What To Do When Getting a New Kitten | Vet Tips

Hey guys, Dr. Lara here today I am here with Ghost. Ghost is about a six to eight week old kitten. And the purpose of the video today is to talk about some of the new things or things that you should expect when dealing with a new kitten. So if you guys stay tuned, we'll get into that momentarily. So sorry. Trying to have a little bit of fun here. So, new kitten. All right, so first things first, when you're getting a new kitten, you're going to be getting litter boxes. And when you get a cat, typically what they say is you should have two litter boxes because they say you should have one litter box per cat in the house plus one. So in this particular case, for this monstrous thing right here, all this right here is two litter boxes. Now when getting the litter boxes, typically you want to make sure that they are not next to anything like a refrigerator, a washing machine, a dryer, dishwasher, Anything that hums sometimes can to tend to disrupt or annoy the cats. And so they may be more prone to going outside the litter box. Okay, now there are a bunch of different types of litters that you can use. You'll have to, you may have to play around with that and figure out what your cat likes the most. There are also different kinds of litter boxes. You have ones that have a little cutout for the step in. You have ones that are covered, ones that are not covered. When getting a litter box or positioning a litter box, typically you're going to want to put it in a private place. So whether it's a closet or a bathroom that isn't used that much or something like that, you don't want to put it somewhere that's in a high trafficked area because you are setting yourself up more so for potentially having the cats go outside the box. Now the other thing when getting a new kitten is you want to make sure that you are interacting with them, you're playing with them. So right here you have some examples of some different toys. This is just a soft toy. Does it have any catnip? No, I'm kidding. I don't know if this has catnip possibly, but catnip works in about 50% of cats. And so it may or may not work. If it works, great. If it doesn't, don't get stressed out about it. The other thing is when you have toys like this where the cats will kind of go ahead and play with them. Now sometimes you'll need to be careful with things like this because if the cats happen to chew off stuff, stuff like this or chew off stuff like this. And they're unsupervised and they swallow it. It can actually get embedded into the intestines. And then they will have to have emergency surgery to have that removed. So your cats are allowed to play with toys that have strings on them while they're being supervised, but otherwise you do not want them to play with strings when they are unsupervised. They do have some toys where they kind of whip around back and forth. They're automated. That helps with. With keeping them entertained and that kind of stuff. They also have, like, some dishes I think we have. Can you grab that for me? Let's see here. So this is an example of one of the toys that you can use. Let's see if it'll distract this little kitten by playing with it. We're going to put this more in the center, and then I'm actually going to hand this kitten off just because I'm starting to sweat because of how nervous I am. So there we go. So here we go. We're going to give that kitten right back to his mom. Don't worry. Mom was watching and ready at the drop of a hat to jump in the. Having the cats have multiple toys, and that kind of stuff is something that is very important because it helps with enrichment, it helps keeping them from getting stressed and that kind of stuff. Stuff. And so that is something that will help with behavioral issues, whether it's urinating outside the box, defecating outside the box, scratching different furniture, and that kind of stuff. So that's something to be aware of. This is another kind of thing or something else that you need to be aware of are scratching posts. So scratching posts, you're going to go ahead and you're going to have some scratching posts like this. Now, this might look cute for a little kitten like that because the little kitten can maybe see, stand up on her back legs and reach all the way up here. But once she's an adult cat, she'll probably be able to reach up to here or maybe right around here. And you want something that the cat can actually reach up on its back legs and stretch all the way out. You want them to be able to stretch all the way out. So when you see these little cute things that are like, yay tall, it's good for a standpoint of like, maybe something different. But you want to make sure that they have a bunch of different kinds of scratching surfaces. They also have scratching surfaces that are made from cardboard. So that's something that's very Helpful for the cats. Then you have some that are made from like rugs. So it really just depends on what your cat is. They have some that you can hang on the back of a doorknob or even like the kitty condos. Those have like different scratching surfaces. Again, those are usually made with, with rug. And so that's something that helps to, to provide stimulation. Other thing that you will want to make sure that you will not want to do, which I'm seeing mom do a little bit, is letting the cat kind of paw at the face or playing with your fingers or your toes. That is a big no no. Although it is super fun and cute and feels really funny and tickles you when they are doing it. That particular behavior will be more difficult to correct when they become adults. And then they will chomp down on your toe or your finger when you're least likely expecting it to. And it is not going to be their fault that they did that because they don't know that it's okay for them to do it when they're only a pound and 1.7 pounds and or when they are 10 pounds and then they go ahead and they chomp on you. Totally different story keeping cats whether they're vaccinated or not. If you have a cat that's strictly indoors, vaccines are going to be not as big of an issue for me. I'm going to push more to have cats have their base vaccines. As a kitten, that typically means they're going to receive one vaccine every four weeks until they're about four or five months old, depending on the veterinarian. Some veterinarians might even do it only up to three months. And rabies. Rabies is a public health issue. I could care less honestly about vaccinating for rabies if you have a strictly indoor cat because the way that rabies is transmitted is going to be through the saliva or bodily secretions of another animal. So if you have a cat that doesn't see outside your glass door, then chances of them getting rabies is slim to none. If you have a cat that is going outside in a screened in patio, risk is going up. So then you need to evaluate and at that point I probably would recommend getting a vaccine if your cat is out and about unsupervised for sure. Okay, what else? Pet insurance. I don't know if you guys have seen my other videos on pet insurance. Highly, highly, highly recommend it super cheap for cats, especially when it's compared to dogs. And it is something that will help tremendously when they get sick. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when, because we're squeezing this human lifespan of 80 to 90 years into hopefully 14 to 20 years in a cat. And so they are going to develop health issues. And we need to make sure that we do have help with that because the cost of care can be very expensive. That being said, if you guys found this video helpful, please follow us on all our platforms, interact with us on social media, really helps us with the algorithms. And thanks for watching and have a blessed day. Sam.