I'm thinking of getting a cat

In My Humble Opinion
1

Yep. I’ve lived too long without one, and I really feel that the place I’m living in, and the way things are in my life, etc, would need a cat to make them just right. Of course, there are a lot of things to think about before even looking for one (likely at the Humane Society).

I would have to clear it with my housemates. My SO is fine with it, and wants a cat too (eventually -this might be delayed until later this summer, or even during the school year sometime), but we don’t know about my other housemate. OTOH, he’s very rarely here, and I think it would take an allergy or other serious thing like that for him to be bothered by the presence of a cat around here. He comes by a couple times a week, usually during the day, but the rest of the time he’s at his girlfriends, and I myself haven’t even seen him AT ALL in over two weeks. So, basically, I don’t think that would be a problem, but we do want to clear it with him.

Next, the landlords. The lease says no pets, but half the building has cats and dogs, and the only issue that seems to ever come up is with the little yappy dogs that annoy everyone 24/7. But cats don’t yap. I have it on pretty good authority that there is no LEGAL basis for resitricting pets (although I will find out for sure) and obviously they don’t seem to mind at all ( one family down the hall has two BIG dogs), but we want to clear it with them, and get it in writing, because my aunt once had a vindictive landlord who forced her to go to court over pets that he had previously agreed to allow in the apartment (this was in Quebec, where the laws might be different).

The other main thing we need to consider, and the reason why I’m posting, really, is what to do when we travel home for breaks and Christmas? I don’t know that I can rely on anyone to come by and feed the cat (although the housemate likely would if we asked), so we have to decide if we can afford shelter, or to travel with it (it will be an indoor cat, which does make things a little easier in that respect).

Long weekends aren’t a problem. I know cats are independent enough to take care of themselves for 3 days, assuming enough food and water are provided for them. But what about a fuill week? Is that too much, even with plenty of water and food? Would the water get too stagnant too quickly? Basically, I want to know what might be the “maximum” amount of time an indoor cat can go without someone having to come by and change the food/water?

If we can supply enough for a week, and its not a big problem for the cat, then the only worry we have is during Christmas, where we are gone for 3 weeks (approximately). THEN we have to consider travelling with it, or finding a place to stay, or, hopefully, getting the housemate to come by once or twice a week (his family is only about 30 mins away by car, his GF is 10 by bike) when we are gone.

What do other Dopers do for times like this? We are students, and so financially, although we can afford vet bills/food, thats really probably all we can afford - meaning that paying to keep a pet at a “pet motel” isn’t likely to fit into our budget. this is an issue thats likely only to occur a couple of times a year - March break, Christmas, and a week or so in the summer when we go home. Otherwise, its all long weekends -3-4 days at most, where I feel its not a big problem to leave the cat.

And please, if all you’re planning on doing is rant about people leaving pets alone, then don’t bother posting. I want to have real suggestions, not read comments about how cruel I am to a hypothetical pet (I read way too many pet-realted threads where stuff like this happens, so I just want to prevent that, if possible).

Thanks for any advice you can give!

2

Cat owner and former vet tech checking in here!
Firstly, it will depend on the cat’s personality and what type of “eater” they are. My husband’s cat is very independant and could be left alone with a goodly supply of food and water for a weekend. This cat also is a “nibbler”, he ate only when hungry and never became overweight. However, I could not do that with my cats (I have 4) because one of them will gobble her food down, and then proceed to go to all the other cat’s bowls, bully them away from their dishes, and eat their food. I feed my cats at specific times during the day and they each eat in a different room, with the doors closed, so that I don’t have to be the “food police” and chase the one cat away.

