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Coping with Cats

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Re: Coping with Cats

#61

Post by mcguire »

r00fus wrote: post #49
jakear wrote: post #20

I’ve always had my cats as outdoor/indoor animals, with no litterbox at all (Except when they’re very young). Never noticed any problems with smell, as cats are naturally clean animals and do a good job of simply finding a place to use the bathroom outside. I joke that indoor cats are like children (with all the maintenance that entails..), whereas outdoor cats are like delinquent friends that randomly show up to eat…

How do you deal with things like fleas? We have nearby squirrels and a small yard and are sure the fleas we dealt with were brought in by outdoor lounging from our cat.

The monthly flea and tick goo that you put between their shoulders.

I'd be more concerned about cars and coyotes. ISTR the half-life of an outdoor cat is about 2 years.

Re: Coping with Cats

#62

Post by mcguire »

sdflhasjd wrote: post #33

Of all the problems I've had owning a cat, the location of the litterbox has been the biggest difficulty for me - without the space of a dedicated small closet, it seems to be unsolvable

Ours ended up in my library. (Yeah, I have too many books.) Then my partner decided to get non-dust-free litter for a while.

Re: Coping with Cats

#63

Post by powersnail »

dmart wrote: post #11

I appreciated the recommendations, but from a tech perspective related most with this sentence in the opening paragraph: "when I tried to research mitigations for any of these it was 100% SEO listicles". I've found this to be true as well. Searching for impressions/reviews on literally any type of product is impossible now - the entire first page of results are just spammy sites either regurgitating PR for a specific…

I've found that it's not just for product review. For any generic life topics (pet, plumbing, etc.), web searching is not an effective choice anymore. It's a mixture of PR, useless home remedies, and a small number of helpful information.

I either do site:reddit.com, or some other more specific forum/website that I already know. Another option is to search YouTube, and only choose the videos in which I see the video maker actually perform the plumbing, or get along with a cat.

Re: Coping with Cats

#64

Post by r00fus »

com2kid wrote: post #38
grawprog wrote: post #8

It's an alright list, but that's some beginner level stuff. Where's things like -cat is obssessed with plastic bags whenever he wants attention and ends up wearing them like a cape trailing it through the house causing havoc. -cat likes to knock over your breakable things just cause it likes to see them smash -wake up at 2 in the morning to some weird noises only to find the cat spiderman-ing up the screen on the win…

> -cat likes to knock over your breakable things just cause it likes to see them smash My cats are super careful and have maybe knocked over 1 thing. > -wake up at 2 in the morning to some weird noises only to find the cat spiderman-ing up the screen on the window because some rats or something were outside My cats not only sleep through the night, they insist I go to bed on time (no later than 11) or they start gett…

> My cats not only sleep through the night, they insist I go to bed on time (no later than 11) or they start getting upset.

I wasn't ready for this - my kitten started doing this lately (or I have to seal off the room I'm working on, ignore her pleas and let her go sleep in a kids bed).

Re: Coping with Cats

#65

Post by underwater »

dmart wrote: post #11

I appreciated the recommendations, but from a tech perspective related most with this sentence in the opening paragraph: "when I tried to research mitigations for any of these it was 100% SEO listicles". I've found this to be true as well. Searching for impressions/reviews on literally any type of product is impossible now - the entire first page of results are just spammy sites either regurgitating PR for a specific…

I don't think the type of content you're looking for even exists any more.

Even if someone has the desire to create a high quality, old-school, interest-based site, they're going to be dealing with the fact that Google won't surface the content because SEO magic, there is no community of similar sites who will link to them, and their content doesn't fit the format preferred by social media.

I think the web has firmly shifted to being about commercial entities having a way of plugging content into Google. The initial premise, a web of carefully curated links between long-lived documents, is dead. And the people who would have created websites if they grew up in the 90s and early 2000s have moved onto other formats.

Re: Coping with Cats

#66

Post by r00fus »

jstarfish wrote: post #36
r00fus wrote: post #5

Regarding the litter and smell - being a relatively new cat owner I did a lot of reading and I came to 2 conclusions (note: I only have one cat, and she's 1) Litter needs scooping every day. Otherwise cat will rightfully be upset and do poop in the wrong place just to let you know. Recommended to have N+1 litters for the N cats, but small apartment = difficult to place/clean all of them. 2) According to many cat book…

> So venting them outside may cause other confidence issues This seems like perverse logic though. You're venting toxic ammonias and spores to the outside...where they're supposed to go in the first place.

