5 lessons learned from a new kitten

Our ginger kitten, Garfield, has now been with us 2 weeks and 1 day – but it seems much longer!

He is now a regular part of our family – sort of!

Here is what I have learned from owning a new kitten

1. You need a LOT of equipment for one tiny kitten – even though we already had a cat, here is what we purchased for our new kitten:

• a basket/carrier

• a litter tray (recommended to have at least one tray per cat when you have more than one cat in your house – and currently they are sleeping apart so essential)

• cat litter and litter liners (kitten poop is incredibly pungent and smelly – looking forward to him being outside to do his “business”, as he is MY cat, I get the privilege of emptying all the poop!)

•  water bowl and food bowl

• kitten food (we are using a dry complete food with a small amount of cooked chicken or tinned fish occasionally as a treat)

• an “igloo” cat bed (not essential, and currently Garfield seems to regard it as a teething toy to be attacked/chewed more than somewhere to relax!). It appears a laptop keyboard is much cozier to sleep on, especially when I am trying to work!

• a pen/large cage – this has been essential – we can keep Garfield safe and contained in an area large enough for his blanket, water and food bowl, and litter tray, while giving George a bit of peace and protecting our curtains from destruction)

2. Kittens have NO SENSE! Here are a few of the antics Garfield has already gotten into in 15 days:

• ran up inside the chimney – had to be enticed down with chicken
• lept from top of sofa up unto the curtains and hung  by his claws about 5 foot up off the ground
• got in a tangle in the vertical blinds
• tried to get in the dishwasher
• tried to jump up the glass of a CLOSED window to get outside (saw George jump through an OPEN window and decided to copy)

3. Kittens CAN learn to live with an older cat, and more importantly an older cat can learn to love tolerate a kitten! Garfield idolizes our 8 year old cat, George. As soon as George appears, Garfield rushed towards him, and if Garfield gets too close, he gets a hiss or a swipe from George. Garfield then crouches down submissively for about a mille-second, then rolls over, waves his legs in the air and meows “play with me PLEASE”. George usually yawns and walks away at this point, Garfield bounces after him…….repeat ……. until George asks begs to be let outside for a bit of peace and quiet.

4. Kittens appear have a 4 modes

• sleep and look cute

• play with anything and everything and look cute

• run around the room like a crazy thing and look like a blur

• feed me NOW and look cute

Garfield can rotate through all 4 modes in just a few minutes – asleep (10 seconds), play (30 seconds), dash around like a mad thing (40 seconds), FEED me NOW (10 seconds), sleep (15 seconds), harass George (15 seconds) – hours of endless entertainment!

5. Kittens may be tiny but they are adorable, cute, soft, the BEST birthday present, and very quickly occupy a large chunk of your heart.

So – have you owned a kitten? Could you add any lessons/tips? Do share in the comments below – I LOVE comments 🙂