It should have been a drug warning, not adult: kitten crack.
Depends on where you are; as well of course as whether you feed them, vet them, and shut them inside at night and in bad weather.
Will do.
The plan is 100% indoors. We’ve got coyotes, lynx, mountain lions and bears here as well as assorted birds of prey. That being said Ducky seems to love making a break for the great outdoors. I lost my last cat to a great horned owl.
Makes total sense. I misunderstood when you said you wanted him to be a mouser.
That does indeed look like indoor cat territory.
As he seems to love the outdoors, maybe you could make him a catio?
And that is a great picture. Child and kitten are obviously doing fine together.
(His collar has an elastic release, right? Even indoor cats should have those if they wear collars.)
Just chiming in with some thoughts on things already suggested (Boring? Pointless? Well, you can consider it more “votes” for certain ideas)
Food is more important than you might think. Though I don’t have specific brand recommendations I want to echo what others have said about getting high-quality food. Not only is it better for your cat, it also makes litter-box cleaning a lot more pleasant.
I’d suggest having both hard and wet food available when you feed. It is important to have fresh water always available for kitteee but also, cats get some of their hydration from wet food. I won’t quite weigh in on constant food availability vs. set feeding times. I will say my preference is set meal times but depends on various things from cat to cat (and household to household). Ask your vet for advice.
It’s nice for the cat if you have two or more litter boxes available for him (him, right?). If you have other cats, then even more of them. And, you can do like the suggestion above and at first use several boxes with different types of litter to see what the dude opts for.
I’ll also echo: hands are NOT toys. It is sooo tempting to let the cat play and nibble at your fingers. Don’t do it. Have a small stuffed animal nearby when you are playing/petting the kitty. If/when he starts going for your fingers grab the small toy and put it near his mouth as a preferred option to the hand. Cats don’t have any special attraction or interest to biting fingers and hands they just learn to do it when human appendages are constantly being offered up as “prey”.
No offense but… it’s not too hard to trick a cat. If you deflect attention away from your fingers and to the small stuffed mouse (or whatever) the cat will go for the toy and be just as happy. It’s up to you to guide the cat, not vice versa.
What a couple of cutie patooties! Ducky has a fabulous tail!
We bought George a sock monkey to fight instead of our hands. It was as big as him (at the time) so he could hold and kick, plus it has a handy tail that could be held and pulled to make monkey fight back. Sock monkey is rather tattered looking but George is pretty good at not trying to play with our hands. Your boy is going to be a pretty big cat, you don’t to allow him to make bad habits young and then have to break them later.
I’m glad you are keeping Ducky in, not only is it safer for Ducky, Coons and Forest Cats are famed for their hunting skills and the bird population really suffers when one is around. Catios don’t need to be fancy and don’t need a large footprint. Ours is made of plastic lattice because it was cheaper and easier than the other options.
Unfortunately we tend to have an indoor mouse problem in the winter time.
I think so it just pulls open I don’t know if there is elastic in there but it doesn’t take much effort.
This is one we’ve been working with the kids on "don’t let the cat do today you wouldn’t want a 20 pound cat to do. That and lots of redirection to toys.
I was gone all day but he freaked my wife out for basically sleeping all day. Bringing him home yesterday must have worn him out plus he was just snipped two days ago and seems to have a bit of a cold (he sneezes a couple of times per hour). We’ll get him to our vet this week for a full check-up.
If he stays lethargic bring him in sooner. Respiratory infections in kittens can be serious.
He may just be worn out from all these life changes, though. If he’s still eating well it can probably wait for the regular appointment.
That is obviously a kitten in love with his new forever person! Sweet.
I don’t know about well but he ate consistently yesterday and my wife had to pick up the dog’s food today because Ducky kept eating it. He only at about 1/3 cup of his dry food today and then powered through a quarter of a small tin of wet kitten food.
Now that Ducky has made friends with all the humans he’s decided that it time to make the dogs love him. . .
I was thinking that it was a slave in love with her new master but lets not disenchant the OP.
While I agree that respiratory infections can be serious for kittens, sleeping all day is pretty normal for a critter that sleeps around 18 hours a day. Three month old George took instant catnaps during the day, but five month George was taking a deep nap every afternoon.
Do be sure to tell your vet about the sneezing, cats shouldn’t be sneezing that often. VeryBadCat came to us as a stray and has calicivirus which expresses itself with sneezing and goopy eyes. It is a virus, it is not contagious to humans but is easily transmitted from cat to cat and is often found in shelter cats. The only time we notice it is when VBC has been stressed.
I’m just telling you that so you don’t worry that Ducky will die of an upper respiratory infection during the night!
If he’s eating the dogs’ food as well as some of his own, and is actively trying to make friends with the dogs, that doesn’t seem at all like a medical emergency. I wouldn’t be at all worried that he’s going to keel over during the night. (That he’s going to wake you up playing Galloping Hordes, now that’s another matter.)
Maybe I was projecting, OK? I’m the sort who would worry that my new kitten was going to die of something horrible, so I was trying to be reassuring to stop the OP from worrying. Probably needlessly, the OP has always seemed to be the sensible sort, but you never know.
I have no reassurance to give about the Midnight Galloping Hordes, a single cat can do that very nicely and the OP has dogs for Ducky to encourage/bad influence into stampeding.
I’m not too concerned about him being sick. He isn’t acting like an unhappy cat but we’ll be getting him into the vet asap they were closed today and were closed by the time we got him home on Saturday or we’d already have the appointment.
Luckily, the dogs are old and their main reaction to the kitten has been disgust at having to share there house with another critter. Not excited by the thought of midnight galloping hordes.
It is a little weird to me that Ducky seems to be the cat without fear. We brushed him out tonight and he just laid there purring. The girls had a bath and he jumped in the tub while it was filling and my wife had to toss him out of the room since he’s still got stitches. He’s walked up to a 200 pound mastiff and a 100 pound Anatolia shepherd and just tried to hang out with them. We play with his feet and he doesn’t care. Basically, none of the things cats should mind bug him. It’s like he was very well socialized by his previous owner and then they abandoned him.
Is it just me or does that dog look like he is saying “don’t even think of jumping up on my couch. Ever.”?
I always wonder about our cats’ stories. How did such wonderful cats end up on the street? George is the first one we deliberately brought into our home, the others just kinda showed up.
And about the water thing…no advice at all but if you come up with a way to keep Ducky (very apt name) from playing in water, please let me know. George thinks that swimming around in a full bath tub is great fun and we have to keep the toilet lids closed so he doesn’t splash around in them.
So was I, actually; having possibly set up the worry in the first place (though if he were still not moving, and wasn’t eating, worry might have been better than possible results of not worrying. But that doesn’t seem to be what’s going on. – especially if he also has to be prevented from leaping into the bathtub!)
Some cats are like that. Unwise behavior if he were to be an outdoor cat; but, as you’ve got not only two large dogs but also two small children, a very-high-confidence cat is exactly who you want – at any rate, if it’s combined with low aggression, which it seems like he also has. You may have lucked into just the right cat.
Very much so. In fact about 5 seconds after I took that picture he pulled back the paw Ducky was sniffing since Paden didn’t want that thing to touch him.
No kidding. At this point the only thing missing from my wish list is a pile of dead mouse bodies, not that he’s allowed out into the house at night and no mice have moved in yet this year.
It the litter you have is working great, but I would give Pretty Litter a try. A box lasts a month and all you have to do is scoop and stir. My cat in the past would poop on the floor sometimes, he doesn’t anymore. I started using 2 boxes, now only 1