So the litter acts as a trapping agent by desiccating the waste. Only occasionally (usually when we're lazy about cleaning) does the litter stink.

The smells the cat cares about are its pheromones/scent. Cats are highly smell-oriented (they don't taste food as much as smell it), so venting all that cat-smell outside could cause the cat to find other places to mark.

Re: Coping with Cats

#67

Post by mitjak »

gnulinux wrote: post #39
stbtrax wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been to a few friends places where I've smelled it. I would never tell them.

What's the smell, is it urine or poo, or the smell of litter? I would guess yeah it'd probably smell a little like the litter, but I can't see why it'd smell like urine or poo, I can't even smell it when smell the litterbox itself. Maybe depends on which kind of litter you use, mine definitely masks smell. I use Arm&Hammer litter.

urine mostly. the poop dries up pretty quick. but urine scent sticks around. my downstairs neighbour is bad at clean-up routine, you can smell it on the hallway outside of the apartment…

Re: Coping with Cats

#68

Post by wila »

klyrs wrote: post #19
grawprog wrote: post #8

It's an alright list, but that's some beginner level stuff. Where's things like -cat is obssessed with plastic bags whenever he wants attention and ends up wearing them like a cape trailing it through the house causing havoc. -cat likes to knock over your breakable things just cause it likes to see them smash -wake up at 2 in the morning to some weird noises only to find the cat spiderman-ing up the screen on the win…

A friend's cat is like this. I fear that there's nothing for it. But, some things I've succeed at improving rambunctious cat behavior: 1. Play with them at least 30 minutes a day. If they're not bouncing off the walls during this play, you're doing it wrong. 2. A catio can provide entertainment. Kinda passive, probably won't be a significant improvement. 3. Never feed them human food, even if it hits the floor. Never…

That's my cat :)

Yes on all these points. Although I never had to resort to use spray bottles or hissing to enforce the rules.

Use their name often (they love that). Also surprisingly sniffing things is everything to them. When playing do not let them use their nails (Just saying ouch and immediately stop playing is enough to point out you do not approve).

My cat will tap my hands when playing, but rarely use his nails, only by accident.

Make sure that there are multiple spots in the house where they can sharpen their nails. A single scratching pole is probably not sufficient.

Re: Coping with Cats

#69

Post by r00fus »

mcguire wrote: post #61
r00fus wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you deal with things like fleas? We have nearby squirrels and a small yard and are sure the fleas we dealt with were brought in by outdoor lounging from our cat.

The monthly flea and tick goo that you put between their shoulders. I'd be more concerned about cars and coyotes. ISTR the half-life of an outdoor cat is about 2 years.

I would be careful about using that stated outdoor-only (ie, feral) cat lifespan for an indoor/outdoor cat, though the dangers are real. Ours is currently mostly indoor only (until we get all the cat-toxic plants in our yard removed) but we have neighbors and friends with indoor/outdoor cats that are definitely older than 10 years. Mitigate them with reflective collars and nextdoor or other neighborhood alert system to know when coyotes are around.

An indoor only cat never really grows up psychologically, you're always its ever-present mommy. I'm not sure I want that for my kitten.

Re: Coping with Cats

#70

Post by com2kid »

r00fus wrote: post #64
com2kid wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> -cat likes to knock over your breakable things just cause it likes to see them smash My cats are super careful and have maybe knocked over 1 thing. > -wake up at 2 in the morning to some weird noises only to find the cat spiderman-ing up the screen on the window because some rats or something were outside My cats not only sleep through the night, they insist I go to bed on time (no later than 11) or they start gett…

> My cats not only sleep through the night, they insist I go to bed on time (no later than 11) or they start getting upset. I wasn't ready for this - my kitten started doing this lately (or I have to seal off the room I'm working on, ignore her pleas and let her go sleep in a kids bed).

Every dog I've ever had has done the exact same thing.

My current kitties also get upset if I wake up too early.

Then again a lot of things upset them, including spending too much time with my wife, skipping home workouts (they get petted in between sets), and standing up too often to stretch (one of them spends ~50% of the day sitting on my lap while I code).

Otherwise they are pretty chill.

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