I personally would not leave a cat alone for more than 2 days at most. Either find someone who can check on the cat once a day (refill water & food dishes, scoop litterbox when it’s getting too stinky) or put money aside for boarding your cat. A lot of veterinarians do pet boarding, as well as kennels. The only problem that might occur is, a lot of times all the animals are together in one room. If your cat isn’t used to dogs it might get freaked out. At the vet’s where I worked we had a couple of “walls” of cages, two large ones on bottom, three medium in the middle, and five small on top. Therefore, all the animals in those cages would be hearing each other and smelling all the different animal smells, and some of the critters that we had boarding there would be very stressed, if they were cats who had no experience with dogs or whatever.

If you can take the cat with you on holidays that would be great. The cat will probably be a little stressed while traveling, but hey, that’s what kitty tranquilizers are for!

However, you mention that you are students and that money may become an issue. You might want to seriously sit down and figure out how much it will cost to have a pet, before you commit to getting one. You may have to deal with the cost of getting it neutered or spayed, and if it is a kitten it will need a series of vaccinations at first, then after the first year they only get vaccinated once a year. Then there’s testing for things like feline leukemia and FIV, and checking the stool for worms (and treating it if there are worms!) Plus the cost of food and litter, dishes and toys etc. It can all add up! (I can vouch for that, living with 5 cats!)

Then you have to consider if the cat gets sick or somehow ends up injuring itself, will you have the money set aside to pay for an emergency vet visit? I’m not trying to be a downer or tell you what to do, but these are things you have to consider. At the vet’s where I worked, we would see elderly people who got a pet, only to have it become sick and need a couple hundred dollar’s worth of treatment, and the owner would complain and say, “But I’m on a fixed income, I can’t afford this!”

Another thing to think about is, are you going to be willing to take care of the cat for the rest of its life? Right now one of my cats is 16 years old and shows no signs of slowing down! Plus when they get older they can tend to develop health problems which can become costly. Around Christmastime last year, two of our cats got sick and we ended up spending most of our “Christmas present fund” on the cats (about $300). So it is speaking from the voice of experience that I say again, make sure that you can afford it. It’s hard to adopt a pet only to find that you cannot afford it or take care of it for whatever reason, and have to take it back to the shelter or give it away.
Good luck in making your decision! (insert kitty smiley here)

3

Cats can be a great comfort in times of loneliness. Also in times of famine.

4

Financally, we aren’t really that bad off. We have a decent income in the summer, and budget like mad, and even at the end of the school year, I had a couple thousand left over, and my SO had at least twice as much - so its very much more an issue of me being a scrooge than it is being THAT poor! Also, I finish school in a year and a half, so once thats done, I'll be working full-time, and even if I don't make more than I make right now, its MORE than enough for my lifestyle. We have considered the cost of everything, and I have already looked at the local humane society to get an idea of prices - they do full vaccination, and spay/neuter for about 160 for cats. We can definitely afford that. Toys and food are also possible to pay for, with no worries. It just really comes down to the travelling times.

I know that it does depend on the cats eating habits, but since hypothetical kitty doesn’t even have a gender or name yet, we aren’t in a position to decide on its diet :slight_smile: One of my cats at my parents place eats a lot more than the other, and we’d have to consider that in our own cat when we got one.

I suppose I could find out about boarding it at a vets place. I would like to sort of have this stuff more-or-less figured otu before we get ahead and get one, precisely because we don’t want to harm the cat because we didn’t plan enough for it. Also, though, if my housemate doesn’t mind stopping by to change the water, food, and litter, than problems are basically solved.

The trick with travelling isn’t so much how the cat will handle the drive, but really how its going to deal with the pets back home. As I said, there are two cats and a Golden Retriever at my parents house, and a cat at my SOs parents. I suppose we could introduce them to one another slowly, and let them sort out the “pecking order”, but its something that would have to be done every time we went home with the cat, and is that a bad thing?

the problem, really, is that my SO and I are really beginning to establish ourselves, and getting our lives together, and so this pet is for “our” family, if that makes any sense to you. But we still go home at these times, and so theres a bit of a crossover between our old life and new one. We plan on moving back to Quebec (likely Montreal) when he graduates (2 years from now) and so it will be a LOT easier, because we can visit home, and just drive up to the apartment and take care of the cat every couple of days.

