I need info: my kid wants a cat . . .

Factual Questions
1

. . .and I’d like to get as much information as I can before we take the plunge. I know kitties are cute and are less maintenance than a dog, but that’s about it. So:

How much can I expect to spend annually on a cat? Vet bills, spaying, declawing, medicine, etc.

What about maintenance? Do they spray the furniture? Can they be trained not to claw? How? Will there be tons of hair all over? Are hairballs a big problem?

Any particular breed to recommend? Boy or girl?

All advice is greatly appreciated.

2

I can’t tell you about every cat, but I can tell you about mine.

I once figured out that my charming little bundle of fluff cost about a dollar a day to feed and maintain. If I recall correctly, the things I was factoring in was
*food (He ate mostly canned, and Gerber’s meat baby foods. He was a spoiled little git)
*Vet bills (every fight was a minimum $100 vet bill. I will never, never, never, ever have a male cat again. However, he did not spray, as he had never been around another adult male and was castrated at a very early age.)
*Grooming (he was a long hair, and his mother was … shall we say “uninterested” in her children. His only surviving litter mate was also slovenly and non-hunting.)

My advice? Get a short haired female kitten from a friend’s cat who has had successfully raised litters before. Do not get a kitten from a first time mother. Feed her dry food. Be firm (I’m a wussy when it come to guilt). Indoor cats get into fewer fights with other cats or with prey.

Your other questions:
Cats can be trained not to claw the furniture, and any other behavior as long as you are consistent. I don’t think cats should be declawed.
Hairballs are less of a problem with a shorthaired cat, especially if you brush it frequently. Brushing also helps the hair-around-the-house problem, but if you are a tidy person you will be vacuuming every week.
When you meet your potential kitten, see if it is curious and lively. I was told once to roll the kitten on its back and gently hold it down for a moment to see how aggressive it will get. I don’t know if that really works or not.

Good luck in your search.

3

If your cat is healthy (and that’s a big if), plan to spend a couple of hundred a year on food, toys, vet bills. The two biggest expenses will be getting it declawed (ONLY if it’s an indoor cat) and fixed. Declawing is the ONLY way to keep it from destroying your furniture. That, or get concrete furniture. It is less expensive to fix boy cats, so keep that in mind (they won’t spray if you fix them before they’re a year old).

If your cat is NOT healthy, plan to spend a lot more. One of my cats has a bum ticker and needs to be pilled twice a day (that also means having someone come in twice at day to pill her when I’m out of town!). “There is no free cat.”

The heathiest breed seems to be “mutt.” Less inbreeding. Keep in mind, the cat should die before you or your kid—can said kid deal with a potentially sick or dead kitty?

4

Caveat: if you get a male cat and have him neutered, he may still spray.

Our oldest cat (which we got when he was two) was OK until we got a female kitten. When she first went into heat, he started spraying, against the probability that he wouldn’t. We got her spayed, and he stopped. Then he started again when my wife got pregnant and hasn’t stopped since. (I’m hoping he will stop when my wife stops breast-feeding, as it’s her hormones that are probably goading his territoriality.)

I would also suggest a short-haired cat. And for the sake of the cat, make sure your kid (daughter?) understands that a pet is not a toy. I’ve seen a lot of pets hurt because the kid was playing with it like he’d play with a GI Joe.

5

Cats make a great pet. Let’s look at some things:

Hair: Get a short-haired cat. With regular brushing, the hair will not be a terrible concern. Get a lint brush just in case. Check your family for allergies also. Short-haired cats are less reactive.

In Canada, to get a cat fixed costs about 100 dollars or so, excluding needles. Consult a local vet to get pricing in your area, and try to find one that specializes in just cats.

A fixed cat will usually not spray the furniture. We have three, and none of them do. Males tend to spray more, so I recommend females.

Declawing is from what I understand, injurous to a cat and should not be done.
Instead, teach them to claw an old piece of furniture or a scratching post before they get used to the good stuff. You can get repellant to keep them away from the good furniture.

