The Cat Thread

Litter - I use green tea scented tofu clumping litter, it's flushable.
Food - one of mine is wet+dry although I'm trying to switch to dry. The other is not aware of the existence of wet food, which is a good thing as I wouldn't get a minute's peace.
Toys - I have a fuckton of toys, including ones I hand made (yes I'm a complete cat slave) but my cats prefer to play with pens, plastic bags and bits of paper (ideally important papers).
Climbing tree - I got one from a friend who was leaving town, it's a multilevel thing with a box to hide in and different platforms etc. It gets a lot of use.

Cat tree in action...

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2nd the world's best cat litter. We moved to that from Super Benek. They're both Corn based, but World's Best has far less dust. The non-scented one has a slight tobacco smell as you put it in the tray, but nothing you can smell at a distance of more than 1m.
Get the biggest tray you can, probably two. One of ours is quite fussy and will only go in a certain tray, she's also a bit special and often tries to wee with her tail outside the box and therefore pees down the front of it. Some cats don't like sharing at all.

"World's Best"... I didn't realise this was a brand name :)

I'm going to have to find out what they're using and switch them. If moving home changes far too many things at once they'll probably reward me by pooing on the bed.

Two litter trays is best if you can find two suitable spots. ones with lids reduce the amount of litter spillage if your cats like digging. Ours are obsessed with digging.

Our cats are so smelly we have to clean (ie bleach spray and rinse and dry) the tray every other day.

Perhaps give raw food a try? Ours quite like it but then I ran out and have not re-ordered yet. Probably will do.

Also two feed stations.

Some of those climbing things look awesome!

We use "Cat's Best" litter, not sure what that name implies compared to "World's Best"...

Relatively new cat dad, so I'd defer to the more experienced here, but I would 100% recommend any litter that is flushable. We used the cheap clay stuff that the cats had at their foster home for the first two weeks, and the faff of bagging it up and taking outside to the bins quickly got very annoying. When we switched to the new litter, we first just put a layer on top of the old stuff before making the full switch. They got used to the new stuff straight away after that with no poos on the bed! This was after they'd settled in the new house for a couple of weeks mind, so you're probably right to not make the switch straight away

Edit: also for general advice and some interesting cat behaviour/psychology stuff, Jackson Galaxy on youtube is worth checking out. He's an odd guy but all his advice so far has been spot on

Sorry, forgot to add a cat pic, how rude

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Gotta say I can't see past the Catsan Smart Packs. Spendy but so easy

Others mileage may vary but (good quality) dry food means you can use an automatic feeder; this means cat will not be able to bother you for food all the time and keeps a good routine.

An automatic feeder is my main reason for wanting to move my cats to just dry food - as former strays they can't be left with full bowls as they'll eat until they're sick. They're relatively good about not waking me up in the morning wanting breakfast, but I often work long hours and now that I live on my own I hate the idea of them sitting about waiting in the evening.

Kitten knocked over a coffee so now we have to re-paint. Thanks kitten.

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The culprit.

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Agree with the automatic feeder suggestions, much better for food regulation which you really should be doing, so many cats are massively overweight and it causes a lot of health issues. We've got a robot looking thing and as soon as she hears the motor whir she's off like a rocket to feed.

For the food look for ones with very high meat content, the cheaper ones are filled with all sorts of crap and find a few different ones and switch between them as they tend to get a bit bored with the same stuff all the time.

I wouldn't bother with wet cat food but of you eat meat/fish just give them some raw bits of chicken/salmon etc when you're cooking for yourself.

What?! Did the kitten launch the mug towards the ceiling?!

oh my lord. doris is amazing, what is she?

Nope - mug went down, hit the carpet, coffee went up / everywhere in an arc. Quite impressive really. The wonders of physics.

Cat feeder recommendations then :)

A very proud look! Well done kitty! Remember to do this often! Lol

Sorry...

https://closerpets.co.uk/collections/cat-feeders

Cat Mate stuff is good, pick for your required absences/number of cats/meals

We feed our cat with dog food......
Natures menu raw beef. Much cheaper than wet food, doesn't smell and she loves it. Dry food along side.
I tried a few scratch posts. I'd suggest giving up on any furniture you want to keep nice. The sofa in the living room and chair in the bedroom are by far the favourite scratch posts. I tried sprays to put her off, orange peel etc etc nothing works.

From my experience:
-Get the cats used to having their teeth brushed;
-Get the cats used to travelling in a car.
-Litter wise we use wood pellets and pick the poo out when it is there and sift once a day.

@Stonehedge any ideas for food?

Doris is a super star.
Had a bit of a rough upbringing (was taken from a animal shelter), she has very strong character and only let people she trust close.

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mug went down, hit the carpet, coffee went up

dude
it's even up on the ceiling

The Cat Mate C3000 is what we had in the UK and was great.

A word of warning though, all pet tech is comparatively shit, so don’t have high hopes like I did going in. Design, usability etc. all seem to go out the window.

I would say not the cat mate 3000. V.noisy and seemed a bit inaccurate on the dose. Only does 3 meals a day where my boy will turn his nose up if his food has sat in the open air for more than an hour. I got this one from Amazon when the c3000 broke, couldn't tell you the brand though. Seems ok, quiet, fairly easy to set but loses settings if you unplug it. It'll probably break now I've said that.

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