But, thats two years from now, and I REALLY miss having a cat around, and don’t want to wait until then.

5

mnem, maybe there would be some way you could let your cat (once you get it) hang around other animals- for example, if you have a friend with a dog that is used to cats ,who could bring the dog over to your house to “visit” ? Of course, it depends on how old the cat is when you get it, and what kind of life it had before you adopted it. I really believe that good socialization of pets is important. (By socialization I mean exposing a kitten or puppy to a wide variety of situations, people and other animals) One of my cats, I got when she was 2 weeks old, and I took her to work with me, and would take her to visit with friends every week- she even ended up going to choir practice with me once! Now, she is a very friendly cat who isn’t scared of anything- she will sit and watch me run the vacuum, while all the other cats are upstairs hiding in the bedroom.

Probably when you take your cat with you on holidays, it would be better to have a room where you can keep your cat, that has the food/water/litter there with it. It will be stressful enough for the cat to travel, then to be in a strange house with new smells, plus other pet smells. You may want to try and introduce your cat to your parent’s animals, but don’t be surprised if there’s a lot of hissing and puffing out of fur, and don’t expect them to get along. The cat will do better once it knows it has its own place to go to and hang out in, away from the other animals.

6

Yay!

Mnem, btw, my parents have a cat who is going to give birth in the next month. Do you want a kitten?

7

Is there a neighbor or anybody you know and trust you can look in on the cats? We have two, and a couple weeks ago we went out of town for four days. Our property manager was kind enough to come by every day, check their food and water, and give them some attention. (My cats are very needy.) They kept each other company, and were fine. Another thing you might consider if you only have 1 cat is how lonely it will be during the day while everybody is gone. We eventually had to adopt a second cat cuz our first one was very depressed during the day. She just needed a friend.

8

matt i’d love a kitten, but how would we get it? Will CanadaPost mail a kitten? :slight_smile:

We have thought of that, pepperlandgirl, and basically think that one cat is all we could afford, and also that because my SO works/goes to school so close by, he can easily come by on breaks, and he finishes work early so there’s not that much time when the cat would be alone. I commute, so am gone a lot more, but btween the two of us, and my housemate who does drop by during the week, we think it wouldn’t be too lonely.

We could likely have a room for the cat at each of our parents houses, though I don’t know how my cats back home would feel about it, since they do have full reign of the entire house, while his parents cat is a bit more limited.

9

In most places, you can hire a “cat sitter” – someone who will stop by every day or so, feed the cat, play with it, and do the litter box thing. Probably cheaper than boarding the cat and it’s easier on the cat. You do, of course, have to make sure that the cat sitter is reliable and trustworthy, but I imagine you can get references.

10

For long holidays you could declare the room you stay in off-limits for the other animals, and let that be your kitty’s kingdom. She would be okay in the one bedroom and it would have all your good mom-smelling stuff there. And for the extended weekends, you could, if your cat is a little greedy-guts, get a timed feeder.

Good luck with your decision.

StG

11

Duh! Road trip!

We’re going to have a Dopefest in Mtl circa the end of August, and the kittens should be just about ripe (?) by then, I ween. Come for the kitten, stay for the Dope.

12

I’ve left my cats for up to a week before. What I do is put out MASSIVE quantities of food, fill the 5-gallon water dispenser, fill several pots of water and distribute them throughout the house, and also put a mixing bowl in each bathroom’s sink and turn the faucet to a drip. Every time we’ve come home to lots of water and food still around and healthy cats.

