litterbox infrequently.
Hairballs: Give them Hartz hairball remedy twice a week, and you’ll have zero hairballs w/ shorthairs. It tastes like salmon – they’ll lick it right off your finger.
Fleas, ticks, heartworms: Use Revolution – one drop on the back of the neck every month and you’re done. They hate it! But it works.
Injury: Expect your outdoor cat to get severely messed up at least once. It can be heartbreaking. Somewhat costly, too, but if you’re an animal lover, the critter’s suffering is what really gets you. I don’t use lampshades. My cats kept their wounds cleaner than I could, and never tore stitches, but some cats are not so cooperative. Also, a wounded cat can conceal a serious wound for days – this is essential to know!
FIV (kitty AIDS): Having a cat die in your arms because you had to put her down is horrible. It can happen. Be prepared.
One of my favorite activities with my cat is to find a big flying insect — he’s quite partial to moths, and he thinks crane flies are delicious — and then “help” him hunt it. He will follow it around the house, his tail swishing, occasionally making a leap for it; and from time to time I’ll scoop or swat the bug down closer to him. Sometimes he gets it, and sometimes he doesn’t and the hunt continues. In general, though, the reason I favor cats over dogs, I think, is that a cat doesn’t put up with your shit. A dog will love you despite a lot of ill treatment, because they’re pack animals and that’s how they’re wired; a cat will tolerate only a certain amount of neglect and then abandon you. When my cat curls up on my lap at night, I know it’s because he wants to be there. I’ve earned his trust and his affection.