Three Simple Little Rules ... Just a Start

There are so many really huge problems in this world.  The other day I was challenged, asked why on earth I'd bother with trying to see that people could conveniently feed their cats raw food.

My response was simple.  The bigger and badder this world's problems get, the more I need the sanity of my cats.  As insane as they can be.

Over forty-blahbuhlah years of having cats, I've learned these simple things in caring for them, much of the time criticized:

1)  Cats belong indoors, or they die.  Or piss off the neighbors, which brings us back to the first part.  I did have a neighbor once who liked to target practice on neighborhood cats.  I'm certain he was responsible for the previous family's cat disappearing.

Mostly, they are subjected to more disease and obviously, predators, including a lousy neighbor.  I lost my first kitty to a freaky accident.  Tiger was chased by a coyote, and nearly made a clean escape as he bounded over the chain link fence.  Only, his collar got caught on the top wires of the fence and it hung him.  We didn't have break-away collars in those days.  It was awful for my brother who found him.  I wasn't allowed to have another cat for some time, as Mother couldn't bear to lose another.  After all, we were just feeding the coyotes.  One cat, Axel, came to us by way of the rear-axel housing of a car in for service at my brother's shop.  He was a terribly lucky one to have made the trek from the car owner's house to the shop.  How he survived is amazing.  But, he still succumbed to a coyote a few years later.

Gee, I can't imagine why I made a decision to keep my cats indoors, when I was old enough to make my own rules.

Keeping cats indoors is a challenge for some, but just takes some getting used to - for you and for the cat(s).  The first rule of keeping cats indoors is their access to safe play.  For instance, crystal stemware, orderly arranged on a buffet, is not a lovely display for when company comes over, it's a playground.  Bloody pawprints on your white carpet leading away from the "playground" doesn't take Monk to figure out what happened.

The worst thing in this house for the cats is Hubs' size 13's in the darkened hallway.  And the dreaded stair rail that Miss Abby likes to climb on.  It's a quick trip to the basement, but in reality, it just makes my hair gray, she's survived that flight numerous times.

2) You actually have to play with your cat(s).  Which can be an amusing challenge for some.  I work from home, so I've been forced to find things to amuse them while I work.  I have news for you:  Healthy cats don't sleep as much as perhaps you'd like them to, especially when you have work to do.

My mother's cat, who I call Johnny Dangerously, lives alone with her in a small apartment.  My mother's in her 80's, and is now faced with dealing with a year old kitten.  She's never had any creature she was actually forced to deal with.  She MUST play with him - he demands it.  He does precisely what I pay him to do - get her out of her chair.

There's a little mouse out on Mom's patio.  He's a repeat customer for the bird seed.  I told Mom, give the little mouse a name.  "Why on earth do I have to name everything?" says she.  If you name the mouse, and continue to call him that name, Johnny Dangerously will pick up on it.  When JD is bugging the daylights out of you, all you have to do is ask him, "Where's Fred?"  Guess who goes running to the patio door and out of Mom's hair?

The mouse's name is officially Fred.  Mother's pretty impressed that her cat knows the name of his buddy mouse, Fred.  Oh and he fetches too.  The cat, not Fred.

It's simple.  Really.

3)  You actually have to provide your cats with "real" food.  Not faux-food we've come to know and hate.  Generally speaking, if it comes in cardboard, mylar or a can, it's not going to be good for them.  Some are better than others, for sure, but come on.  They, like people, need real food.

Sure, your cats may seem healthy now.  Come back and talk to me when you're staring a $1200 vet bill in the face when your kitty is feeling the cumulative results of a poor diet.

We'll talk more about this later....this is just a start.

Go check this out in the meantime:  Feline's Pride