That isn’t to say that it’s the best option, and more recently we’ve hired someone to stop in every other day and check on them, but before that was an option (financially) they seemed to do just fine. (Though one time Tornado gave us a huge scare because we couldn’t FIND him for the longest time, though we’d occassionally hear him meow. Turns out he’d gotten into the ceiling from some exposed rafters in the laundry room. He was ok, and could get down by himself, but he really had us puzzeled and worried)

13

I’ll think about it, matt. As I said in my first post, there are a lot of other things to consider too, and we really do want to be sure everything would be fine in the long run, as well as satisfy our immediate “I-want-a-cat-NOW!” urges :slight_smile:

14

It sounds like you’d be a great “kitty-mama” (although, in my vast experience, kitty tends to mother you :slight_smile: ). I’ve never had a cat that minded being home alone while it’s ‘people’ were at work–on the rare occasions when I had just one cat, that is.

As far as what to do with Kitty when you go home to visit, I would say it depends on how far you have to travel and how long you’d be gone. A strange house can be traumatic for some cats; your idea of your room at your parents’ being off-limits to the other pets is a good one. Kitty will adjust to repeated visits, though, and come to think of it as a child would Grandma’s house: not home, but not a bad place.

If you’re going to be gone for longer than a weekend, the best thing is either 1) take Kitty with you, or 2) hire a cat-sitter and let Kitty stay at home. I think boarding can be very traumatic; after all, she/he doesn’t know that you’re coming back and may feel abandoned.

My cats have, literally, saved my life. They bring constant joy and comfort to me. You won’t be sorry.

15

Usually “No pets” policies are the result of … well I guess butt covering and misunderstanding of pets. When I got my cat from the Humane Society they mentioned that they will help you talk to landlords on modifying the policy. Now this was in Hawaii in the US but I bet they have the same assistance there.

Might I suggest a 2-3 year old. They’re still young and frisky and have a long life ahead of them while thankfully being past the messy kitten phase.

There are also automatic feeders that will rotate through several days of food.

You gonna have a “Name the cat thread?” or do you have one in mind?

16

Another good thing about a 2-3 year old is it’s easier to recognize what kind of personality they have. When I got my little girl (Delilah Underfoot) it was obvious she was very sweet, loved to be held and to cuddle and would be a good lap cat. Whereas one of my sisters kittens, while bright and playful as a kitten eventually transformed into a rather surly cat who hated to be held and would never cuddle. All those traits went to his brother.

17

I feel the same way when I’m cat-less - have the gimme-a-kitty! urge. I agree I wouldn’t leave them alone for more than 2 days - if there’s someone in the area who can drop in and give em a pet and check the food/water/box to make sure everything’s ok they’ll be fine, if lonely. (My cats get lonely without us, at least.) If you follow OpalCat’s regimen, they’ll likely be ok too - though I would worry about leaving them alone so long.

Good luck in finding your new kitten/cat :slight_smile:

18

Cats are great. Re: leaving them alone, like OpalCat, I have left mine alone for up to a week and they’ve been perfectly fine. I do leave out huge amounts of food and water, as she’s described. You may also want to leave out an additional litter box (depending on the cat). Yes, it’s more comforting to have someone check every coupld of days, but unless the cat has a health problem of some sort, the cat should be find for a week.

Since you’re students, it ought to be easy to find someone willing to check up on your cat. Not everyone goes home for break. Just make sure it’s someone responsible.

19

The drive home is about 850km - its a LONG car ride, and we need to drive through both Toronto AND Montreal. I imagine it could be pretty traumatic for a cat.

My SO and I have been talking about it more and more seriously, though we haven’t really laid out a “timeline” for when we might get one. I was thinking later this summer mainly because we are driving home for Canada weekend, as well as the weekend of the 12 of July for my moms 50th birthday, so getting a kitten now would be way too much trouble. We want it to settle in before we start leaving it alone for too long :). Then there is the week we plan to take in August, but we might even wait until after that and really only worry about Christmas and march break. But I am SO looking forward to having one. I even spent time in the Kitty food aisle at the grocery store today to get a sense of prices :slight_smile: