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Category: Family Pets
Have a Merry Little Cat-Friendly Holiday!
November 3, 2024
I don’t know about you, but I am starting to get excited thinking about decorating for the holidays! Pets and holidays can be harmonious with a little thoughtful, advance planning.
Live versus Fake Christmas Trees
One thing that never occurred to me was how deadly my live holiday tree potentially was to my cats and dogs. Once I realized this, the fake tree won hands down. While the pine fragrance of a live tree is lovely, pine needles are mildly toxic and downright dangerous if ingested. Real trees are also preserved with toxic chemicals that make their standing water dangerous to pets.
Avoid These Plants:
Other potentially risky décor items you should avoid in a pet household are toxic plants such as yew, ivy, holly, mistletoe, and poinsettia. It’s better to not have them around as a chewing temptation for feline and canine family members.
Nix These Décor Items:
Tinsel and low hanging glass ornaments are major hazards for cats and dogs. Tinsel can cause choking and injury if swallowed. Glass ornaments can be easily swatted and broken, causing injury. Choose wooden, plastic or non-breakable ornaments to decorate your tree.
Thankfully, the internet is filled with lots of excellent pet care resources so we can learn all these important safety tips before anybody gets hurt. No one wants a last-minute emergency trip to the vet!
Invest in Your Cat’s Safety:
Always provide your pets with their favorite toys to divert their attention away from holiday decorations and to keep them occupied and safe. Cats love catnip, silvervine and honeysuckle-filled grab toys, teaser toys to chase and treat puzzles to satiate curious minds. Providing them with their own cat tree to climb and scratch will likewise distract them from your holiday tree.
Dedicate a space in your home exclusively for your cats to enjoy while the guests are partying. You will find it is a great solution to help keep your furballs happy and secure. Set up their food and water bowls, litter boxes and toys, as well as a cozy bed or blanket for napping.
Have a purr-fect holiday season!
Do You Have A Harmonious Multiple-Cat Household?
ForbesAdvisor.com reports that of 86.9 million U.S. cat-owning households, more than 46.5 million own more than one cat. These multiple-cat households must have learned that to achieve feline harmony in their homes, they must make sure that there are enough resources and space for their cats. If your cats know they have options on where they can eat, sleep, play, and use the litter box, all the better. If the cats have only one option, expect territorial disputes and added stress among them.
Here are a few pointers on how to create and keep harmony in your multiple-cat household:
- The first introduction of cats to each other should be gradual and free from stress. If possible, keep the new cat in a separate living area of your home, with their food, litter box, and toys. Your “incumbent cat(s)” will know about the new cat, but not have the stress of direct contact. After a few days, gradually allow your “incumbent” cat(s) to approach the new cat, keeping their contacts short and sweet. After a few more days, you will have achieved a successful introduction.
- Our strongest recommendation: invest in vertical play spaces. Cat trees, shelves and window perches are ideal ways to give your cats privacy in an off-the-ground location. Cats like height, so vertical options are a purr-fect solution.
- Your cats need outlets for exercising and scratching. Leave plenty of scratching devices around your home. Whether they are horizontal, vertical or slanted pads, they will protect your furniture as well as your sanity!
- Give each of your cats a separate food bowl! If you have common water bowls, have several in different areas. A water fountain designed for multiple cats is a great way of managing this. Just make sure to keep the fountain and the water it holds both clean and fresh.
- Keep as many litter boxes in your home as the number of cats then add one! One of the worst problems can arise when cats have to use the same box. Territorial issues may arise, causing them to “spray” the litter box, which signals to the other cats to stay away. No one needs to have cats using undesignated areas of the house. Once that “out-of-box” behavior starts, it’s hard to stop.
- Finally, watch your cats’ interactions. Observe body language and catch an early warning signal so that you can diffuse any tension and avoid an out-and-out battle. One great technique for diffusing attention is to introduce a stimulating wand toy to immediately redirect their attention away from one another and onto the moving object at the end of the wand.
Congratulations on your growing feline family! May you and your cats enjoy many harmonious and joyous moments together throughout their nine lives!
I Want to Celebrate Cats!
I have loved cats since infancy. Or so my Mom used to say. My first cat was a jet black, sleek looking cat named Ebony. There’s a faded picture of my Mom lowering Ebony into the cradle to take a better look at me. I don’t know if Ebony was that impressed, but I’m sure that I was!
Since then, after years of living with Ebonys, Taffys, Lilys, Bogeys and Chesters, with countless moments of joy and of sadness (at their eventual loss), I am still crazy about cats. I was crazy about cats long before the internet’s love affair with them. In fact, I even opened a cat shop in 1998 and appointed a newly adopted tuxedo boy named Bogey as our official shop cat. (now, you can shop at my website, MyThreeCats.com)
My heart has expanded with each cat experience. So much so, that I couldn’t help sharing the passion. Today, I serve on the Board at FosterCat, Inc., a Pittsburgh based network of foster homes and volunteers who rescue and save cats’ lives every day.
Cats are so tuned into us that they know when we are energetic, happy, stressed, sick, exhausted or grieving. How many of you have experienced the comforting feeling of a cat tending to you while you lay in bed, sick or hurting? It’s pretty special, whether they decide to catnap beside you, or tap your face with their little paw to say, OK, I’m here. (Of course, LOL, they also use techniques to wake you up.)
The daily care giving time I have invested in my cats has been rewarded many times over with their unconditional companionship and affection. Only those who have owned cats (or should I say, have experienced being owned by them) will understand this.
Anatole France made this observation: “Until one has loved an animal a part of one’s soul remained unawakened.” I wholeheartedly agree.
Smile! Enter MyThreeCats.com’s Cat-TEE Giveaway
MyThreeCats.com wants to give away lots of (kitty) smiles!
Enter MyThreeCats.com’s Cat-TEE Giveaway right meow. All you need to do is click here to our Facebook page, find the MyThreeCats.com’s Cat-TEE Giveaway posting, and enter. You can also enter on our Blog, sign up using the Sign Up Email Form on the left side menu bar. Do it right meow, giveaway entries must be posted no later than Sunday, August 26, 2018.
The winner of the Smile! Cat Tee Shirt (one size fits all) will be posted here and on our Facebook page. This is a special cat tee that was designed by artist Stephanie Piro and appears to now be “off the market”.
All entries will also receive an email offer for a 15% discount on your next order at MyThreeCats.com. That should really make you smile!
Click here for complete Giveaway rules.
