Common cares

"Your" cat doesn't belong to you: In fact, you belong to him!

• Safety:
  • For its safety it must be identified, tattooed. . You have to know that less than 0.2 % of not tattooed, unidentifiable cats, find their owners again after having been lost, all the others (99.8 %) die.
  • His collar must neither wound his skin, nor wear out his fur. Never use a rigid collar, without rubber band: If he can't take it off after clashing with, he will die hanged! There are numerous anti-flees, or identification collars which include an elastic in their loop, claim for this kind of collar and verify, after putting it, that the cat can take it off by pulling hardly on it if he is clashed.
  • It is inadmissible to tie a cat.
  • Forbid him access to dangerous places: swimming pools without stairs, high windows without sill, buildings shafts, main roads, etc.
• Feeding:
  • He needs clean fresh water at will, permanently. Worrying for hygiene, keep in mind to change the water at least twice a day.
  • Plates must always be clean. If he can't go out, he must be able to follows his calls of Nature far from it.
  • He must not be left without food, he must eat accurately, at least twice a day. He is a little carnivorous, normally, and unlike dogs, he eats few, but often. Contrarily to a bad received idea too widely found here, a non starving hunter hunts better: It is not by feeding, but rather by playing and to make you a gift that the cat bring rats and mice to you. Besides, have you ever seen an athlete with an empty stomach breaking a record? Never.
• Washing:
  • His litter absolutely must to be changed every day if he can't go outside. It is very important: Most of diseases and parasites pass through there.
  • Never let a cat soaked by the rain, he may die of hypothermy (= cold). The cat have a weak body volume, when he starts to get really cold, it turns quickly serious. Even if he doesn't appreciate the first times, dry him with a towell or/and a hair-dryer (pay attention to avoid to burn him, on top!!).
  • Never bath a cat, unless if it is actually unavoidable. Use then warm water with a special soap, not grease-removing, otherwise the coat loose its impermeability and he may die of cold. Dry him immediately after: Hypothermy is pratically unavoidable. It appears all the fastest that the cat is small, Kittens are thus the most fragile.
• Medical vigilance:
  • Control ears and bottom cleanliness, watch out fleas and mange. An ill cat must be cured, like us, he doesn't cure always by himself and, on long-lasting, may die.
  • In case of unknown signs allowing to suppose that the cat may be ill, BEFORE it turns serious, a call to a VETERINARIAN allows to avoid troubles.
  • Cats, despite they are carnivorous, eat grass sometimes. it is a drug for them : They get washed by their tongue and, thus, swallow some of their hairs each day. These hairs pile up in their stomach. The swallowed grass is blended by the stomach will get round of these hairs and, when the ball will become big, the cat will regurgitate it (vomit it). He will do it all the more that he swallows easily his hairs and these ones are long. This is not therefore necessarily a disease sign. However, some cats may become unable to regurgitate it and it pass in their intestine. This may induce an intestinal occulsion (intestines blocked), mortal if this not immediately treated by a vet. The case is hopefully rare and it exists drugs helping the cat to regurgitate these hairs (Feligastryl, Felipurgatil, Pilocat, etc.) In case of doubt (high regurgitation frequency, painful regurgitations, ...) (Feligastryl, Felipurgatil, Pilocat, etc.) do not hesitate to consult a veterinarian.
    Brush your cat: The hairs you remove this way will not go in his stomach and he will appreciate quickly this treatment (even if he may show him reluctant the first times).
• Rythm of life:
  • A cat is stay-at-home: He takes care of his habits and don't like big changes. It is often said that a cat is more owned by a place rather than by an owner, and that's true. Think about if you plan to move your home.
  • A cat needs to sleep a lot, about 16 hours a day. If he can't, its resistance reduces, his coat tarnish, he gets thinner, he gets ill, and may die.
• Behaviour:
  • He understands NOTHING to punishments: He can't be trained in an other manner than softness. It is almost stupid and useless to hit him as punishment.
  • He needs to "make his claws": He usually don't gnaw his nails and don't have nails scissors. He uses this way to remove broken claws and to sharpen the others.
  • All cats are clean: He buries his litters, he is often licking himself. A cat letting him dirty is a cat ill and/or disrupted. This is a sign which MUST alert you.

A cat is a fragile predator, armed with good claws and good fangs,
he is not a toy, a cuddly toy devoted to children.

Education

A cat train himself alone, quite entirely,
we can't teach him by other ways than SOFTNESS.

* To train a cat, there is to know:

• to be patient and more stubborn than him,
• to never rebuke violently,
• to give strokes, to reward his efforts.

All we get from him come by slowly changing his habits,
even if it means to go back whenever he can't follow.

* There is:

• to proscribe punchs, kicks, as well as any brutality,
• to stifle any impatience and to contain any burst of anger, to be even-tempered.
• to rely on his instincts and his temperament,
• to never fight against his instincts.

* Remember that:

• A cat is more true to a place rather than to those dwelling in.
• He knows no hierarchy, no power.
• He is with you because he agrees.
• He loves above all his quietness.
• He is instinctively clean. He goes by himself to his litter and dislike to be pushed to make its nature calls anywhere else in his home, In the opposite case, or he is ill, either he feels threatened. or the litter is not clean enough.
• He is possessive and jealous, and may become spiteful.
• Mistreatments are punished by the law.

Claws hits

A cat who scratches and bites is not not necessarily a wild aggressive cat.

1. He have right to scrath and bite:

• When he is irritated or pushed on purpose.
• When attacked: he defends.

2. He is excusable when:

• He had been pushed involuntarly or not (to pull or walk on his tail, by example),
• He had been frightened (by surprise, silently, awaken with a start ...),
• He has been teased until irritation,
• Some takes his food from him,
• Some tries separate fighting cats,
• A vet makes him an injection,
• He attacks by grundge (remember of a mistreatment of which he revenges).

3. Dangerous cats are those who attack and are aggressive without apparent reason or without provocation, those from whom we can't either anticipate or explain reactions.

Those are:

• Wild cats, easily frightened, attacking by fear,
• Jealous cats,
• Whim or nevrotic cats (depending on temperature, athmospheric pressure, during the rutting or heat periods, who dislike some odors, some noises ...),
• Cats having a nervous disease (epilepsy, etc.),

Those cats have to be treated, to be trained.

There is to teach childrens (and some adult ones) that we must never touch a cat we don't know well.

However, always ask yourself on what may have justified the aggressive movement: Cats are not always easy to understand, even if, for them, it seems obvious!

Overpopulation

All kittens have a mother, but they don't all find a home.

Kittens in excessive numbers are devoted
to be abandonned, badly treated, badly feeded, badly cared, badly placed:
they always end badly.

How to avoid unwanted kittens?

1. Watching the she-cat while in heat.
2. Using a contraceptive method (pills, injection).
3. Interrupting any gestation by the veterinarian within the week following the mate.
4. 'Euthanasiing' kittens since birth (it's FREE here).
5. By spaying the she-cat when she is 7 months old (before her first heats).
6. By neutering the cat at any age, but never before at least 7 months. A too early sterilisation may weaken him for life.

Lately castrated cats and spayed she-cats have tendancies to stoutness.
There is to reduce their food intake.

It absolutely NOT necessary for the health of a she-cat to have kittens "at least once during her life".