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Cats and the indoor lifestyle
Cats can live a very long life….the oldest feline patient at KAH was 29 yrs. old….Dr. Bendick saw him as a kitten the first few weeks after opening Kirkwood Animal Hospital. When you decide to get a cat, you have some big decisions to make. The choices you make will very likely dictate how well you and your new cat get along. The biggest decision you will make is about housing. Will your cat be kept indoors, outdoors or a combination of indoor and outdoor. KAH wants to insure that you have a great life with this furry new member of the family. If you decide on indoor or indoor/outdoor there are some very important things to consider. Cats are much closer to their wild relatives than dogs. They come with some instincts and habits that can place great stress on your relationship with your cat. These instinctive behaviors may ruin your relationship and much of your home. *Cats that are appropriately adapted to the indoor environment make excellent pets *Cats that are not adapted to the indoor environment may exhibit behaviors that are destructive to a pet owner’s home. *Inappropriate behaviors are common reasons that cats are relinquished to animal shelters, released into the wild or result in unwanted euthanasia. The veterinarians at KAH have over 100 years of combined experience treating and caring for cats. In most Veterinary practices around the country the major reason cats are relinquished by their owners is because of behavioral issues. Inappropriate urination in the house is one behavior that results in relinquishing your cat, destructive behavior with the claws is another. Kirkwood Animal Hospital wants to help cat owners prevent the behaviors that result in relinquishment. Inappropriate urination Cats that live outdoors, wild cats and feral cats normally mark their territory with urine. Female cats as well as male cats will mark their territory with urine. When a cat is kept indoors the tendency to mark their new territory with urine may still exist. It becomes very important to properly train your cat to the litter box to reduce the chances that your indoor cat will mark their territory indoors. The veterinarians at Kirkwood Animal Hospital believe that crate training your new kitten or cat is the best way to accomplish proper litter box usage. We recommend that the cat owner acquire a training crate that is approximately two feet wide by three feet long by two feet high. The crate should be made of wire so that the kitten or cat can see out of the crate. A litter box is placed in the crate occupying one end of the crate. The cat’s food and water bowl should also fit in the crate. The kitten or cat is placed in the crate whenever the pet owner cannot directly supervise the cat. Direct supervision means that you can see and touch the cat. It is ok to play with cat when it is out of the cage but as soon as you are finished playing, the cat should be returned to the cage. It becomes the goal of the cat owner to ensure that every bowel movement and urination happens in the box for the first three months in your home. After three months start to let the cat out of the cage for about one hour before returning it to the cage. Returning the cat to the cage reinforces the appropriate behavior. After 8-12 months you will notice that your cat’s crate has become their home and they will return there to sleep, rest and sometimes just to get away from you. Your cat will be crate trained. The cat will return to the cage to eat, drink, urinate and defecate. The kitty will be adapted to their indoor environment. Scratching behavior and declawing Cats use their claws to shred objects as part of the normal behavior of marking their territory. They also use their claws and shred things to stretch their bodies, to exercise and to remove the outer coverings of the nails. These are normal behaviors that cats will always try to do and these behaviors can become very costly to pet owners. At KAH we believe that declawing your cat is an acceptable surgical procedure. When declawing is done properly with a carbon dioxide surgical laser the result is a happy cat and a happy cat owner. The carbon dioxide surgical laser vaporizes tissue resulting in less bleeding and less tissue destruction which results in less post-operative pain. The carbon dioxide laser also seals nerve endings resulting in less pain. When combined with pre-operative and post-operative pain control the laser makes all the difference is a good surgical outcome. At KAH we believe that declawing cats should only be performed with a surgical laser. We believe that a cat should only be declawed when it is going to spend significant time indoors. The declawing surgical procedure is best performed at around four months of age. |
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© 1998 Kirkwood Animal Hospital |