As for breeds, they’re all good, but keep in mind that persians tend to be less friendly than your standard mixed-breed.(at least the ones I’ve seen…) I strongly suggest that you go to the local animal shelter to obtain a cat. In Canada at least, they come with a coupon that inclused the spaying/neutering and will often already have first shots. These are the cats that need a good home.

Don’t undertake unless you intend to be in for the long haul. I have seen cats live as long as 20 years.
If you aren’t willing to put at least 10 years worth of care, I say skip it. The worst thing you can do is get a cat used to you and then get rid of it. Too many animals end up this way.

6

Well, I took my cat to the vet about three and a half weeks ago for her annual checkup. Said checkup cost about USD 125 (I think that I have a breakdown of that, if you want it), and included one vaccination. The checkup also revealed that she had two broken teeth, and one that was so rotten that it might break off at any minute. So, she went back next week to have all extracted, at an additional cost of USD 150.

I don’t know how much a spay operation is (my cat was abandoned, and was thus spayed long before we got her). My WAG is about USD 75-150; Michi probably has more accurate information than do I.

Feeding a cat costs about USD 0.25 - 0.50 daily, depending on the quality and amount of food. Dry food is cheaper than canned food of the same quality, but of course necessitates a higher water consumption. If you have heavily chlorinated tap water, your cat may refuse to drink it, and require bottled water (I do, and my cat does).

I strongly recommended against having your (hypothetical) cat declawed. If you have a one-cat household, it is totally unnecessary.

If the cat is spayed (or neutered) at a young age, it is unlikely to spray, especially if it is the only cat. Clawing the furniture will not be a significant problem. Get (or make) it a scratching post, and spend the money on a sturdy one; a cat will not use a post that wobbles if it brushes against it.

Cats do shed. Of course, so do dogs. Brush it (depending on the length of the coat) between daily and weekly, and hairballs and cat fur on the rug will not be a problem.

I recommend getting a cat from your local shelter. The cat will probably have a better personality, and the “basic maintenance” (spaying/neutering, vaccinations) will have been done or will be done, sometimes at a reduced rate. An improperly spayed female will have less of a chance of spraying than an improperly castrated male, but a properly neutered animal will have less chance than either. Fancy cats will seldom show up in a shelter, and probably aren’t worth the extra money.

You may wish to look at the VetInfo site (http://www.vetinfo.com/; I’m having bad luck with URLs today), as well as the Purina Cat Info site. Remember that the VetInfo site gives pretty much everything that can go wrong with a cat, and may be a little alarming.

7

I’m on the third and fourth cats of my life, not counting the several cats that various roommates have had. I’ve basically always had a cat around.

The newest addition, Teddy, is the first long hair I’ve ever had. They’re WAY more work than a short hair cat. Must groom, must cut away matted hair, must clean more hair off the furniture. He’s a beautiful cat, but definitely more work than a short hair.

My cats are declawed. Ardy is declawed because I got him when I was 18 and I pretty much thought I had to. Teddy is declawed because he was a stray and showed up that way. After living with a roommate’s cat who wasn’t declawed, I woudln’t do it again. Seems that as long as you have a scratching post, the cat is easily trained to scratch on that, and not on the furniture. Note that all the cats are indoor/outdoor cats, and that may have something to do with why I never had problems with furniture - it might just be more fun to scratch stuff outside (like mice and birds and such). Lots o’ people tell you never to let a declawed cat outside, but Ardy is 12, and Teddy (the stray) is somewhere between 5 & 10, and I’ve never had a problem.

Costs: I buy Science Diet (hi falutin’ cat food) and it costs me about $25/month to feed the two kitties. Purina Cat Chow is cheaper, and the only difference I can see is that the kitties like it better, but they puke more. And that brings us to the next problem - cat puke. Cats puke. Some more than others, but I think it’s pretty much guaranteed that if you have a cat, at some point you are going to be cleaning up cat puke. Anywhere from once a week to once every couple months. If you get a once a week puker, you get very used to cleaning up cat puke.

Never had a cat spray.

Annual exams are around $60 - $100 per cat.

When cats get older, things start going to hell. Ardy currently gets ulcers in his mouth that cause him to excessively groom himself. That results in little piles of fur all over the house and much puke-age. Fixing him involves a monthly trip to the vet. Ardy gets in car, yowls for the first 3 minutes of the ten minute car ride. Then he shits. Then he pukes. Get to vet - clean up cat carrier. Get $60 shot. Put Ardy back in now-clean cat carrier. Start driving home. Ardy yowls, Ardy makes retching noises trying to puke but there’s not much left. Ardy pisses. We get home, Ardy hides under couch for 24 hours. I clean cat carrier yet again. This happens without any change every four weeks. That’s the bad part of having cats.

Can’t tell much difference in behavior between male & female cats. In fact, I was under the impression that Teddy was a girl for the first year I had him. He just seemed to, well, act girly. Turns out he’s a boy. Oh well.

8

You’ve already gotten some excellent advice. How old is your child and has he/she had a pet before? Kittens are very fun to play with, but they do scratch and bite if manhandled and they’re so cute that it’s very hard not to pick them up all the time, so a kitten may not be a good pet for a child under the age of six or so.

I spend about $75 a year on vet bills for my younger, healthier cat. I prefer not to think about how much the 15-year-old costs per year, but it’s…well, it’s more. I suggest you feed your kitten a premium dry food like Science Diet or whatever the vet recommends in order to prevent the development of physical problems later.

You’ll need to kitten-proof the house. Strings, yarn, twist-ties, and balloons can all kill a kitten if it swallows them. There will probably be a time (usually when it’s between 4 and 6 months old) that you regret ever getting a kitten and wonder why on earth you ever invited this little whirlwind into your home, but then you’ve got a child, so you should be familiar with the feeling. It passes.

There is a lot of disagreement over declawing. The operation can deform a cat’s paws or lead to severe infection, so I’d rather chance some frayed furniture instead. The scratching post advice above is good; you’ll also want to be sure the post is tall enough that the cat can stretch out to its full length to scratch.

A kitten from your local humane society is likely to be the healthiest choice. Pet store kittens tend to start out sick. Choose a kitten without eye or nose discharge or diarrhea. Its fur should look fluffy and it should be reasonably playful. I like Siamese mix cats, but they’re talkative and opinionated cats, so if you’re not a “cat person,” you might not like one. Your kitten should react well to being handled by everyone in the family, and if you find one that snuggles and purrs while you’re looking at it, take it home.

9

Good advice on cat-proofing the house. I grew up with cats (and was raised by wolves, by the way) and to this day I will pick up a rubber band or paper clip from the floor where ever I am, “so the cat doesn’t get it.”

On declawing: I couldn’t declaw mine because of Dorothy’s bum ticker, and I sorely regret it. Declawing is neither harmful nor cruel to indoor cats, and note that many, many cats CANNOT BE TRAINED NOT TO CLAW FURNITURE. Lillian—good little girl that she is—only scratches the scratching post. Dorothy—insane evil cat from hell—scratches the furniture simply because she knows it annoys me. She laughs at the strongest cat repellent, and thinks the water pistol game is fun.

10

I will second, or third, those who mention shelter kitties - I have one, many of my friends have one, they make GREAT, and grateful pets. If you look in the classifieds of the paper you will often find people who foster pets for animal shelters or people whose cats got knocked up advertising free kittens - also an excellent way to find one. The good thing about the Humane society is that the cat will come to you neutered and with basic vaccinations that are covered by the adoption fee - $50-$75.

Humane Society will make you sign a form promising that you won’t declaw and that you will keep the cat indoors.

Train kitty to scratch only acceptable objects (scratching post, scratching pad) RIGHT AWAY. I recommend both a post and a mat or pad right outside the litter box. Use a squirt-bottle filled with H20 (you can add a little white vinegar to make it extra unpleasant) to keep it off furniture, countertops, etc. Be consistent when training!

Vet bills can be HUGE, but I’ve minimized them by signing up for animal health insurance through my vet. Feeding, grooming, toys etc. don’t add up to much. Litter can get expensive, but I’m really anal about changing it often - I tried the scoopable kind but the charm of digging for buried treasure wore off.

I was never a cat person as a child (we used to raise Great Danes) but I have been converted by my little pain-in-the-ass who sleeps on my feet and demands attention all the time. :slight_smile:

11

My nickels:

I have cats and dogs. The single most intractable, evil, obnoxious and destructive animal I have ever lived with is a cat. And the mellowest, least destructive animal I have ever lived with is also a cat.

Do not declaw unless you are willing to live with an indoor cat for the rest of its life. I am not, so I live instead with destroyed furniture and other items.

The stink from a cat box is enough to knock you off your feet…and this is from a catbox that has been cleaned as little as 24 hours earlier.

Do NOT GET A MALE KITTY! If you do not fix them fast enough, or maybe even if you do, they will spray. And frankly, I’d almost rather own a skunk.

My evil kitty is the hairball kitty, and it’s a seasonal thing. But when that season comes, watch out. She refuses to barf hairballs on anything except delicate electronic equipment.

Can you tell I’m not crazy about cats? Particularly my own.

Dogs…well, let me just say this: a home isn’t a home without a dog in it.

stoid

12

I would suggest adopting an adult cat from your local shelter. It will make you feel better that you kept some animal from being euthanized and usually the shelter will spay or neuter the animal before they let you take it home.

I have such a cat (a female) and she had her share of medical problems (urinary infections and flaky skin), but after about five years, I finally found a vet who figured out what the cause was and now I have a happy, healthy cat.
Overall, I think I’ve spent about $2500 on my cat in the past ten years for vet bills, but most of that was in two big chunks. Food only costs about a buck a day and my cats eats a special diet (hypo-allergenic).

You don’t need to declaw your cat. Mine is indoors and never claws the furniture. I gave her a scratching post and she took it to immediately. Perhaps I’m just fortunate.

As for litter boxes, they don’t smell that bad if you maintain them and use some baking soda or cedar chips in them. A smelly litter box not only annoys the humans in the house, but also the cat as well.

The only behavior problems with my cat have been health-related. Normally my cat is well-behaved. The only time it starts to act out is if it is sick. I’ve had to give her little kitty anti-anxiety drugs at times.

13

yes, kitties, go for short hair (mentioned before), shelter (more on that), not baby kitty (but maybe not full adult, either) go for a mutt vs. pure bred (I’ve had both, yes, the pure bred did fine, but they can have more health problems).

A fixed female is easier than a fixed male. IMHO.

Now, the shelter thing.

If the shelter is any good, they have you fill out a questionairre and talk to you before you walk out with kitty.

My brother (the Yuppie personified) decided to go this route, took his 2 darling daughters there (wife had to be elsewhere). During the questioning, it came out that : they’d been unsuccessful with hamsters, gerbils, a ferret. Had 2 cats run away years ago. Wife was elsewhere. Children were young and, well, children.

The shelter decided my brother’s family was a poor risk. they left kittyless.

14

there are so many variations on how to keep a cat - you can just ask the vet for recommendations or buy a book or pick any suggested here. you’ll learn from your mistakes no matter what. our first cat we had declawed, then he became an outdoor cat. he did ok with it for 13 years, but ended up dying from feline leukemia - we probably didn’t have him vaccinated for it - big mistake.

i like the claws on, outdoor variety. imho, keeping your cat indoors is pretty lame for the cat. safe, but lame. i have a scratching post and an old chair i bought at a thrift shop for my cat to scratch when he’s inside. you can also trim claws to make them less damaging - i used to do that when my cat was an indoor kitten. ask your vet to show you how.

if you have a ‘vetsmart’ (petsmart’s vet) in your area, you can put the cat on a wellness plan for about 9 bucks a month that will cover all office visits, vaccinations, and discounts on medicine and medical procedures. i would definitely recommend it if your cat is sickly or he gets into fights often.

15

As far as scratching goes, our indoor cat has all her claws, and never scratches the furniture. We use cardboard scratching pads, which she loves, and in the beginning, we found aluminum foil to work on corners of the furniture she liked to scratch. It makes your house “shiny” for a while, but we’ve found it to be worth it.

16

The 1st link will take you to a cat shelter (Grateful Paw) web page and provide email links to people you can ask your question to. One that I work with and I know they can answer your question. The second will allow you to search local shelters in your area for cats/kittens (and other animals) by zip code some even have pictures of the cats. They started in the northeast and have gone national, don’t know how many they have outside the northeast though.

17

I agree about getting a mutt; they’re better tempered and healthier than purebreds.

That said, if said child wants a Persian, be aware that they (purebreds, at least) can have severe breathing problems because of the flat face. Often they have to have surgery as kittens to open up their nasal passages.

18

I have three cats, all acquired as kittens, and all were fairly easily trained to a scratching post. None of them bothers the furniture. This despite the fact that one of them was used to clawing my aunts sofa before I got him.

All three are indoor cats only and have been since they were little and it doesn’t bother them a speck. My family had a beautiful persian cat when I was a child that was poisoned by someone/something in the neighborhood so since then I don’t let my animals run loose. Why take such a chance with dear friends? (I’m sure the birdies thank me too.)

Just keep in mind that all animals vary in personality and temperament just like people do. After all, think of how broad a spectrum your friends and acquaintances cover. (Well… mine don’t even make a decent rainbow, so mayhap that’s not the best example.)

19

I have a Maine Coon who was 1.5 yr when he came from the shelter in '95. They are known to be smart and for a fabulous personality, which in my experience is true. The MC does have a long, silky fur that is not prone to the hair mats that the Persian had. I brush him every now and then in the summer, and give him those hairball Pounce treats and…no hairballs for the most part. He’s never sprayed.

Last year I got a second kitty (8 mos) from the shelter. She’s adorable, but not too bright. Shorter fur. This is the youngest cat I’ve had and watch-out. It’s like an infant; she’ll put anything in her mouth. She also moves at one speed: supersonic. Okay, so this isn’t much new for you.

Declawing: Both mine are declawed. This is an issue that people feel very strongly about. I’ll be happy to email you my thinking. I live in a high-rise and the only Outdoors that they ever see is when the “escape” into the hallway. The warning here is that there is such a thing as a Feline High-Rise Syndrome. Cats may like heights, but they can fall from them too. Just last week someone on the 20th floor had their cat fall. Amazing, just broke one leg. I can tell you that cats reach their terminal velocity after 5 stories (60 mph).

Try this: Go to the library and check-out a book on cats. One with all the color pictures. Find the ones you like the looks of and then read about the personalities/behaviors particular to that breed. It will also mention if they are good indoor cats or not. [I think they all should be kept indoors.] I found I was partial to Maine Coons, Ragdolls and Birmans. ANYWAY, with that knowledge, go to the shelter and you will likely find what you are looking for. It can help you identify mutts that might fit the bill. Many purebreds also show up there, but I also believe they have a shorter life span.

This is the first time I’ve had more than one feline. Two isn’t much more trouble than one, but I think more than 3 is pushing friends’ believe in one’s sanity. See: Too many cats?

meow
df

20

I won’t repeat the great advice you have been given above, but I did want to offer some advice on the declawing issue.

Like virtually all of the people who have posted, I think declawing is cruel and unneccessary. I have had terrific success with these cardboard box thingies that you can find for about $7 that have catnip in the folds of the cardboard. The cat stands on the box and scratches away. Unlike posts, it cannot tip over, so the cat feels nice and secure. Plus they are cheaper and take up less room than the posts.

Enjoy the kitten!!!